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Luke chapter 4, let me just read you
something.
I'm not preaching from Luke chapter 4 today.
But it's that famous chapter where Jesus stood
in the synagogue and took the scriptures of
the prophet Isaiah and began to read and
declare the intent of his ministry among those
that were hearing him.
And he said, the Spirit of the Lord
is upon me because he has anointed me
to preach the gospel to the poor.
Now, the poor, by virtue of that statement,
would be those who knew that in themselves
they had insufficient resource as it is to
finish the journey.
It doesn't mean necessarily just the physically poor,
but those who knew they needed a savior.
They were genuinely humble before God.
He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted
and to preach deliverance to the captives and
the recovering of sight to the blind and
to set at liberty them that are bruised,
to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
In other words, Jesus said, now this is
the time of God's favor.
It was an incredible declaration because the people
in that synagogue knew that these scriptures could
only be fulfilled by the Messiah.
That's why, of course, the rage when he
stood up and said this day is this
scripture fulfilled in your ears.
I want to make a proclamation before I
preach today because I know that in this
sanctuary there are people and all these five
things apply to you and you're going to
see them in this message today.
You don't have within you the resources to
finish the journey.
You are quite well aware of it this
morning.
Some things have come into your life that
have overwhelmed you.
The Holy Spirit has so clearly spoken this
to my heart throughout this week.
And this day is a day of good
tidings for you because by virtue of the
admission you can't finish the journey.
You have now opened your heart to the
work of God.
God can now come and do what only
God can do.
He's come to heal the brokenhearted.
There are people here today who have been
wounded.
Your heart has been broken.
It's been so crushed and so hard that
only Almighty God himself could ever make a
difference in your life now.
Because of it you've been captivated by memories
of the past.
You've been captivated by your circumstance or your
betrayal, whatever it might be.
But the second thing he said I came
to do was to preach deliverance to the
captives and the recovering of sight to the
blind.
The Holy Spirit says now I'm going to
open your eyes if you'll let me.
And I'm going to show you something that
you may not have seen for a long
time that applies to you.
And to set at liberty those that are
bruised.
To open the door of that prison, that
place sometimes just where self loves to wallow
in pity and where perhaps the enemy likes
to keep even the people of God in
captivity.
And Jesus said I'm going to open the
door and I'm going to set you free.
And today, this day, this scripture is going
to be fulfilled in your ears.
My message this morning is entitled When the
Wounds of a Friend Don't Seem to be
Faithful.
When the Wounds of a Friend Don't Seem
to be Faithful.
Almighty God, I come before your throne this
day and I cast myself as well as
everyone in this sanctuary upon your grace and
your mercy.
I need grace to understand and I need
grace to speak and we need grace to
hear.
And we acknowledge today that your kingdom is
a kingdom of grace.
We haven't earned, we don't deserve the favor
that you have given to us.
We only stand as poor and we say
Lord we don't have apart from you the
resources to finish our journey.
We don't have within ourselves the power to
overcome the opposition and disappointments that come into
all of our lives.
And Jesus I'm asking today God that by
the power of that grace that you would
anoint me and quicken me.
That you would make alive your word.
That you would take stories that you've spoken
and words that you have penned in the
scriptures and make them come absolutely alive.
I have no desire to impress anyone.
All I desire Lord is to see your
kingdom advance.
I want to see you glorified in your
church and understood among your people.
Mighty God show yourself powerful.
Lord you will do everything you said you
would do.
And this day before even turning to the
word we have an anticipation.
That God there is going to be a
shout of genuine freedom.
There's going to be new vision and hope.
God you're going to release from prisons of
loneliness and despair many who have been captivated.
You're going to set free.
You're going to touch and liberate in this
house.
And I thank you for it with all
my heart.
Lord this is all about you and it
can only happen by your power.
No persuasion of man could ever make this
happen.
No clever arguments could ever procure freedom that
can only come by the spirit of God.
Lord we are all cast upon you today.
We are all as it is cast upon
the shores of your love and your grace.
And we ask you God to come and
do miracles in us.
Let your kingdom come in great power.
And we acknowledge with all the saints of
old that yours is the only kingdom, the
only power, the only glory.
It all belongs to you Lord.
We are all in need of great grace.
And we thank you Lord God.
There is an abundant and never ending supply.
You're going to open our eyes to it.
You're going to show it to us.
You're going to break the chains of captivity.
I believe it with all my heart.
And I thank you for it in Jesus
mighty name.
When the wounds of a friend don't seem
to be faithful.
Now the book of Proverbs in chapter 27
verse 6 tells us that faithful are the
wounds of a friend.
Now there are seasons and times where we
can be wounded.
But the wounds that we receive into our
lives are given to us by God's grace
through faithful friendship.
The word faithful in the original text means
to be trusted, to endure or a reliable
friend.
The word friend means one who loves as
a parent to a child, a husband to
a wife or the close ties of friendship.
For example, I'll give you an example of
what I'm speaking about.
A man may come to you someday or
a woman and speak something to you who
sees you falling into the sin of pride.
Now what he speaks to you may wound
your new self image.
But the intent of his speaking is not
to destroy you but to cause you to
reconsider the maintaining of a self image that
will ultimately cause you to be at enmity
or opposed to God.
Remember James chapter 4 verse 6.
The Lord says God resists the proud but
gives grace to the humble.
If pride is getting into your heart and
I was your friend and I truly love
you.
The Holy Spirit may use me to speak
a word into your life that will wound
you.
But it's a faithful wound.
It's a wound that is intended by God
to cause you to turn from sin or
to attitudes or lifestyle.
Something that's getting a hold of your heart
that is going to set you at enmity
against God Almighty Himself.
I thank God in my life for the
wounds that I've received from faithful friends over
the years.
Yes, my pride trying to rise up has
been wounded by faithful friends.
Attitudes, ambitions, issues of the heart, places I've
attempted to go.
I've had faithful friends come and sit or
stand with me and talk and begin to
point out issues in my heart that I
was not aware of.
And sometimes it's difficult to hear these things.
But by God's grace, He has given me
the ability over the years to walk humbly
before Him as He has enabled me to
do that.
And to show me the issues of my
heart.
And I do thank God.
I could go into specifics but I don't
have time this morning.
But there have been some wounds that have
been given to me by some very, very
faithful friends.
And beloved, I believe that only eternity is
going to reveal the lives of those who
have been kept by a word that has
been skillfully placed in season.
Skillfully spoken.
Like a master surgeon, the Holy Ghost will
use somebody to come and carve away a
cancer as it is that's trying to attach
itself to my spiritual life.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend.
But the Bible tells us that there are
other kinds of wounds that we can receive
in our walk with Christ for often which
the explanations are difficult.
And wounds from which some people who without
God's intervention directly into their lives will never
recover.
Now David, the psalmist, if you'll turn with
me to Psalm 55.
He speaks about such a wound that was
brought into his life.
And what it had done to him for
a season.
Psalm 55 verse 4, David said, My heart
is sore pain within me, and the terrors
of death have fallen upon me.
Fearfulness, verse 5, and trembling are come upon
me, and horror hath overwhelmed me.
And I said, O that I had wings
like a dove, for then would I fly
away and be at rest.
Lo, then would I wander far off and
remain in the wilderness.
Now David was making a statement I believe
that is common to all of humanity.
David said, I've been wounded.
And the wound that I've received is an
unrighteous wound that's come into my life.
And if I could, I would run and
hide and I would never come back to
be wounded like this again.
David said, I would go off and I
would remain in the wilderness.
I'd give up on the plan of God.
Now you have to understand, this is written
by a man whose life has been spoken
into by the Holy Spirit.
He's been anointed with oil.
He's been set apart by God.
He fully well knows it.
But into his life has come a wounding.
And it's not the wounding of faithfulness.
It is an unfaithful wounding, although God ultimately
can use it as well for his own
purposes.
David said, it's so wounded me, I want
to hide.
And beloved, listen to me.
Even in this house today, there are people
that have received wounds in your life.
They've been unrighteous wounds and they've caused you
to do exactly this.
You've made a vow as it is.
Never again, never again will I let anybody
get that close to my life.
Never again will I trust.
Never again will I be put into that
position.
And by virtue of that vow, in a
sense, you've locked yourself out of something that
God wants to do in your life.
You've put yourself in a self-imposed prison.
Because if you want to grow in the
grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, beloved, wounding
is part of the walk.
You've got to come out of that place
of exile as it is and come back
into the will of God and say, God,
I believe that all things that you allow
and come into my life, whether it's righteous
or unrighteous, works together for a purpose.
You are doing something in my life.
Lord, you said you came to set me
free, so I come to meet you today
face to face.
And I'm asking you to take me out
of this place in the wilderness that I've
been in for so many years.
A self-imposed exile as it is from
ever experiencing pain again.
And ironically, that self-imposed exile is one
of the most painful places that you could
ever be in.
It's no escape from pain.
It's deeper pain.
It's a place of wounding.
It's a place of separation.
It's a place of being cut off from
the deepest grace of God as it is
that He wants to give into your life.
Now, what caused David to say this?
What caused David to run in such a
manner?
What causes so many of God's people, even
in his house, to be found in places?
And I've heard it.
I know the pastors on this platform have
heard it over and over again in counseling
sessions.
The same words.
Never again.
Never again will I trust.
Never again will I be put in that
position.
By virtue of that statement, persons are identifying
that in reality they are in a prison.
Their eyes are shut to the grace of
God.
They're not even aware of times of where
they are.
David says in verse 12, Here's the source
of this kind of a wounding that can
happen even in God's house.
David said, It was not an enemy that
reproached me.
Then I could have borne it.
David says, Let the Philistines say to me
whatever they want.
Let Goliath tell the world what he's going
to do with my carcass as it is
after he's slain me.
That doesn't bother me at all.
David said, It wasn't an enemy.
Nor was it he that hated me that
did magnify himself against me.
Then I would have hid myself from him.
But it was thou, a man my equal,
my guide and my acquaintance.
We took sweet counsel together and walked into
the house of God in company.
And David says basically this.
And this is the testimony of many, many
people today.
And it's simply this.
I trusted and my trust was betrayed.
I trusted.
I became vulnerable.
In a relationship.
Irrespective of what type of relationship it was.
In or outside of the house or the
kingdom of God.
I became vulnerable and my vulnerability was betrayed.
The psalmist says in Psalm 77 verse 2,
My sore or my pain ran in the
night and ceased not and my soul refused
to be comforted.
There was a pain that came into my
life that day and night was always there.
The memory never went away.
As hard and far as I tried to
run from it, it was always there.
And every time it seems that I tried
to get close to God, that thing would
come back again.
And that's what happens with many people.
They say, Lord, oh, I want to get
back again.
I want to walk with you the way
I used to walk with you.
And they come to the altar and they
close their eyes and raise their hands.
And there's that circumstance.
Fifteen years ago sometimes.
Twenty years ago.
There it is again.
And in their heart there's a cry.
They say, God, oh yeah, I'll live for
you.
I will serve you, but never again.
And God says, no, that's not the way
it's going to work.
If you're going to live for me, there's
got to be a healing come into your
life.
There's got to be wholeness and you've got
to begin to believe that I can open
your eyes to something that you may not
have been aware of for a long, long
time now.
Now, most people are wounded when a trust
is broken.
It's a trust over which they seemingly have
no control.
They're not a casual trust.
There are casual trusts that can be broken
that don't affect me at all.
I trust that if I'm crossing the road
and a police officer is directing traffic, that
he's going to stop the oncoming car so
that I'll not be in peril.
But if that trust should be broken and
I had a near miss, I can live
with that.
Assumedly, if the car didn't hit me, that
is, I could live with it.
For example, if you go out on the
street today and someone meets you and says
an unkind word to you, that happens in
New York City all the time, doesn't it?
It's a person you've never met before, and
they say, you're thus and thus and thus,
and it's an unkind thing that they say
to your heart.
You just look at them and say, I
wonder what his or her problem is, and
just keep on walking.
It doesn't affect you at all.
But go home today and have the same
word spoken to your heart from someone you've
learned to love and trust, and then that's
a different story altogether.
You see, when a love and a trust
and a vulnerability is in your heart, in
relationship, and then that is betrayed, that's where
this kind of a wounding quite often gets
into your heart.
And that's where this festering wound, as it
is, that refuses to be comforted, stops many
wonderful saints of God from their growth in
his kingdom.
If you'll go with me in the Old
Testament to the book of Genesis, please, chapter
16, I want to speak for a couple
of moments about a lady that was in
a situation something like this.
Now, her name was Hagar.
Now, I'm only assuming that she had a
servant's heart, because she was a woman who
was Sarah's handmaid.
She was an Egyptian.
And you know that God made a promise
to Abraham, that promise that he would be
given a seed, and through the seed he
would be blessed, and through that seed the
whole world would be blessed.
It was an incredible promise that was given
to Abraham.
Abraham's wife, Sarah, was unable to conceive, and
so she came up with an idea, I
have a handmaid, she's an Egyptian, you take
her to be your wife as well, and
she will bear a child, and that child
will be as if it was mine.
Now, there were cultural laws in those days
that made that acceptable.
This child will be born as it is
upon my knees, and this child will be
mine, and this will be the fulfillment of
the promise that God made to us.
Now, we know from study that that is
essentially man's effort to try to make God's
promises, to try to give God a hand,
as if he needs a hand to make
his promises come to pass.
But into this place of really its unbelief
on Abraham's part, and Sarah's part, enters this
servant woman, Hagar, and she's talked into a
confidence, or taken into a confidence, and I
feel undoubtedly told that she was going to
play a very important part in a great
plan of God to bless Abraham's family, and
ultimately to bless the whole world.
Now, the Scripture tells us that Genesis chapter
16, Now Sarah, Abraham's wife, beared unto him
no children, and she had a handmaid that
was an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.
And Sarah said to Abraham, Behold now, the
Lord has restrained me from bearing, I pray
thee, go into my maid, it may be
that I may obtain children by her.
And Abraham hearkened to the voice of Sarah.
And Sarah, Abraham's wife, took Hagar, her maid,
the Egyptian, after Abraham had dwelt in the
land of Canaan, and gave her to her
husband, Abraham, to be his wife.
Now, you have to understand that there was
a relationship, a husband-wife relationship involved here.
And he went in unto Hagar, and she
conceived.
And when she saw that she had conceived,
her mistress was despised in her eyes.
Now, Genesis again, chapter 16, verse 7.
The Bible tells us that she fled because
she had some early misgivings, I believe, about
even her own security in this relationship.
In Genesis 16, 7, it says, The angel
of the Lord found her by a fountain
of water in the wilderness, by a fountain
in the way to shore.
And he said to Hagar, Sarah's maid, whence
comest thou?
Now, she's by a fountain of water.
Now, that's significant.
You're going to understand that.
Just mark that in your spirit, if you
will.
And where are you going?
And she said, I flee from the face
of my mistress Sarah.
And the angel of the Lord said unto
her, Return to thy mistress and submit thyself
unto her hands.
The angel of the Lord said unto her,
I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, and it
shall not be numbered for multitude.
And the angel of the Lord said unto
her, Behold, thou art with child, and shall
bear a son, and shall call his name
Ishmael, because the Lord has heard thy affliction.
Now, the word Ishmael, the name Israel, means
God hears.
God said, you are going to have a
child, and you're going to call his name
God hears, because I have seen your affliction.
Now, it's only my interpretation.
And so you have to take that for
what it's worth.
But as I read the Scripture, I can't
help but feel that Abraham had spoken something
into Hagar's life that he shouldn't have.
Perhaps made her feel like her involvement in
the fulfillment of the promise was greater than
it actually was.
I'll explain that.
Sarah, all she wanted Hagar for was to
have a child, because she considered the promise,
the fulfillment was going to come through Abraham
and Sarah.
And so she spoke to Hagar.
Hagar becomes Abraham's wife.
And he went into her.
She conceived.
And then Sarah says to Abraham later on
when she found out that the moment Hagar
found out she was going to have a
child, she despised Sarah because she knew that
child was going to be Sarah's and not
her own.
Now, we take a look at it.
If she was honestly dealt with in this
relationship, if she honestly knew that's what her
purpose was, then why to despise it?
And Sarah said to Abraham when she found
out, she basically said, The Lord judge in
chapter 16, verse 5.
And Sarah said to Abraham, My wrong be
upon thee.
I have given my maiden to thy bosom.
And when she saw that she had conceived,
I was despised in her eyes.
The Lord judge between me and thee.
And actually, the other translation says it this
way.
Sarah said to Abraham, The Lord judge you
for the wrong that you have done to
me.
Abraham, I feel that Sarah was saying to
Abraham, Abraham, you have made her more.
You have sown into her heart more than
she was intended to be.
You have spoken something to this woman.
And Sarah said, The Lord forgive you as
if Abraham had done a wrong for what
you have done.
Because the moment she was with child, she
began to despise me, which means there's a
strong indication here that Hagar was made to
trust in something that was not to be.
Perhaps a promise was spoken to her that
was not going to be fulfilled in her
life.
And so she ran away into the wilderness,
bewildered, perhaps a little bit confused about what
was really going on in her own life.
And the Lord spoke to her and said,
Now, go back and submit yourself to your
mistress.
And I have seen your affliction, Hagar.
I see your confusion.
I understand that maybe some things were promised
to you that are not going to be
fulfilled in your life.
But you're going to have a child.
There's a seed in you.
And I'm going to give that child a
name which is speaking something into Hagar's life
that she may not be aware of at
this point in her life.
But that name is God Hears.
Hagar, I see your affliction and I hear.
And I'm going to do more than just
hear.
You're going to understand this not too far
down the road.
And we see Ishmael now, this child that
is birthed in the womb of the Egyptian
servant Hagar.
You see, this child now is Hagar's hope.
Ishmael, I can see Hagar saying, This is
God's purpose now for my life.
Ishmael, through whom the blessing is going to
come for my master's, my husband's house as
it is and for all these future generations.
The promise of God is going to come
through my womb as it is.
Ishmael is my part that I'm going to
play towards the hope and the future of
others.
Ishmael is the fruit of my trust in
those that I find in authority over my
life.
I have to trust you, God, for the
situation that I'm in right now, even if
I don't fully understand it.
That somehow through this seed that's been conceived
within me, there's going to be life.
I don't understand it, but this is my
trust.
Ishmael, Hagar would say, this is my personal
hope and my dreams.
This is what I'm hoping to look back
on with gratitude and satisfaction in my old
age, saying this was my part.
It was given to me in a great
plan, which I've been promised that I would
be part of.
Oh, beloved, that's in everyone's heart.
That's in your heart.
That's in my heart.
We all have the need to be part
of something larger than ourselves, and especially in
the kingdom of God.
There's something that God has planted in our
hearts.
Hagar could say, I was needed.
I responded.
I was told that I could meet the
need and satisfy the longing of those that
I trusted.
I was valuable.
I can see Hagar, because the Bible tells
us when Ishmael was 13 years old, both
he and Abraham were circumcised, along with the
other males in Abraham's household.
And that circumcision meant that they were set
apart for God, and the promises and power
of God was going to come through that
lineage.
It had been 13 years she's holding that
promise, and how she must have felt in
her heart seeing that covenant circumcision that happened,
knowing that she had contributed, knowing that she
was valuable, feeling like she was playing an
integral part in something much greater than herself
until one day, with little warning, the bond
of that trust was broken.
I can't help but think as I was
preparing this message of the wife or the
husband who comes home to read the note
left on the table that says there's no
longer any place for you in my life.
I've never had to go through that, but
I can only imagine the wounding.
I can only imagine the scar that must
come into the heart.
I can only imagine the vows that are
made, new vows, not wedding vows anymore, but
a new vow that says never again, never
again will I be this vulnerable to another
person on this earth.
I think about the person who trusted or
entrusted his or her love to someone only
to be put away when someone else came
along.
That's got to be how Hagar must have
felt.
All these years of yielding myself and giving
myself to something that I was told I
was meeting a need.
I was told that I was filling a
void that nobody else could fill.
I was told I'm in the right place
at the right time and through my life
is going to come great promises, great fulfillment,
and all of a sudden someone else has
come along and I'm not expendable.
I couldn't help but think of the child
who hears criticism so deep that he wants
to flee or comes home to be made
to feel that both he and his family
are worthless and expendable.
I've never experienced the pain of a father
walking out the door, a mother walking out
the door.
I can only begin to understand what that
is all about.
The betrayal, the wounding that is not righteous,
it's not faithful, and the vows that become
because of that wounding.
Never again will I be placed in that
situation of vulnerability.
I couldn't help but think about the house
of God as well.
Over so many years, so many people have
given their trust to men's plans and men's
visions.
They turned on the television, they were lonely,
and somebody on the television said, you and
I are integral partners in reaching perhaps a
certain section of society or a certain part
of the world.
That's always the key word.
I need you.
You're useful.
This is your time to get involved.
And so they committed themselves to some type
of a work, some type of a plan,
only to find that the plan and vision
came to nothing.
And they're left to recover and to find
their own way.
And even in the house of God, there
are people who say, never again, never again
will I trust spiritual leadership.
Never again will I trust the plans, visions,
and directions of any man or woman in
the house of God.
I've been burnt once too often.
Never again.
I'm going to go to church, but in
my heart, I'm going to live in the
wilderness.
And I'm never coming back to that place
of vulnerability again to fall for somebody's statement
that only through my life can the need
be met.
Genesis, now in chapter 21, if you'll go
there with me.
Genesis 21-14.
Abraham rose up early in the morning and
took bread and a bottle of water and
gave it to Hagar, putting it on her
shoulder, and the child, and sent her away.
And she departed and wandered in the wilderness
of Beersheba.
Beersheba is a place where Abraham later on
had a covenant contract with another tribal leader,
another king, where he had legal water rights.
Think about that for a moment because we're
going to get back there again.
And here is Hagar wandering around in this
wilderness where Abraham will eventually possess water rights.
But she herself is dying of thirst.
Chapter 21, verse 15, the Scripture tells us
the water was spent in the bottle and
she cast the child under one of the
shrubs.
Hagar was brought to a place where that
which had been given to her by another
was exhausted.
And folks, if we are living off of
somebody else's revelation, that's exactly what's going to
happen.
If we're only living because somebody else is
telling us what our part and purpose is,
whether it be in life in general or
in the family of God, irrespective of which
place, if all we are getting is our
direction from somebody else, there's going to come
a time when that is going to run
out.
It's not sufficient.
We can't live our lives based on somebody
else's vision.
And I dread for the church today, for
so many people, that's how they're living.
They don't even have a reason to be
in the kingdom of God.
They're following some man's vision somewhere.
And as far as that may take you,
it will eventually leave you in the wilderness
and you will be exhausted.
You can't live that way.
That's not the way the Christian life was
intended to be lived.
God had another purpose and another plan for
your life.
And you're going to see that in a
moment.
She took her son, the son of promise,
the son that was her hope, the son
that had been born to her so long
ago, the son that was cherished, and she
cast him under a shrub.
Now the word for shrub in the Hebrew
text means a shoot, or like a small
word that had gone forth.
All of a sudden the promise that had
been given many years ago was a dim
hope.
And in this wilderness, it's like the Christian
who's received something from God for his life.
And all of a sudden in this wilderness
where there's no more water, it's like that
promise of what my destiny is, of what
God's purpose for my life is, is so
small I just take it and I cast
it under a dim hope.
I throw it away from me.
And then she ran away into another place
because she couldn't bear to watch it die.
She couldn't bear to hear the moans and
the groans.
You know, folks, you can run all your
life, but God created you for a purpose.
God created you for something very specific that
He had ordained for you from before you
were formed in your mother's womb.
And yes, woundings come into your life.
And yes, you'll want to run away into
another place and say, it could never happen.
And many, many, many today are doing that
very same thing even in the house of
God.
They're trying to run their greatest fear.
And the greatest fear they have is that
all hope is lost.
I'll go to church, but I don't believe
that God's promises for my life will ever
become a reality.
That was 15 years ago that God spoke
that thing into my heart.
And I just don't believe anymore that it'll
ever happen.
I can't trust.
I have no power to get out of
this prison.
I've been wounded all the way along.
When I did reach out and trust, it
was betrayed.
How could I ever become what God has
destined my life to be?
Sorry, I'll take this and throw it under
a shrub and I'll run and I'll die
in another place.
I'll answer every altar call in Times Square
Church, but I will not believe in my
heart that God will ever fulfill His promise
to my life.
Hagar would say, God, Your promise is such
a distant memory.
It's such a faint hope in the light
of my present situation.
And there are many, many sitting here today
who are just like that because of woundings
that came into your life.
And as I'm speaking now, the promises that
God made to you, especially those when you
first came to Christ, they're all coming back
to you.
But then you think of the times you
reached out and you trusted and you thought
maybe this was the way.
And all that came into your heart were
woundings and betrayals.
Some were righteous and others were unrighteous.
And it left you in a place of
casting your hope.
And the Word of God, which should be
all-encompassing and over-covering, as it is,
your present and your future, is now just
a little shrub in the wilderness.
And you take what was once your hope
and cast it under that shrub.
Now in verse 16, in Genesis 21, she
went and sat down over against him a
good way off as it were a bow
shot.
And she said, Let me not see the
death of the child.
And she sat over against him and lifted
up her voice and wept.
And God heard the voice of the lad
and the angel of God called to Hagar
out of heaven and said to her, What
aileth thee, Hagar?
Fear not, for God has heard the voice
of the lad where he is.
Hagar, when you set out to give yourself
and you wanted me so long ago, you
may have forgotten, but I haven't.
God says, I heard you and I gave
you a child of promise.
And do you remember what his name is?
His name is God Hears.
That's an incredible thing when you begin to
think about it.
Let me just read to you a scripture.
God Hears, Hagar.
This is the name of my promise to
you.
Here's what the Lord would say to you
today.
Fear not, for thou shalt not be ashamed.
Neither be thou confounded, for thou shalt not
be put to shame.
For thou shalt forget the shame of thy
youth and shalt not remember the reproach of
thy widowhood any more.
For thy maker is thy husband.
The Lord of hosts is his name and
thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, the
God of the whole earth, shall He be
called.
Verse 6, Isaiah 54.
Let me read it to you.
For the Lord has called thee.
God says, I called you.
I heard you when you first called out
to Me and I called you for a
purpose.
He says, I called you as a woman
forsaken and grieved in spirit and a wife
of youth when thou hast refused.
Sayeth thy God.
God says, when I called you, here's what
you were.
You considered yourself forsaken.
You were grieved in your heart.
You were fleeing, in some cases, even from
truth.
And you were like a young bride who
had been refused by all of those who
had once proclaimed to love her and she
had placed her trust in.
And God says, when I saw you in
that condition, when I saw you forsaken, when
I saw you grieved, when I saw you
as a wife without anyone to trust in
anymore, God says, I called you then.
I called to you when there was nobody
else.
You talk about humility.
God says, I've waited all these years until
there was nobody else.
No other trust.
No other plan.
No other ambition.
No other relationship.
Until finally I could get you alone where
you could hear My voice and I called
you.
I called you.
The incredible humility of God.
It's as if He stands in line waiting
for all the other relationships to fail.
I'm awestruck.
I'm dumbfounded at the humility and the love
of God.
He will let us run our course.
He will let us do our thing even
in His own kingdom while He stands at
the door and knocks.
He has every right to demand our affection,
but He is an absolute and perfect gentleman.
He stands and waits.
And He says, I'll wait until you have
nobody else.
I'll wait until nobody wants you.
I'll wait until everybody has broken your heart.
And then I call you.
Hallelujah.
In a little raft, He says, I hid
My face from thee for a moment, but
with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on
thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer.
God says, O thou afflicted and tossed with
tempest and not comforted, behold, I will lay
thy stones with fair colors and lay thy
foundations with sapphires.
He says, I'm going to take you.
I'm going to take you that have been
betrayed.
I'm going to take you that have been
wounded.
I'm going to take you that have been
harked.
I'm going to take you that have been
bruised.
I'm going to take you that have been
cast into a prison.
I'm going to take you that have run
into the wilderness.
And I'm going to set you in a
permanent place on the most beautiful foundation you've
ever seen in your entire life.
Hallelujah.
And I will make you windows of agates.
That means, I will give you a future.
You'll look out, and there will be beauty
in what you see.
You'll no longer be looking into despair and
hope and betrayal.
No longer making vows that you cannot keep.
I'll make your gates of carbuncles and all
your borders of pleasant stones.
In other words, He says, I'm going to
hem you in.
I'm going to bring you into My love,
and it will be so divine and lovely
you will never again want to leave My
presence.
All your children will be taught of the
Lord, and great shall be the peace of
thy children.
You are not going to be bringing them
false promises.
You're not going to bring them into a
false hope.
You're not going to tell them they're there
to meet the need in your life.
No, no, no.
You're going to introduce them to the one
only everlasting living God.
You're going to introduce them to the source
of life.
Oh yes, He says, your enemies shall gather,
but you will be established in righteousness, and
you will be far from oppression, and you
will not fear, and terror will not come
near you.
Behold, they will gather together, God says.
Yes, your enemies will gather.
Your old fears will try to come back
on you.
Your old vows will try to come back
and take precedence over what I'm about to
do in your life.
But He said, I created them.
I made the smith that blows the coals
in the fire.
I made the ones that brings forth an
instrument for the work.
I even created the waster who destroys.
And then He says, but no weapon formed
against you shall prosper.
And every tongue, every tongue, every tongue that
rises against you in judgment, you will condemn.
This is the heritage of the servants of
the Lord, and their righteousness is of Me,
says the Lord.
God said to His people through the prophet
Hosea in chapter 2, verses 19 and 20,
I will betroth thee unto Me forever.
I will betroth thee unto Me in righteousness
and in judgment and in loving kindness and
in mercy.
And I will even betroth thee unto Me
in faithfulness, and thou shalt know the Lord.
That doesn't mean, God says, you will be
faithful to Me.
He says, no.
I will be faithful to you.
I will not break your trust that you
place in Me.
I will not disappoint you.
I will not send you away when it's
not convenient.
God says, I will not be looking for
another to take your place.
You are Mine.
Forever you are Mine.
You are My beloved bride.
Hallelujah.
Even those wounds that I have allowed into
your life have had a purpose.
I have been a faithful friend to you,
says the Lord.
Yes, you have been wounded.
And yes, I could have stopped some of
them, but I didn't, because I was waiting
in line for you to get finished with
all those other relationships, so that you could
be introduced to your husband.
You could be introduced to the one that
you were betrothed to for all of eternity.
And those wounds which have not come from
My hand, I have taken upon Myself.
He says, I was wounded for your transgressions,
and by My stripes you are healed.
I took them upon Myself.
That's how you're going to be free.
You take those unrighteous wounds that were brought
into your life, and Jesus said, you throw
them upon Me.
Cast them upon Me.
I took them upon Calvary, and that's how
I set you free.
Hallelujah!
He says in Genesis to Hagar, verse 18,
chapter 21, Arise now, lift up the lad,
hold him in your hand, for I will
make him a great nation.
The Lord says to you today, Now get
up and pick up that which I have
spoken to you about.
Pick up that which you have spoken to
Me about, and I will do it for
you.
I will make a great nation beyond your
greatest hope.
And you can see Hagar out in the
midst of the wilderness, her source of supply
virtually gone because it came from someone other
than God.
Do you understand?
Her supply is almost gone.
Jesus said, I came to give sight to
those that are blind.
I came to heal those that have been
wounded and bruised in their heart.
And you can see and hear Hagar saying,
God, how is this thing going to happen?
How are you going to make something great
out of what I have cast out under
a shrub?
Out of what I have given up for
dead?
How are you going to take that?
And how are you going to bring about
the change in this situation?
And verse 19 says, And God opened her
eyes.
This is exactly what the Holy Ghost is
doing right now for many who have lived
under a wounding and lived under vows of
never again reaching out and being vulnerable.
And God opened her eyes and she saw
a well of water.
Hallelujah!
And she went and filled the bottle with
water and gave the lad drink.
And God was with the lad, and he
grew and became an archer.
Now listen to me.
God said to Hagar, I have a well.
I have a well just for you.
I have a well of living water.
And Hagar, whether or not you can understand
this, your wounds have brought you here.
Your wounds have brought you to a place
where now I can open your eyes and
you can begin to see that no one
else has to be your source of hope
any longer.
I have been faithful to you.
Nobody has the water rights to heaven.
God says, I have them.
They're mine.
They don't belong to Abraham.
They belong to Me.
Nobody has the water rights to your life,
beloved.
Nobody.
Nobody can tell you who you are or
where you're going or what you're going to
be.
No man has that right.
God says, you're mine.
You belong to Me.
If you will allow Me to open your
eyes, I will show you a well of
living water that has been dug just for
you.
It is a source of supply that is
clean and pure and never goes dry.
And it brings healing and wholeness and life
and purpose.
It sets free every captive.
And your wounds have brought you here.
Your wounds.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend.
God says, I've been faithful to you.
And even the unrighteous wounds that have come
into your life, I've allowed them because it
has brought you here.
Hallelujah.
I have been here.
I have been waiting for you that I
may open your eyes and show you what
you've never been able to see before.
Hallelujah.
Hagar, no one but Me holds the key
to your hopes and your dreams, and I
will never leave you or forsake you.
Hallelujah.
Lord, forgive us for our foolish vows.
Today, we get up.
We go on.
We receive our freedom.
I give an altar call today for those
that the Holy Spirit spoke into your life
and you have been wounded and you've lived
in the wilderness and somewhere in your life
you've said, never again.
You haven't realized it, but it's stopped your
spiritual growth.
When you come to God, there has to
be a vulnerability, even a willingness to say,
I will be wounded perhaps in the future
again, but never by God.
Never.
And even though I may find myself in
the wilderness from time to time, there's a
well there now.
There's a well.
I don't need someone else's supply.
I don't need someone else's provision to keep
me.
There is a well for me dug by
God Himself.
There's a spring of living water.
And it's for me.
It's for me.
I have now my own source of supply.
Hallelujah.
And God will speak His life into mine.
Let's all stand.
Main Sanctuary Education Annex.
The Holy Spirit spoke in you today and
you want to be free.
You want to be free from the pain,
the vows, the captivity of past experience and
betrayal.
You come.
Say, Lord, Your wounds have been faithful.
You've got to be able to say that
when you come.
God, You've been faithful to me.
It's hurt.
It's been painful.
But God, You've been faithful to me.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend.
Even the things I don't understand have a
purpose.
And Lord, I'm going to open my heart
and trust again.
I'm going to be vulnerable one more time
because You will not betray me.
You have a purpose for my life.
There's a meaning for my life.
You have a plan.
And that which You spoke to me years
ago is going to happen by Your grace.
It's going to happen.
Hallelujah.
There may be a few tears.
I'm not even suggesting you do, but you're
going to get set free here today.
You're going to get absolutely set free at
this altar.
Lead us in a song, please, if you
will.
And we'll wait.
Lo, we found Jesus Cleansed and
healing All who behold With
clean hearing water New hearts are
given Salts made in heaven
Sin brings no more With clean hearing
water New hearts are given
Salts made in heaven Lo, there
is a fountain Jesus
Cleansed and healing All who
behold With clean hearing water
New hearts are given Salts made in
heaven Sin brings no more
With clean hearing water New hearts are
given Salts made in heaven It's
very important today at this altar that to
receive your healing, you have to release the
death.
You have to let go all of the
woundings and the people responsible for them.
You have to forgive them.
Let the death go.
And say, Lord, even though I don't understand
it, your wounds have been faithful because they
brought me here.
They brought me to a place where you're
going to open my eyes now.
You're going to show me life that I've
never even dreamt was possible.
And you're going to bring to completeness that
which you've begun in me.
And you're going to do it, God.
It's not going to come from any human
vessel.
It's going to come from you.
Let's pray together.
Lord Jesus, I have been wounded, and it's
been a painful experience.
Today, I thank you for your Word, which
has set me free and given me hope
and caused me to want to get up
and live anew in living relationship with you.
I release those who have wronged me, who
have wounded my life.
And I ask you, God, to forgive them,
for they don't know what they have done.
Today, I am free from any vows I
made, and I renounce those vows.
When I said the words never again, Lord
God, I now understand that life with you
is a life of endless new possibility every
day.
And even if I am wounded again, I
have this knowledge that you will only allow
into my life what is faithful to your
purposes in me.
Because you are a friend that stays closer
than a brother.
The wounds of a friend are faithful.
I love you, Jesus.
I take your promises for me, again in
my hand.
I pick them up from the places where
I have thrown them down.
And today at this altar, I am free
that you have promised me.
I don't need anyone else just
for you and me.
Today, I thank you that by God's grace,
I am free.
Old fears will try to come back.
But he said, no weapon formed against you
is going to prosper.
You've met him today in the wilderness.
This is the conclusion of the message.