I came to the last three meetings with
only one resolution, and that was not to
say anything.
When Brother George asked me, I do, to
be honest, I have to say, I still
do have a little feeling in my inner
being that the Lord might want to continue
just a little bit from this afternoon.
And I trust he would give us the
grace and the utterance that this could be
uttered in a spirit, even his spirit.
But I can't help but have a feeling
that one of the questions he's still asking
is, is it right with you and your
family?
Is it right with you and your children?
Is it right with you and your spouse?
It's all wonderful to talk about being so
right and so one with the Lord, but
it really should reflect itself in our home
and in our relationship.
You know, I've noticed in the scripture that
often some of the great leaders of God
had a problem with their family.
You've noticed that, of course.
There was Samuel and different other ones.
And I've wondered whether this indicates that there
is a problem when we put our work
ahead of our family.
You know, the other word the Lord has
given me is that we need to set
our children free, our spouse free.
There's lots of spiritual abuse going on out
there.
There's lots of leadership that are tyrannizing and
putting people in condemnation and frustration and confusion
and trying to speak the Lord to them
for the Lord.
And they never grow up into Christ because
people set themselves between the head and the
people.
And many of us have seen this, brothers
and sisters.
But recently the Lord has had to show
me this is true in my life and
in my home.
We have four precious children.
When the little one I mentioned this afternoon,
when she was in her 20s, she said
to me one day, she said, Dad, please
now, if you will, please listen.
And I hope you won't be upset, but
I just have to say something.
She said, you know, Dad, I know exactly
100% everything you think and believe.
I've been in your home 25 years.
Growing up there, I know all of it.
But you know, it's getting very, very hard.
I'm trying to hear the Lord and know
the Lord.
And I know he wants me to respect
my parents and to honor them.
And I know he wants me to do
what they say.
But it's so confusing because I don't know
if it's you or if it's the Lord
or what it is.
And I want to learn to know what
the Lord is speaking.
But I don't want to go against what
you say.
Dad, could you give me a little space?
I know you love me and you're trying
to protect me and you want me to
be for them.
You intend it so well, Dad, but it's
just please give me some space.
And listen, Dad, I don't want to offend
you.
But I might have to take some of
the things that you've held so precious and
have given to me.
I might have to take some of them
and lay them away.
And then if the Lord gives them to
me, they'll be mine.
Then I'll know they're mine.
And I know he's dealing with me.
Did you get everything from your parents, Dad?
If I know your history, I know that
it wasn't that way.
Well, the Lord was very, very gracious.
And he gave me a few buckets of
tears.
And I had much repentance to do.
To my daughter.
That I had usurped the headship of Christ
in her life.
You know, there's a difference, friends.
We must know between the letter and the
spirit.
We mentioned a little this afternoon, even in
the home with our spouse.
When we talk submission, we produce the opposite.
Have you ever noticed the letter will produce
the very opposite that we're after?
Talk oneness, push it, promote it.
You end up creating division.
Live in the spirit of oneness.
And oneness begins to emerge.
And it permeates from your heart to the
hearts of others.
And make it a doctrine.
The same with the order in the home.
I was looking, we were fellowshipping a little
in the break.
And I was looking for a verse.
And I finally found it in Romans.
Chapter 7.
And I'm sure some of you know this
verse.
But I saw it in a new way.
It says here.
For I would not have known what coveting
really was if the law had not said,
do not covet.
But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the
commandment.
Produced in me every kind of covetous desire.
You know, sometimes we produce in others the
very thing we're trying to save them from.
Sometimes we produce rebellion by preaching against rebellion.
Now, I'm not talking at this point with
small children.
But even there, God must give us much
grace and wisdom.
But I would like to say to you
parents.
When was the last time and how often
have you apologized and even confessed to your
children?
Have you been able to be vulnerable?
Oh yes, we can confess to the Lord.
But can we confess to them?
I ask this of you for myself.
And God has shone his light in my
heart.
And I'm sorry.
I consecrated you to the Lord.
Not to myself.
And especially if we serve the Lord.
We're so desperate that our children would also
serve the Lord.
That in itself can put a pressure.
Our zeal will bring others into condemnation.
But you know what it is?
It's partly the fact that we actually are
living by the law ourselves.
And we have disciplined ourselves through all the
years.
And we've come to a certain measure that
we can more or less perform.
Automatically we expect it of everybody else.
Even when we don't know it.
And we exude condemnation on anybody who doesn't
pray as much as I do.
Or this and this and no.
Because we have not come to see that
all of that counts.
Absolutely nothing.
God sees the depravity of our being in
our heart.
And the moment we allow him to show
it to us.
And we repent and we confess.
And we find out his grace is still
there.
And it's because of his grace that he
accepts me.
Not because of what I do.
Then we stop expecting things of others.
A dear sister came to me some time
ago.
We were visiting.
Fifteen years before she was in a congregation
where I served in the leadership.
And she said, Albert, I have to tell
you something.
She said, all the while we were together
in the church.
I loved you and I admired you.
But I was very much condemned by you.
I just felt I'd never be able to
measure up.
I'd never be able to know the word,
the way I should.
I'd never anything.
And I knew how much you loved me,
but I just couldn't help it.
And I said, and what do you mean
now?
She said, it seems you're different.
You don't seem to expect or require things
from me anymore.
But when I'm around you, my heart warms
up toward the Lord.
But I don't have to do anything.
And I said, sister, I repent of all
the law and all the condemnation that I
put you under ever and I want to
set you free.
You don't need to please me.
You don't need to serve me.
You don't need to do anything for me.
Or anything I tell you.
If your heart draws you, you better love
Jesus.
But even do that because he loves you.
A whole new relationship emerged.
Of course, I was blessed with a mama.
I have to tell you this about her.
Sisters, mothers, my mama wore a cap like
those Amish people.
She wore strings on it.
She wore a certain kind of a plain
dress.
She loved Jesus with her whole heart.
But there was something special about her conservatism.
And that was she never ever anticipated, implied
it, or expected it of anyone else.
Including her daughters.
One time when she was in nursing home,
she was having Alzheimer's.
And I came to see her.
And she was sitting on the bed.
She had this prayer cap on every minute
she was awake.
This was her conviction in her heart.
And she had her hand around the lady
who was sitting there.
With a red sweater, her hair as short
as mine.
Green slacks.
You'd never seen my mother that way, even
in her grave.
And my mama had her arm around this
lady and they were singing, Oh, how I
love Jesus.
And when I came in, she said, Albert,
I'm so glad you came right now.
I want you to meet one of my
best friends.
And we love our Jesus.
A heart that knows no condemnation.
Doesn't subscribe its own.
God brings us into conviction, into discipline.
Don't lay it on anybody else.
Set him free.
Can we set each other free?
Can we set our children free?
Can you trust into the Lord?
But then we keep reaching over the shoulder.
No, no, no, not that way.
Now, just go on with the Lord.
Oh, but wait a minute.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Even we don't say it in our words.
They feel it in our heart.
Fellowship.
After two or three years, last week, we
were at his house, enjoying our grandson, having
a beautiful time together.
I noticed a tape laying on his kitchen
cupboard and it had his name on it.
I said, what's this?
He said, oh, they asked me to speak
at the fellowship.
I said, oh, do you mind if I
listen to it?
No, no.
I put it in my tape deck, and
I listened to it, and I began to
weep.
He's saying exactly what his daddy says, but
he just needed his daddy to back away.
And I tell you, he said it with
conviction, not because daddy said it, not because
somebody programmed it into him.
Anyway, especially those of us, or those, I
guess I can't say us, I have no
responsibility anymore, I've lost it all.
I think in these days the Lord is
getting very jealous about who's the head of
every member.
Oh yes, we do have a responsibility in
leadership, but we've got to learn how to
stop reaching over the shoulder, and stop telling
people what the Lord wants to do.
I was just touched another brother was sharing
about with these Amish, how some have come
into them and trying to tell them they
should do this, or they should change that.
And I could sense in this brother a
godly jealousy, as much as to say, leave
them alone, the Lord will lead them.
Feed them Christ.
It's the spirit of Christ Jesus that sets
us free, not more law.
Tell them to stop dressing that way, you're
just bringing into another bondage.
The Lord can unravel and work that out.
If like my mama they want to wear
that till they die, bless their hearts, if
they feel the Lord leads them that way.
And if you do that for them, their
heart will get wide and they'll love all
the family.
Let's stop trying to bring each other into
conformity.
Sometimes we mistake unity for conformity.
We were in a place we had such
amazing unity.
You could smell, sense, and even see if
a person wasn't in the oneness.
But it became a conformity to the uttermost
and a pressure.
The spirit is a conformity as a result
of the spirit's working.
My mother and that, what we used to
call worldly lady, were one in the spirit
and the anointing was upon them.
Well, I don't want to get carried away,
but dear brothers and sisters, we want to
say, Lord have mercy, but we also have
to get our hands out from the directing
of it.
Really trust.
And listen, most of us, especially us older
ones, have taken so long to go through
some of these things.
We've made a lot of mistakes and blunders.
If we let our children make them, quite
soon they might pass through much more quickly
than we did.
So trust each other to the Lord.
And one other thing that came in the
fellowship at the break was how our spirit
and the spirit in which we say something
has such a tremendous capacity to either transmit
the love of Christ or to transmit some
of our own zeal or even our frustration.
The sister was saying and saying, purify my
heart.
One of the reasons we need our heart
purified is because whatever is impure in it
taints what we say.
We may say the very same words, but
the taste and the flavor to the recipient
will be different and the fruit of it
will be different.
We all know you can say, honey, I
love you or honey, I love you.
You know, because you've been told you don't
ever express your love.
Or something transmitted from your spirit.
Honey, I love you.
Wow.
That touches the spirit and the response is
love.
And when I say to my honey, thank
you, something is transmitted.
When I say to my children, I'm sorry,
I was brought up, I never heard that
in my home.
Never.
I thought it would have been the greatest
weakness on earth for a parent to say
they're sorry, especially to weep tears.
I didn't learn to weep tears that I
was 30 years old.
Never even knew a man could weep.
I don't know if it's coming together.
Someone would want to respond to carry it
on.
The Lord is completed.
But humble yourself in the sight of the
Lord.
Sometimes humbling is to say, I'm sorry, how
much we expect our children to do things
for us.
And yet it was for their own good.
But we were expecting something to build up.
Parents are not to expect for their children.
They're to provide for them.
Oh, it's we really need a large purging
and cleansing.
Even if our children honor and serve the
Lord.
To separate the pride we receive from it,
from ourself, is not a small thing.
We just need to keep asking the Lord
again and again.
Shine in, purify my heart.
You know, mothers are the ones who have
a burden to pray for their children.
Mothers, you need to pray much for your
children.
But I'd like to ask you, how do
you pray for your children?
I think many mothers spend a lot of
time advising the Lord how he should handle
their children.
It's kind of like, I can't get this
thing accomplished.
Lord, this is what I'd like you to
do.
Do this, stop that.
Don't let him do this.
Show them this, show them that.
The Lord convicted us, my wife and I,
about how we pray for our children.
And we have four, as I said, two
very much loving and walking with the Lord.
One, not so much.
And the youngest one is quite stray, quite
stray.
I heard a little song on a tape,
an African tape.
And the singers had some verse of a
line about a straying daughter.
And it went like this.
Give her just a glimpse of you.
Show her that your love is true.
O Lord, reveal your love.
Then a line went something like, She sits
by the telephone thinking that she should call
home, but she cannot find the words to
say, Reveal your love.
O Lord, reveal your love.
Give her just a glimpse of you.
I said to my wife, that's the safest
prayer.
Pray that God would reveal his love to
your children.
Oh, we prayed that our daughter wouldn't get
into this and wouldn't get into that.
And all the things we feared most, she
got into.
Recently she made an announcement to us.
I guess I should be honest and open.
She had been married to a young Christian.
He turned out to be worse than a
tyrant.
She didn't know him.
She just came apart.
She said she can't live her human life
this way.
And he really was quite unbelievable.
She had a divorce.
Now she's so afraid.
She can't trust somebody.
She has a very special friend, and recently
she told us, Mom and Dad, I know
you don't agree with this and you don't
believe this.
It's right.
But I'm going to move in with him.
I got to get to know him.
The Lord gave me the grace to wait
for a few minutes before I replied.
One of the first lessons, I think he
likes to teach parents.
I said, Honey, you already said you know
how we feel and we know you do.
We just want to tell you, you're our
daughter.
And we love you and we always will.
Tears came to our eyes.
We went on and we had our dinner.
The Lord has given us the grace not
to ever say one word more.
We don't need to.
We've turned it over to Him.
And we haven't even told Him that He
should stop this or do this or that.
Only He knows in His sovereign design what
we all must pass through.
We like to spare everybody.
Especially parents who've gone through the depths of
degradation.
They are so desperate to try to spare
their children from it.
But they don't realize that God in His
sense actually used that to bring them to
where they are.
He's greater than the enemy.
He can use even the works that the
enemy does.
Certainly we need to pray a hedge about
them.
But again, when is the point of reaching
over and becoming the clergyman to those dearest
to us?
We can see it there.
Let's see it here.
I don't know, but I just trust, I
believe the Lord would set the families free.
And there's nothing more beautiful than a family
in sweet harmony.
And I don't know if this is proper
to say, but even with this daughter, our
family is in sweet harmony.
We can get together.
If we get to meet at our house,
we have a prayer before we have a
meal.
I don't have to pray about that situation.
I don't even have to have little implications.
I can just worship and honor God and
love Him and commit ourselves all to Him.
You know, after we begin to see some
of this, we wrap our comments up in
some very vague spiritual probes.
But our kids are so sensitive, they can
tell right away, even if we wrap it
40 layers, that there's something inside there that's
trying to...
You know what I'm talking about?
They feel it, and it creates animosity.
And we build a barrier.
We believe with all our heart the Lord
is going to restore all our children.
Because they at one time gave themselves to
the Lord.
So we just say, Lord, that's between you
and them.
We keep reminding Him of that, but how
to work it out?
So we're free, we don't need to worry
anymore.
We don't need to bear it on our
shoulder.
Maybe we did something wrong.
Of course we did many things wrong.
But His grace is still cleansing and covering
us.
So do you understand what I mean when
I say, set the people free?
You know, we become Pharaoh to people.
He said, set my people free that they
can worship me.
And that's one thing I appreciate about this
weekend.
There's quite a freedom.
I mean, I've never gone to a place
where I know virtually nobody.
I've only known George for a few years.
Such a liberty.
I go all over the country.
I go to 30, 40 different worship church
places per year.
This is a special, precious freedom.
Now the Lord does have a way.
Please don't receive His word as condemnation.
But I left the denomination and I left
it telling them they're Babylon.
They're this and they're that and all those
other things.
And we took a whole bunch of young
people with them 25 years ago.
Created a fence to the uttermost.
All those people forever after were closed.
Five years ago after the Lord had worked
in our heart and we never set foot
back in that Babylon place ever.
Five years ago when we were back in
that community in Ontario, the Lord said, go
back to that place.
We thought it started at 10 o'clock
and we got there a little before 10
and it was already in session, everybody inside.
But the Lord had said, go, so we
went.
We came to the door and a man
met me at the door and said, Albert,
I had been pastor there six years.
My goodness.
I said, Anson, the last time I saw
him he was 40, now he's 60.
So he said, I have a seat for
you.
Everybody was standing, second row to the back
by the aisle.
He told us to go in there.
No one in that whole place knew that
we were there except that usher.
After the singing they sat down.
They had the bulletin and the order of
service and all this.
And Janet took the bullet and she looked
at it and toward the end it said,
open sharing.
She showed it to me and she said,
honey, I'll be praying.
I said, oh God, for me to get
into this place, it's a dramatic miracle.
You've broken me down to bring me into
this place.
Surely you wouldn't want me to say anything.
Yet I had a feeling maybe the Lord
would want it.
So I told the Lord, Lord, if I've
got to speak something, you've got to give
me verbatim what to say.
I can't afford to offend your people for
another 20 years.
Oh, have mercy on me.
And besides, I put an addendum on.
If nobody else shares during that time, I
won't.
So the meeting went on, the ritual, the
whole thing.
And I feel very much at peace.
I felt at freedom to do with them
whatever they were doing.
Got to that time and I felt the
Lord had given me verbatim.
And the moderator, whatever, got up and he
said, now it's open sharing time.
Stand where you are, come to the front,
whatever.
He went and he sat down and nobody
moved.
After a bit he got up and as
he got up, the Lord rebuked me and
said, do you decide whether to share because
someone else did or didn't?
I said, I'm sorry.
I got up and I stood in the
aisle.
Now this is a congregation where I pastored
for six years but had been gone 20.
I got up and the Lord gave me
these words.
Dear precious brothers and sisters, I am Albert
and Janet, they're from Vancouver.
The people turned around toward the back.
The older people went, who's this?
This is, oh.
And then the next words came where we
realized we wouldn't have the opportunity to greet
you all one by one.
We have many precious memories of this place.
How you loved us, how you cared for
us and provided us.
And we're so happy that you have followed
on as you've sensed the Lord has led
you.
And we're here to bless you.
And I read a short verse and I
sat down.
Folks, it was like the Lord had his
finger on the thermometer, on the thermostat.
When I started, it was like about 50
degrees in there.
And just in those minute and a half,
the temperature went up to 80 degrees.
You could feel the warmth coming in and
the coldness leaving.
And when I finished, it was like there
was one person in that whole congregation.
After the congregation, the meeting was over.
They lined up in the aisle.
Some to hug and embrace us and ask
us if I remember when I buried their
mama.
When I cried all night with the young
family who lost their son in an accident.
The husband who'd lost his wife, please come
to dinner.
In the next two days, we were in
three or four different homes and we ended
up weeping in the Lord every place.
I said, my, these people suddenly became open.
The Lord said, when you see something, many
times you're the hindrance, not the one.
It's the Spirit.
It's where our heart is.
And only the Lord.
I was blessed by this sister's singing.
It's not whether we know it.
It's whether it's gone through the fire in
our being.
Thank you for receiving me, brother.
Thank you, Brother Albert.
I really felt we had a beautiful presence
of the Spirit here this morning.
And God did a great work in families
that were here.
Some of our good friends, families that were
here.
And there was a great work done in
their hearts, I'm sure.
But then, there's many families out there.
And God can do the same work out
there.
As you embrace these beautiful principles, and by
God's help, begin to practice them, the same
thing will happen out there.
So, don't think, well, I missed it then,
this morning, or anything like that.
I mean, God gives us a beautiful display
of what He loves doing, what He wants
to do.
And now the message has gone to the
parents, how these things can happen, and I
appreciate that.
I had no real desire to call this
camp.
We used to have regular annual camps, not
of this nature, not of this size, really,
but smaller family camps, where I was working
with other brethren.
And I felt that phase of it came
to an end, as far as I was
personally concerned.
But like I said, encouraged by my brother
Gene there, and thinking upon it, praying about
it, it seemed this was to be in
God's will, and the Word got around, and
I prayed, God, we just want You to
bring whom You would.
And I put in the letter, I only
sent out 80, 90 invitations, mostly in the
Northwest here, because it seemed like a family
camp for the Northwest of the states and
this part of Canada.
I put in the letter, just because I'm
sending this letter doesn't mean I'm inviting you
to come.
Pray about it, and do as the Lord
will.
And I believe God has done a beautiful
work, and I prayed much the last two
or three weeks that God would do something
in His people that they would take home
with them, an eternal work that they would
take home with them.
Because if that doesn't happen, it's just a
memory, where you had a good time, lots
of activity, lots of fun maybe.
One man said, and I was told in
a way, I'm just going by what I
was told, he used to go to church
to hear the Word of God and worship
God, but now I go there to have
fun.
God help us to know that coming together
with God's people, oh, a time of joy,
yes.
It's a solemn assembly, they were called in
the Scriptures.
It doesn't mean solemn in the sense we
think of it down in the mouth, but
a time of seriousness, a time when you
come together to hear God and know what
He wants, and hear His voice, and know
what He desires of us, that we might
be the child He wants us to be,
the son, the daughter He wants us to
be, the father, the mother He wants us
to be, that God might fulfill that good
word that He has.
Somebody, oh, here it is.
That good word that He declared for His
people.
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet
before the coming of that great and dreadful
day of the Lord.
And I know there's been probably a hundred
or two hundred Elijah's in this last couple
of decades, but we know it's that spirit
of restoration, that spirit that rested on John
the Baptist, first on Elisha, and John the
Baptist, and then on his servants, and I
believe our generation, on many of his servants.
That spirit of restoration that God wants to
restore that which was taken away by the
canker worm, and the caterpillar, and the palmer
worm, and the locust.
He's going to restore it because God couldn't
restore it.
My family, the way it was, it doesn't
mean He's going to restore it the way
you think He should restore it.
Give courage, Leonard.
Give courage.
God knows how to restore in ways that
are not the way we thought He should.
When it's all over, we say, Lord, I
want You to restore it the way I
had in mind.
God, this is far beyond anything I imagined.
And He shall turn the heart of the
fathers to the children, and the heart of
the children to their fathers, lest they come
and smite the earth with a curse.
The last verse of the Old Testament.
Whose is it?
Just hand it to me.
Somebody, it's missing from your Bible.
Come and get it, because you need that.
Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You, Lord Jesus,
that Thou art the King of all kings
and Lord of all lords, that You're reigning
on the throne of glory as the great
high priest after the order of Melchizedek, that
God the Father has given to You all
things, and that all things are put under
Your feet, and that until we see that
happen, You have this declaration from God Almighty,
rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies
until I subdue them under Your feet, that
the time is at hand when the King
of glory is going to manifest His glorious
presence in the earth and in His people,
that the righteous judgments of God might go
forth throughout the land, throughout the earth, first
of all in His people in the church,
not because He's going to torment them, but
because He wants to cleanse them and purify
them.
Therefore, He is fulfilling this promise, the last
promise of the Old Testament.
He's going to send forth an Elijah ministration
that's going to prepare the hearts of the
people that there might be fathers turning their
hearts toward their families, which will cause the
families to turn their hearts toward them, that
together they turn their hearts unto God, that
once again the family of God in the
earth will be the church of the living
God.
For is not the church of the living
God composed of many families?
And how shall the family of God, the
corporate family of God, be glorious and without
blemish and without spot, if the families in
that gathering are devastated, broken, full of bitterness
one toward another, and then come to church
with their family to bring it into the
church, and then glorying in the Laodicean church,
which is full of all these kinds of
families, and saying, we're rich and increased with
goods and have need of nothing, but God
send forth this spirit of Elijah, which is
the spirit of God resting upon your people,
to bring about this great restoration, Lord, which
you have devised in your own heart.
The family of God, like the family of
Jacob in all their dissension and bitterness, yet
because of a famine were brought to Joseph
to receive the blessing after they had come
to repentance.
God has got that Joseph people, getting them
ready that in the day of famine, which
is beginning, maybe a famine of water and
bread, but preeminently a famine of hearing the
word of the Lord, will find that they're
bankrupt, that they're starving, that they have no
food.
God's preparing a Joseph people through trial and
tribulation, through affliction, that he might come forth
and bless the family of God and bring
them together and remove the bitterness and bring
about a great transformation in the worst of
them, that even Judah, one of his persecutors,
might bow before Joseph and say, make me
to be thy bond slave, but let my
brother go free.
God brings about this kind of love in
the people of God.
They're not going to be accusing their brother
and blaming him because of his condition.
See, I told you so, and it's come
upon you, but they love their brother so
much that for their brother's sake, they're willing
to say, oh, master, make me to be
your bond slave forever, but let my brother
go free.
We ask for restoration, Lord, but are we
recognizing causes to recognize and bringing about this
restoration, there must come such love for you
that we're willing to lay down our lives
for the brothers and sisters in the body
of Christ whom we feel have been rejecting
us and abusing us and turning their hearts
from God and expecting you to judge them.
God put upon us that true spirit of
substitution, if I may call it that.
Lord, let me suffer their pain.
Let me suffer their trouble, but, oh, God,
set that one free.
You'll see such a healing coming in the
body of Christ, such a oneness, such a
union in the spirit that we can hardly
imagine when we love the brethren so much
that we will, as John the Apostle said,
be willing to lay down our lives for
the brethren.
God, I'm talking to you, but I find
myself talking to your people at the same
time.
Oh, God, I pray that you would come
upon your people, Lord, in this closing meeting
of this convocation.
And even now, Lord, begin to write upon
their hearts, Lord, the things that they have
heard by the Spirit.
There may have been idle words.
There's bound to be idle words until we
come to that perfection that you desire.
No one intended to utter idle words.
No one perhaps thought they were.
We don't know.
You're the judge.
But in spite of any idle words that
were spoken, Lord, we know you spoke words
to the hearts of your people by your
Spirit, and we pray that you will seal
those words in their hearts.
The seal of the living God, seal it
in their hearts.
It might become a part of them.
They might realize that the Bible that they've
known and read, God put a word in
their hearts that they can say it is
mine.
For you have declared, I will write my
laws on their hearts and in their minds,
and they shall be my people, and I
will be their God.
You will not have to say one to
another, no, the Lord, for all shall know
me from the least to the greatest of
them.
Oh, God, that's far beyond what we've been
talking about.
When your people will know you so well,
apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and
teachers will no longer be needed, for all
shall know me from the least to the
greatest of them.
That's God's purpose.
The purpose of these other ministries is that
all the people of God should come to
know him in the fullness of his presence.
Not that they should be elevated as some
great one in the church, but that in
humility they would be able to so minister
Christ that others would rise up in the
stature of Christ.
Until the one who's been ministering him will
see such a display of the glory of
Christ that he will come to him and
say, God has given you an aspect of
the glory of Christ I know nothing about.
I want to be around you.
I want to hear from you.
I want to receive from you.
Lord, we've spoken of troublous times coming because
you've declared it and you've whispered it to
us and many others in the land.
Lord, that doesn't do us any good if
we know what's going to happen and when.
You only tell us these things that we
might prepare our hearts by your word and
spirit and by walking in obedience to you.
For the day of the Lord which cometh,
it cometh, saith the Lord.
It is dark, it is grievous.
People are not ready, they're not prepared for
that because if in the time of peace
there's all kinds of trouble and unrest and
dissatisfaction and unthankfulness and grumbling against God and
man and our brother and yet we have
plenty to eat and a place to sleep.
What will we do in the swelling of
Jordan?
Because this great day is coming, prepare for
that great day, saith the Lord.
Prepare for that day.
For it is day to those who are
the children of the day and who walk
in the light, but it is darkness to
those who walk in rebellion and rebellion against
God.
It's darkness to them.
Truly as the glory cloud that was a
light to the children of Israel was darkness
to the Egyptians.
Stay in the light.
Don't try to penetrate back into the darkness
of Egypt.
Try to clean it up.
Walk in the light.
For God himself will deal with the darkness
of this world as you and I walk
in the light, which is walking in truth.
And truth is love and love is strong
and love is righteous and love is pure
and love is holy as well as kind
and merciful.
Seal thy word in our hearts, O Lord.
With the seal of the living God, seal
it in our minds.
As you said you would do before, you
would allow the winds of heaven to touch
any tree or any green thing.
Put upon our foreheads the mark of Christ.
Take away from our hearts and minds the
foolish notion, the foolish notion that 666 is
a number to be feared.
Write upon our minds your beautiful number, the
beautiful mind of Jesus, which men can't see.
And they will care less about the numbers
666, which men can't see either.
But they will pray for them that God
might bring them into the light, even as
thou art in the light.
Now may the God of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who brought again from the dead our
Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep,
through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make
you perfect in every good thing to do
His will.
Keep you unto the day of Christ.
Prepare your hearts for this great day that
lies before us.
As you talk often to Him and less
about the cares of this life, stay in
communion with Him, not only telling Him what
you'll want, but having an inquiring heart to
know what He wants.
That as for us and our families, we
will be found serving the Lord, loving them,
forgiving, gentle, forbearing, long-suffering, yet by your
Spirit being able to minister righteousness to them
and obedience and truth.
That our children might grow up, Lord, in
obedience and righteousness before Thee.
That as we committed them to You when
they were born, we might realize they are
not really ours, except for a few brief
years.
They're really Yours.
That when we must take our hands off
them completely, we need not fear because they
were Yours from the time they were born.
Maybe we failed in many ways to impart
to them the way we should have, the
words of truth.
But You know our hearts, Lord.
You know our desires.
Though we made many mistakes, so now they're
Yours, Lord.
Only You can deal with them now.
Bring them in, Lord.
Bring in our families.
Bring in our families, Lord.
Restore the family of God.
Restore our homes, Lord.
Take away the curse of divorce from Your
people.
And if there are those in this gathering
contemplating it, take away that curse that rests
upon them.
It's not to be considered.
God has joined You, let not man put
asunder.
Remove that curse that's in the land and
in the church.
I don't have the right mate, so I'll
go find another.
Remove that curse, Lord, from the minds of
Your people.
I pray in Jesus' name for this people,
Lord.
There might be a purifying, sanctifying word that
will linger with them, causing them, Lord, to
draw near to You and to walk with
You.
Lord bless you, everyone.
I have really been encouraged here because, you
know, we all know we're living in a
dry and thirsty land wherever you're at.
Maybe some have a little more water in
some places than others.
But you begin to wonder, Lord, when are
You going to move?
And the hearts, mine included, it seems to
get so at times hard and calloused and
dry.
This little song is very short.
The Lord, I think, would have me do
it with you here.
It's very short and you follow along, but
it's very encouraging.
It goes like this.