6/13/2022 • Desk of Dennis Piller
Sunday’s prophecy – LISTEN AND OBEY!
I took my 96-year-old mom to church yesterday and I took a chair back to make room for her wheelchair, I heard this loud voice in my head. Not verbal but loud. "LISTEN. LISTEN… Listen to not miss my leading. Wake up and take a stand – There are spiritual forces out to derail you. Press in! – reach out and stand as my emissary – my intercessor, for my people as you make up the hedge for them. I will fill you with the power to stand and prevail for them and for you! Listen to my voice! Seek quiet time, so you can hear – – turn off the world. The busyness, the media. And kneel – fall on your face and receive the power to prevail and come together so when you stumble there is a brother to lift you – LISTEN – listen – for the days are treacherous. I love you – I am your covering! Be bold to stand for my righteousness! Love one another as I love you. Listen and Obey"
I looked up and I saw a mother who had to be eight months pregnant. So beautiful. And then there was a mom walking with an infant up the aisle. And then I looked and saw children and teenagers and people of all ages who are adolescents in Christ. There were so many small children spiritually that I saw that were so new in their faith. And I heard his voice again Listen…Listen. Wake up and take a stand as my emissary and as my intercessor from my people. Make up the hedge for them! Come out of yourself and your own problems and take up my banner and I will take up yours.
There was an urgency in his word today. True, I have had some struggles of late but this wasn't just a shout-out to me. I am certain it was all of you too. His plea of urgency…LISTEN…was so that we would stop in our tracks and heed his word and his direction to pray for his sheep. His children. His infants and He would take care of you!
Christians are supposed to be people of prayer (1 Thessalonians 5:17), and some of our prayer requests are in regards to the spiritual condition of our unsaved friends and relatives. We want them to be saved, and we pray to that end. In this, we agree with Charles Spurgeon, who said, “If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for.”
But the word I heard today was for those young Christian believers who were struggling to know their faith. Struggling to walk in it! Struggling to hear God's voice over the clamor of the world's tambourines. Spurgeon once quipped that it would be nice if the elect had a big E stamped on their back, but, of course, they do not. We do know that all of God’s elect will indeed be saved at some time during their earthly sojourn (see John 6:37, 39), but that may not happen until the day they’re called home to be with the Lord (e.g., the thief on the cross). It is through people with “beautiful feet” who bring the gospel that God uses as the means of reaching His elect (Isaiah 52:7).
YOU!
“The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” (James 5:16), and “the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer” (1 Peter 3:12; cf. Psalm 34:15). God indeed hears the cries of His children. Christians must not leave deliverance to others. We are called to be intercessors. Oxford English Dictionary defines an intercessor as "a person who intervenes on the behalf of another, especially by prayer." Sometimes God calls us to pray on behalf of another. In so doing, we are helping to bear their burdens and bring about victories on their behalves. Then there are times when we must do more than pray. We must be the ones who stand in the gap for others by actually doing something about it. "If one of you says to them, 'Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,' but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?" (James 2:16). He makes the point that doing such a thing is saying you have faith but no actions to back it up. That's the equivalent of dead works.
Throughout Scripture, there are multiple examples of those who stood in the gap, from the midwives who refused to obey Pharaoh in killing all the male children born… to Mordecai, who exposed a plot to kill the king. All the Israelites fasted on Esther's behalf. Then Esther, who at the risk of death, made intercession for her people… Or David, though just a shepherd boy, ran toward the giant when no one else would and cut off his head.
God's call today is clear. Obey the Greatest commandment. Love the Lord thy God and Love thy neighbor as yourself! God's promises are often conditional. Do this for me…Intercede for THEM… and I will take care of YOU. I pray you are listening. He finished it with… Listen and Obey! It's up to you today to take God at his word. Or get on with your busy life.
What happens when god says Move. Do it now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDE74QQ3sbA
