Category: Awaken From Spiritual Slumber

¹⁹ The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and they encamped at Gilgal on the east border of Jericho. ~ Joshua 4:19

On the 10^th day of the 1^st month of the Israelite year, they crossed over the Jordan into Gilgal. That would be the day they were to select either the lamb or the goat for the Passover sacrifice, which would be slaughtered on the 14th day of the month.

The 10^th day of the 1^st month can be thought of as the DAY of CHOOSING. Spiritually, what was happening was that God was choosing these people that day.

Remember that their fathers were all rejected because of unbelief and disobedience. So now God was selecting or choosing these people to enter the Promise that He had given to them and their forefathers several hundred years before. From the time of Abraham.

Then Paul likened the passing through the water to baptism into Moses (1 Corinthians 10:1-5). Those who were baptized, coming through the Red Sea, were now all dead, so these new Promise-Receivers had to be baptized.

Now, after they cross over and are symbolically baptized into Moses, they are circumcised on a mountain (Joshua 5:2-3). In prophecy, a hill or a mountain always represents places of worship. This act of circumcision was an act of worship to the LORD. An act of submission and acceptance of the covenant of God.

Therefore, consecrate yourself for the LORD. Turn your eyes away from evil and your feet away from the world. Seek the LORD and all of His righteousness. Don’t be conformed by the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

When we decide to follow God, we have to make sure to never turn away. We have to be on guard defending our faith and our relationship with Christ, lest we lose it as the first generation of Israelites to leave Egypt did. They didn’t make it into the promised land. They never experienced the blessings of the LORD and the victories the second generation did. Therefore, cling to Christ. Don’t allow yourself to fall into a spiritual rut, lest you spiritually fall asleep and spiritually die.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Keep Going In Christ.

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¹⁹ Then Joshua said to Achan, “My son, give glory to the Lord God of Israel and give praise to him. And tell me now what you have done; do not hide it from me.” ²⁰ And Achan answered Joshua, “Truly I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and this is what I did: ²¹ when I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shinar, and 200 shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, then I coveted them and took them. And see, they are hidden in the earth inside my tent, with the silver underneath.” ²² So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran to the tent; and behold, it was hidden in his tent with the silver underneath. ²³ And they took them out of the tent and brought them to Joshua and to all the people of Israel. And they laid them down before the Lord. ²⁴ And Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver and the cloak and the bar of gold, and his sons and daughters and his oxen and donkeys and sheep and his tent and all that he had. And they brought them up to the Valley of Achor. ²⁵ And Joshua said, “Why did you bring trouble on us? The Lord brings trouble on you today.” And all Israel stoned him with stones. They burned them with fire and stoned them with stones. ²⁶ And they raised over him a great heap of stones that remains to this day. Then the Lord turned from his burning anger. Therefore, to this day the name of that place is called the Valley of Achor. ~  Joshua 7:19-26

I saw a video the other day where a little small dog would jump the neighbor’s fence just to provoke the two dogs next dog, which were much bigger than himself. When the two dogs came charging out, he would jump back over, and they would chase each other up and down the fence. Him on one side, and they on the other. To the small dog it seemed like fun, but I wonder what would have happened if he got caught on the wrong side of the fence?

That is what Achan did. He played the Russian Roulette game and lost. He got caught on the wrong side of the fence.

Adultery and Idolatry always go together; they are synonyms. Adultery is spiritual idolatry, and idolatry is spiritual adultery, as we saw earlier. They’re interchangeable. God always likens idolatry to sexual unfaithfulness to Him.

Therefore, be careful when playing games with your soul. It may seem like you’re winning and are unstoppable, but that’s all just an illusion to keep you playing the game so that one day you’re so far gone that you won’t even realize the bullet has struck you and you’ve spiritually died.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Avoid Russian Roulette.

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¹⁵ Elisha responded, “Get a bow and arrows.” So he got a bow and arrows. ¹⁶ Then Elisha said to the king of Israel, “Grasp the bow.” So the king grasped it, and Elisha put his hands on the king’s hands. ¹⁷ Elisha said, “Open the east window.” So he opened it. Elisha said, “Shoot!” So he shot. Then Elisha said, “The Lord’s arrow of victory, yes, the arrow of victory over Aram. You are to strike down the Arameans in Aphek until you have put an end to them.” ¹⁸ Then Elisha said, “Take the arrows!” So he took them. Then Elisha said to the king of Israel, “Strike the ground!” So he struck the ground three times and stopped. ¹⁹ The man of God was angry with him and said, “You should have struck the ground five or six times. Then you would have struck down Aram until you had put an end to them, but now you will strike down Aram only three times.” ~ 2 Kings 13:15-19 CSB

Elisha told the king to do two very specific actions: shoot an arrow and then strike the ground with arrows. After the first command, Elisha explained the meaning of the action, but the king missed the importance of the second action.

See, Elisha told the king that the first action was a sign of his victory over Aram, but the king didn’t take into consideration that the second action would be tied to his victory. Therefore, he only struck the ground three times.

The king’s spirit man was asleep. It wasn’t in tune with the Spirit of God, so he missed his opportunity to completely defeat his enemy. Today, we are given the same kind of commands. We are urged by the Holy Spirit to act, but it’s not until we’ve obeyed or it’s too late that we find out the reason for the command.

The only way we can be sure to never miss the opportunity of the LORD is to awaken your spirit man and grow him until he is in tune with the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who guides, leads, and protects.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Be In Tune.

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³⁰ And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him. ³¹ And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he took for his wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshiped him. ³² He erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria. ³³ And Ahab made an Asherah. Ahab did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him. ~ 1 Kings 16:30-33

Not only did Ahab walk in all of the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, but “…he took for his wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshiped him.” What was so bad about that?

Jezebel was a worshipper of Baal and a woman of great wickedness who killed the prophets and urged her husband to do more to provoke the anger of the LORD than all the other kings that were before him, according to verse 33.

Ethbaal, Jezebel’s father, was king of the Sidonians, whose land belonged to Israel, according to the Promise. He, too, worshipped Baal. So, instead of being an enemy to God’s enemy, Ahab joined them, uniting with them in marriage. He took a sacred covenant God Himself established and perverted it by marrying not only himself to evil but the entire nation of Israel.

King Ahab didn’t see the evil, nor did he understand the weight of his actions. His entire household perished in the end because he refused to be an enemy to God’s enemy. That doesn’t mean that he needed to hate them, but that he needed to make a stand against them. That he needed to refuse an alliance with them and, even more so, to refuse to welcome and endorse their evil customs.

Today, many of us are marrying the enemy. We’re not just supporting evil, but we are promoting it. And just as Ahab used the sacred covenant of marriage to turn from God, we are perverting the sacred love of God to turn away from God. We are called by God to love people, but not their sin. We don’t accept nor do we endorse sin. We don’t give it a sign of approval and then say, “Well, God loves everybody.” This is called perverting the love of God.

Peter told us to be sober-minded and watchful because the Devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. We can’t allow the world to lull us to sleep with lies of unity because, in reality, the Devil doesn’t truly want unity; he wants division between us and God. Therefore, wake up from your spiritual slumber and pay attention to the Word of the LORD. Don’t allow the world to convince you that it’s wrong to follow Jesus and believe every word that comes from the LORD.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Divorce The World.

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³³ And all the men of Israel rose up out of their place and set themselves in array at Baal-tamar, and the men of Israel who were in ambush rushed out of their place from Maareh-geba. ³⁴ And there came against Gibeah 10,000 chosen men out of all Israel, and the battle was hard, but the Benjaminites did not know that disaster was close upon them. ³⁵ And the Lord defeated Benjamin before Israel, and the people of Israel destroyed 25,100 men of Benjamin that day. All these were men who drew the sword. ³⁶ So the people of Benjamin saw that they were defeated. ~ Judges 20:33-36

Do you recall the Gibeonites? Well, they were the people who came deceitfully and lied so that they could make a peace treaty with Joshua and the elders of Israel. And they tricked them into signing the peace treaty because they did not consult the LORD. Because of the peace treaty, they could not totally destroy them as the LORD God had instructed them to do. So, the Gibeonites lived among the Israelites as slaves, but I am sure they passed on or transferred their way of worshiping their gods to the Benjaminites, who took possession of that portion of land, which included sexual immorality.

The Israelites were fighting against the men of Benjamin because an Israelite traveler had stopped in at Gibeah with his concubine and his servant to spend the night. Some worthless men of the town came to the house to have sex with the man and his man-servant. The man sent his concubine out to them, and they raped her and mistreated her all night long, and in the morning, she was found dead with her hand grasping the threshold of the door.

The man took his concubine and cut her up into twelve pieces and sent each piece to the different tribes. The decision was made that the Benjaminites must pay for their crime against the man and his concubine. So, they went to war against Benjamin. The Scriptures tell us that the battle was hard on this day, and all though the Benjaminites were fighting undauntedly, disaster was looming near and they did not know it.

There are two lessons to be learned in this story. When you become one with people that are not of God, you become like them. Birds of a feather flock together. It is also like the other proverb: bad company corrupts good character. And that is what happened to the Benjaminites; they did not know or did not realize disaster was about to strike them. That happens when your conscience becomes seared. Your conscience becomes seared when you keep ignoring the warnings of the Holy Spirit. And when you keep ignoring the warnings, you make God your enemy instead and not your ally. When that happens, God will fight against you in order to get your attention and bring you back into right standings with Him.

Therefore, do not become one with wayward people. We are in the world but not of the world. Then, do not harden your heart against the warnings of the Holy Spirit.

Dear Heavenly Father, please help me to be obedient to Your warnings so that I can always be in right standings with You. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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²⁸ Jehu eliminated Baal worship from Israel, ²⁹ but he did not turn away from the sins that Jeroboam son of Nebat had caused Israel to commit — worshiping the gold calves that were in Bethel and Dan. ³⁰ Nevertheless, the Lord said to Jehu, “Because you have done well in carrying out what is right in my sight and have done to the house of Ahab all that was in my heart, four generations of your sons will sit on the throne of Israel.” ³¹ Yet Jehu was not careful to follow the instruction of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart. He did not turn from the sins that Jeroboam had caused Israel to commit. ³² In those days the Lord began to reduce the size of Israel. Hazael defeated the Israelites throughout their territory ³³ from the Jordan eastward: the whole land of Gilead — the Gadites, the Reubenites, and the Manassites — from Aroer which is by the Arnon Valley through Gilead to Bashan. ~ 2 Kings 10:28-33^CSB

Jehu was told to remove the house of Ahab from Israel because of their wickedness, which he successfully did, and he was expected to follow the instructions of God with all his heart, but he failed to do so. Because of Jehu’s obedience, four generations of his sons would be on the throne, but because of his lack of dedication to the LORD, Israel began to decrease in number. Jehu, when directly told exactly what to do, followed instruction, but when it came to him seeking and trying to follow God for himself, he fell short.

God isn’t always going to hold your hand and tell you exactly what to do. He’s going to show you the first few times and then He expects you to be paying attention, learning, and preparing to do it on your own through Him. Here’s what I mean. God expects us to be able to listen to the gentle nudge of the Holy Spirit after He has led us into green pastures and showed us righteousness. God expects us to grow, not continue as a small baby. God wants us to mature in Him so that we might have discernment, wisdom, and understanding so that one day, we might be able to lead others to Him the way someone led us to Him.

Where Jehu dropped the ball and led the people of Israel astray and decreased their numbers, we are to hold on tightly to the ball (the Word of God) and spread the Gospel, tear down strongholds, grow in the Spirit, and harvest many souls for the Kingdom of God. When we drop the ball in this area, our physical lives may not be harmed in any way. Jehu’s descended were kings, but his people decreased in number. Our physical lives may not be harmed, but our spiritual lives and those around us begin to decrease when we refuse to learn right from wrong and fail test after test. When we refuse to remove the strongholds in our lives and our family’s lives.

We’re in a spiritual war and if we’re not careful, we’ll fall asleep without even realizing it because we have no spiritual discernment. Our physical lives are going good, we’re prospering, our children are prospering, so we think God is with us, when actuality we turned away from God long ago and didn’t even know His Holy Spirit left us.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Prepare To Do It Alone.

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³⁰ As for you, son of man, your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, say to one another, each to his brother, ‘Come, and hear what the word is that comes from the Lord.’ ³¹ And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say but they will not do it; for with lustful talk in their mouths they act; their heart is set on their gain. ³² And behold, you are to them like one who sings lustful songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear what you say, but they will not do it. ~ Ezekiel 33:30-32

Imagine this: suppose this ‘son of man’ is the Church, and ‘your people’ are its members, ‘the walls’ are the church buildings, and ‘the doors’ are communication devices, such as cellphones, computers, and social media. Then, this would be a direct rebuke to a lukewarm church, such as we have today. The brethren invite each other to church on Sundays, saying, “Come to church this Sunday; Pastor is starting a really interesting sermon series. Come on out and listen; it’ll be fun.” Or, “We have a visiting evangelist who is just on fire. Come on out and hear his message; it’ll blow you away.”

But God says, “They come. They sit. They even take part in the praise and worship. They even chip in when the offering plate is passed around. They amen the good points and even jump to their feet and clap their hands enthusiastically in response to the exciting points the fiery preacher makes. They hear the preacher say that they must make a change in their lives. That they must seek holiness and pursue righteousness, but they will not do it.” They believe that part was for their neighbor. They needed to hear that, but not them. They, themselves, are doing good, real good. No change is needed here.

God says that the reason there is no change is that they are full of lustful thoughts that are expressed in lustful talk because, after all, ‘God wants me happy.’ He is ever interested in my happiness. He loves me too much to correct me. I can love whomever I want to love. I can be with whomever I wish to be with because God is for me. He came that I might have happiness and happiness more abundantly.

The pastor says, “Love the LORD your God, with all of your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” But they hear lustful songs with beautiful voices and well-playing instruments singing, “Do what thou wilt, there are no consequences. Do what thou wilt, with all of your strength, for I AM for you.” And they heap upon themselves all sorts of perverseness and all sorts of debauchery and say to themselves, “God loves me too much for anything bad to happen to me. Because a good and loving God will never send anyone to a fiery eternity in a lake of fire.”

But verse 33 says, “When this comes—and come it will!—then they will know that a prophet has been among them.” When what comes? Sudden destruction. Sudden judgment. An eternity in the Lake of Fire. When these things come, and come they will, then they will know. The problem, however, is when it does come, it will be too late, way too late. God said today is the day of repentance; tomorrow is promised to no man.

Dear friends, there are consequences for your actions, and the consequences will come. Make no mistake: the warning has been sounded; you need to listen and obey the voice of your God and seek His holiness.

Heavenly Father, please help me to hear and recognize Your voice, and to seek Your face, and to call upon Your name, that in the great and dreadful day of the LORD, You will find me doing what is pleasing to You, in Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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⁸ Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. ⁹ What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. ~ Philippians 4:8-9

Look at Paul’s instructions to the Philippians. He said, What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things. There are four sources.

1. What you have learned
2. What you have received
3. What you have heard
4. And lastly, what you have seen in me

Far too often Christians will sit through a good sermon where God is speaking directly to them, and they will turn to their neighbor and say, “This one’s for you.” No it’s not, that one was for you. Or they will participate in a really good conference with all kinds of tips and helps and are energized at the conference but as soon as they leave, two days later, they’ve forgotten everything that they were so excited about. What we, as Christians, need to do, is to put into practice what we’ve learned, and what we’ve received, and what we’ve heard and what we’ve seen. Now, I’m not saying that we ought to blindly do all of those things, we must first match all of that up with Scripture.

Because Paul doesn’t leave it to our own interpretation, he says, if it is honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, having any excellence, and is praise worthy, think about these things, or in other words, put these things into practice. He gives us a guide to follow so that we will not be easily led astray with useless things. We must make a conscious effort to find these things, or notice these things and then put them into practice.

What I am saying is we need to put more of what we have learned, received, heard, and seen in Godly Saints, pastors, and teachers into practice. It is no use having all of the best tools but never using them, or only using them for a very short period of time and then go back to the old way. So, let us determine to put what we’ve learned, received, heard, and seen into practice if it lines up with Scripture.

Heavenly Father, help us to put into practice all that we’ve been taught, read in Scripture, and seen in other saints of God. Help us not to become stagnant, but moving forward in growth and maturity in the things of God. In Jesus’ name, amen.

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