There were four platforms, standing several hundred feet off of the ground.
There was one Christian standing on each of them.
There was no way to climb down and no way to get off, other than jumping to their own death. There were fires lit under each platform and I watched these Christians die for their faith.
I shot awake.
I heard a still small voice in my heart say to open my bible. It was still dark outside and I didn't want to wake everyone up so I grabbed my phone and hurriedly opened up my Bible app. It was as though someone told me exactly where to go to in the Bible, I didn't have to think about it, I just found Lamentations, Chapter 3, and I started to read.
I heard a still small voice in my heart say to open my bible. It was still dark outside and I didn't want to wake everyone up so I grabbed my phone and hurriedly opened up my Bible app. It was as though someone told me exactly where to go to in the Bible, I didn't have to think about it, I just found Lamentations, Chapter 3, and I started to read.
A couple hours later I got my actual Bible and went to study the book and I had placed a magnetic book marker on the exact page of Chapter 3 in Lamentations, perhaps months ago!
Lament is a passionate expression of grief, sorrow or weeping. The book tells of the complete emptiness and destruction of Judah after the fall of Jerusalem.
Jeremiah warned people for forty years to turn from their evil ways, but they would not, and did not listen. The Babylonians attacked and The City was left in a heap of rubble!
Jeremiah wept over this!
This wasn’t even his sin that he was weeping over.
That is a heart of a true Christ follower.
Not only to weep over our own sin, but to weep over sin in general.
That is a heart of a true Christ follower.
Not only to weep over our own sin, but to weep over sin in general.
Oh, how I wanted to weep when I saw those four Christians in my dream being burned alive just because they were a Christian. In that moment, if I would have been on that platform, I would have wanted to speak the promise "no weapon that is formed against you shall prosper." But, what if our trial or even matter of death is not a weapon, but a path God has chosen for us to walk? He has already conquered all defeats we may face in this life. I chose to trust God not only when he sees it best to heal and rescue me, but also if he sees fit for me to fight a battle because I will have the opportunity to trust Him and place it in His hands, including my own life. Just like those four Christians in my dream did.
In Jeremiah 2:13 it says they had forsaken the Fountain of Living Waters!
That is what I want to get at.
I've heard messages and studies on us leaving our first love, taken from a passage in Revelation. But, I want to talk to you today about forsaking the Living Water.
Why have you left that glorious Fountain? Your one true Friend, who will stick closer than a brother? Why have you sat in His presence only to turn away? Why have you put your desires over God's plan for your life? Why? Like the first verse in the first chapter of Lamentations... "HOW."
How could you leave your first Love? How could you feel his peace only to push it away for a desire that will last but only a season? Relationships, lifestyles, attitudes, addictions, gossip, disobedience...
how? why?
I woke from that dream and I felt overwhelmed with conviction. I felt I would never be the same, and I pray I never forget how I felt when I woke from that dream.
We will never be perfect, yes, I know.
But, God is coming back for a bride who is spotless, without blemish. So, please don't get upset when I say, I don't believe you can remind God of His grace when you stand before a God who destroyed cities because of sin, sent a whale to swallow up a disobedient preacher, and sent man to work and aloud woman to labor because they fell for a lie from the evil serpent.
But, God is coming back for a bride who is spotless, without blemish. So, please don't get upset when I say, I don't believe you can remind God of His grace when you stand before a God who destroyed cities because of sin, sent a whale to swallow up a disobedient preacher, and sent man to work and aloud woman to labor because they fell for a lie from the evil serpent.
I believe Jeremiah had the heart many of us Christians need to get or regain. Do we weep over sin? Not gossip about someone's issues, but get alone by ourselves and repent for our sins.
We quickly forget once Easter is gone, about the price Jesus paid on the Cross for our sins. We remember it a little when Christmas arrives and we read the story of Him being born thousands of years ago, but we stay so busy worrying about having hundreds of dollars of gifts under a sparkly tree, that Jesus soon slips our mind.
What is it in your life?
You don't have to tell me, or a preacher, counselor or a pope.
You talk to Jesus. He is the only One you ever need to talk to.
We quickly forget once Easter is gone, about the price Jesus paid on the Cross for our sins. We remember it a little when Christmas arrives and we read the story of Him being born thousands of years ago, but we stay so busy worrying about having hundreds of dollars of gifts under a sparkly tree, that Jesus soon slips our mind.
What is it in your life?
You don't have to tell me, or a preacher, counselor or a pope.
You talk to Jesus. He is the only One you ever need to talk to.
Unforgivness is a sin that is similar to a broken rib. Nobody else sees or feels the pain, other than you. Soon, you will pass that cancer on to your kids and their kids. Before long, you'll have a great big family of people who don't know how to forgive.
On the way to my Granny's funeral two weeks ago, my dad had me read a little pamphlet by A.W. Tozer. It said in there something along the lines that it will show how much we understand what Jesus did on the Cross for our sins by how we love/forgive others.
Think about that for a few minutes.
How easily you can forgive someone is really a reflection of how much you truly grasp and understand the cost of Jesus' death on the Cross.
So, perhaps you need to weep over not forgiving someone.
Maybe you drink. Gossip. Cuss your employees out. Tear people down instead of build them up.
Chose to do things your way instead of God's way, because it's just easier and more comfortable.
Always manipulating people and situations. Read about the life of Jezebel.
Lying.
Wishing evil on others.
Rejoicing when someone is hurting, and being jealous when they succeed.
I know for me, what God convicted me about, is my lack of time I spend with Him.
On the way to my Granny's funeral two weeks ago, my dad had me read a little pamphlet by A.W. Tozer. It said in there something along the lines that it will show how much we understand what Jesus did on the Cross for our sins by how we love/forgive others.
Think about that for a few minutes.
How easily you can forgive someone is really a reflection of how much you truly grasp and understand the cost of Jesus' death on the Cross.
So, perhaps you need to weep over not forgiving someone.
Maybe you drink. Gossip. Cuss your employees out. Tear people down instead of build them up.
Chose to do things your way instead of God's way, because it's just easier and more comfortable.
Always manipulating people and situations. Read about the life of Jezebel.
Lying.
Wishing evil on others.
Rejoicing when someone is hurting, and being jealous when they succeed.
I know for me, what God convicted me about, is my lack of time I spend with Him.
My eyes water as I type those words.
God has saved me from so much. Many things I will never even know about.
I will be thirty years old on November 17th, and I pray I will live my next thirty, forty or fifty years of life like I never have before. Drawing closer to Jesus and becoming more like Him, and much less like "me."
I prayed a couple weeks ago for God to help me get up earlier to spend time with Him, and I kid you not, all three of my kids have been waking up no later than 6:00 in the morning almost every day since then. It's almost like God wanted me to see that I could get up earlier and He will make a way for me to do it! So, I am purposing in my heart to spend time with Him more. Not just reading my Bible app for twenty minutes before bed. Reading my good ole paper Bible. And praying on my knees, not with my head on the pillow. I chose to live my life in a way pleasing to God, not to men. I chose to make decisions pleasing to God, not to men. And I chose to love in a way that is pleasing to God, not to men.
Whatever you have chosen over the Living Water, I ask that you'd find time today to weep over it.
Don't just find time, make the time.
Some lyrics say, "tell your friends that this is where the party ends, until you're broken for your sins you can't be social..."
And lastly.
As Pastor Zane always says, "I don't know about you, but I am going to be in the altar praying."
God has saved me from so much. Many things I will never even know about.
I will be thirty years old on November 17th, and I pray I will live my next thirty, forty or fifty years of life like I never have before. Drawing closer to Jesus and becoming more like Him, and much less like "me."
I prayed a couple weeks ago for God to help me get up earlier to spend time with Him, and I kid you not, all three of my kids have been waking up no later than 6:00 in the morning almost every day since then. It's almost like God wanted me to see that I could get up earlier and He will make a way for me to do it! So, I am purposing in my heart to spend time with Him more. Not just reading my Bible app for twenty minutes before bed. Reading my good ole paper Bible. And praying on my knees, not with my head on the pillow. I chose to live my life in a way pleasing to God, not to men. I chose to make decisions pleasing to God, not to men. And I chose to love in a way that is pleasing to God, not to men.
Whatever you have chosen over the Living Water, I ask that you'd find time today to weep over it.
Don't just find time, make the time.
Some lyrics say, "tell your friends that this is where the party ends, until you're broken for your sins you can't be social..."
And lastly.
As Pastor Zane always says, "I don't know about you, but I am going to be in the altar praying."
Lamentations
Chapter Three
1) I Am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.
12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord:
19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24 The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth.
35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.
37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission.
50 Till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
55 I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.
56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57 Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.
58 O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.
59 O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.
60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.
61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their imaginations against me;
62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.
64 Render unto them a recompence, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.
66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the Lord.
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