I couldn’t agree more with the emphasis. We started turning our attention and our affection to the Lord. As we come to testimonies, may those testimonies be praise to the Lord. May they be worship to Him—not self-centered, not, “Oh, this is what happened to me,” but giving the Lord the glory and the credit for meeting us this last week.
And particularly, what has He spoken to each one of our hearts that would make a difference in the days ahead? What has He spoken to us? Let’s just review for a minute.
The theme verse for the conference is Revelation 1:1-3:
The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show unto His servants, even the things which must shortly come to pass:
and He sent and signified it by His angel unto His servant John;
who bare witness of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, even of all things that he saw.Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of the prophecy, and keep the things which are written therein:
for the time is at hand.
I just feel personally like this has been a call to us to realize that the time is at hand. Certainly, the events of last week reinforced that. We came home, and there was a terrible terrorist attack in London. The world has gotten used to it. There was not a big shock or outrage. The next day, the stock market went up.
But may we not become used to it. May we remember that the time is at hand.
It is a great warfare, this battle. This terrorist thing is against the Lord and against His Anointed, as it says in Psalm 2. So, the time is at hand.
Then we had one hurricane already, and we have another hurricane well underway—Category 4 this morning, I think, or real close to it. My son David said last week, “Dad, isn’t this really early for hurricanes to be coming?” I said, “I don’t think so.” Then I went home, as someone my age is wont to do, to check Weather.com—and yes, this is very early, in both number and magnitude.
So may we remember that the time is at hand. And what do we do? Do we panic? “Look, I better invest in gold, get out of the stock market, and get it all in gold because things are falling apart. I’ll go out and get a bunch of freeze-dried food and put it in my bomb shelter. I’ll stay out of public transportation so I don’t get terrorized.”
I think I heard a clear word through all the speakers. This is sort of my testimony: I heard a clear word.
Look off to Jesus.
Dig deep.
Abide in Me, and I in you.
Fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith.
In this warfare, everything wants to keep us from doing those very things: abiding, digging deep, and fixing our eyes on Jesus.
One passage, and then I’ll close—a passage I think every speaker used: Philippians 3. If you did not, let’s read Philippians 3. I have got to get a bigger-print Bible.
Let’s read Philippians 3:7-14.
Howbeit what things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ.
Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord:
for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ,
and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law,
but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith:
that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death;
if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead.Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect:
but I press on, if so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus.
Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold:
but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before,
I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Paul had a lot to count as loss. We do not have anything compared to what Paul had, but we can count it as loss for the sake of Christ. This was a man who had gone on way beyond what any of us have even thought about going on, and he wanted to give it all up here at the end of his life: “I count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ.”
That is real gold—not the gold that we invest in on this earth.
So may we all be encouraged to respond this morning and give God glory for what He spoke to us. May it be toward Him receiving praise, and also toward the word being cemented, taking root, and bearing fruit in our lives.
It is already almost a quarter after, so do not wait, because there are only going to be forty-five minutes.
Dana spoke on revelation. That was his theme: revelation as opposed to responsibility. What impressed me was that he talked about there being pioneers and finishers. Let me first read the Scripture he read from 1 Chronicles 29.
Then David the king said unto all the assembly, Solomon my son, whom God hath chosen, is yet young and tender, and the work is great;
for the palace is not for man, but for the Lord God.
Now I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God the gold for the things of gold,
and the silver for the things of silver, and the brass for the things of brass,
the iron for the things of iron, and wood for the things of wood;
onyx stones, and stones to be set, stones for inlaid work, and of divers colors,
and all manner of precious stones, and marble stones in abundance.
Moreover also, because I have set my affection on the house of my God,
seeing that I have a treasure of mine own of gold and silver, I give it unto the house of my God,
over and above all that I have prepared for the holy house.
His emphasis was that David was a pioneer, a beginner, and Solomon was the one who would build the house of the Lord. There are generations; we are passing the torch from one generation to the next. There are those who begin work for the Lord, and there are those who finish.
It really spoke to my heart because God is building His house. He is definitely building His house, and we need to be certain that we are in the place He has given us with regard to the building.
The other Scripture was what John already mentioned, Hebrews 12:
Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses,
lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us,
and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
looking unto Jesus the Author and Perfecter of our faith,
who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising shame,
and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Jesus was not only the Author; He was also the Perfecter. He is the Author and Perfecter of faith. He endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. That is where our focus needs to be: on the Lord Jesus.
But as Dana said, God is speaking to the Solomon generation, who have been laid hold of but have not yet laid hold. As an older sister, I see that the Lord wants to minister through this next generation.
The Lord has given me such a burden for people who are in their fifties, but then He lays on my heart those who are in their thirties, twenties, and even the young children whom the Lord is going to use in this battle that Jerry spoke about in his opening.
There is warfare going on such as I have never seen in my seventy-five years. Whatever the Lord speaks to your heart about being so sold out to Jesus that you are willing to pay the ultimate price, if necessary—willing to lay down your life, if that is what is required—I believe with all my heart that the days are going to get even more intense.
Even as the brothers were speaking about this past week, we have seen battle in our own individual lives. But I praise God that corporately we can encourage one another, lay hold of the Lord for one another, and bear up our brothers and sisters when we see them going through a struggle.
The Bible speaks about bearing one another’s burdens and so fulfilling the law of Christ. It involves love. It involves total submission to Christ.
What Dana said was that pioneers cannot build the house, but they can lay the groundwork. Then he read from 1 Chronicles 28:9:
And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve Him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind;
for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts:
if thou seek Him, He will be found of thee;
but if thou forsake Him, He will cast thee off for ever.
He said that pioneers move ahead, but they make mistakes along the way. However, may we each want to find our place in the Body right now for what the Lord has for us. Thank you.
I just feel like I have to follow my sister there, because it pertains to what I am about to say. I will make this short.
As many of you know, I have not been around lately in the fellowship or been responsible for taking up my role as the Lord has put me in the Body, in the assembly. I think my problem was that I was unsure at one point how to hear from the Lord.
I figured that if I could not hear from Him, and I did not know what He was telling me to do, then how would I know what to pray, where to be, what to say, what not to say, or what to do? It threw me for a pretty big loop.
I know the Spirit had me at the conference when I could be there, and it meant a great deal. When I was at the conference, the Lord spoke to me very clearly, I felt. He sent me a very clear message through a saint.
This woman came up to me one time and told me, “The Lord has a message for you, and He gave it to me to get to you.” I was like, “Okay, this should be interesting.”
She told me that He had a question for me. The question was, “What can I do for you?”
Immediately, I was very humbled. I was like, “Wow.” I started thinking, “The Lord of the universe wants to know what He can do for me”—in the sense that He was really asking, “Whatever it is, what can I do for you?”
I feel it was from the Lord because it led me straight back to the Lord. Things from the enemy do not usually do that. No, I am serious. The enemy is not going to lead you to Christ, so I really thought that this was from Him.
At first, temporal things came into my mind: “I am having problems with this. If You could just fix this up, that would be great.” Then you start thinking a little more, and you are really thinking about the Lord: “What can You do for me? He has asked me this.”
She said, “Well, it was one thing. If He could do one thing…” I said, “Okay, well, it is going to be one thing. I have got to take some time to think about this.”
Then I began to think a little bigger. I heard in the conference message that Solomon asked for wisdom to guide the people, and then all the riches came after. But the Lord knows I know that now, so I am not going to ask for wisdom in the sense that I want to get what He thinks I should ask for and then have all these things added to me.
I was still thinking about it, and you know what I think the point was? I think the point was not that I was actually going to ask Him for something and He was going to give it to me. I think He just wanted me to think about Him.
I thought to myself, “He has already given everything to me. What else is He going to do?” I just need to be thinking about that.
I had a small example come to me. I was thinking, “Even if I do not hear the Lord right all the time, or think I do when things happen, I would rather be walking a straight line, looking at Him, and tripping and stumbling—with people and Him picking me up—while I am still going this way, instead of saying, ‘I cannot hear the Lord, so I will go look for Him over here,’ and then ending up over there.”
What Brother Kenny said at the table pertains to this: “Consider well Who is before you.” I have been considering the Lord and what He has done for me, and He has done it all. He could not do any more because He has already done it all. If He could, I am sure He would.
So, to the Lord be the glory. I am glad to be here and see all of you.
I have been going to the conference ever since I was born, and this year it was a little different. Our teacher was Mrs. Henshire, and she told us two stories that really spoke to me.
The first story was about a wealthy man who loved horses. He had millions of horses and loved to watch races. He had an enemy who did not like him for some really stupid reason—I do not remember why. The enemy wanted to make the rich man jealous.
One day, the enemy got an evil plan. He bought a pony that would grow up to be a great racer, a stallion. He put the pony on a stake in the middle of a field, where the pony had to go in circles and carry big weights.
The evil man knew that the rich man would feel soft toward the horse and feel guilty, and perhaps give up his land for this poor horse. The evil man always wanted the rich man’s palace and everything.
The rich man was driving home and saw the pony. He knew the evil man had put him there on purpose. So the rich man sent one of his servants to the evil man’s house to see if he could buy the land and take the pony with it. The evil man said no.
The rich man sent two more people, and the evil man said no to both of them. This went on for a couple of months. The rich man felt so sorry for the pony that he finally went to the evil man’s house himself.
He told the evil man that he would give him all his riches, his palace, his land, and everything, just for this pathetic pony that was on the verge of dying. He said, “If this pony wins the race, then I will get everything back—I can have my land and everything back.”
The evil man knew that the pony would not win the race because it was so pathetic. But the rich man took the pony, made him into a great stallion, and made him win the race. So he got all his land back.
The second story was about another wealthy man who had one son, his only son. The son went to war, and the father found out that his son had died. He was very sad.
A couple months after that, a man came to the door and said, “Your son rescued me in the war. He died because of me. I drew this picture of him because I wanted you to remember him and how he saved my life when he did not have to.”
The father was very touched by this, so he put the painting on his mantel over the fireplace. A couple months later, the father died. The auctioneer was selling all his paintings because the father had many paintings worth a great deal of money.
The painting of his son was not very good at all. The auctioneer said, “Does anyone want to buy this painting?” Of course, no one wanted to buy it because it was awful.
There was a gardener in the back who had only ten dollars. He said, “I will buy the painting.” The auctioneer asked, “Does anyone else want to buy the painting besides this gardener? He is only going to pay ten dollars.” No one else spoke up.
The auctioneer said, “Sold for ten dollars,” and then began to walk away. Everyone said, “Come back! What are you doing? We want to buy the paintings.”
He said, “Whoever bought this painting gets it all.” So the gardener pretty much paid ten dollars for a palace, a lot of money, paintings, and everything.
The point of the two stories is this: in the first one, even though we were pretty pathetic, as our teacher said—dumb lambs—God was the great Shepherd. He took us in even though we were practically on the verge of dying from sin.
In the second story, if we have God in our hearts, we can receive great riches and miracles that can help us all. That is it.
For the last four years or so, the verse I have pretty much been standing on is Proverbs 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
There were times when I really did not believe that, and it took a lot of faith to get through that. As the conference was approaching and we were registering, I had this picture of my whole family going to the conference.
We checked with everybody and registered everybody, just kind of hoping. But I realized later that my picture of everyone being at the conference was really about perfection—“the whole perfect family here.” It was not so much about God. It was more about my whole family being where I thought they were supposed to be.
My mom went to Atlanta, and she was where she was supposed to be, with my brother. My older daughter, Melissa, has found her own way spiritually, which was pretty much what I knew she was going to do anyway. I need to leave her alone and let her do her thing.
That left us down to Claire and our son-in-law. They had planned to come on Tuesday night, which was the only night he was not working. But Monday, when we went home to check on things, I got a call from Claire. She has a newborn, and she said, “Mom, please come. The baby is throwing up everything.”
I went, and we were down to throwing up Pedialyte. We still planned to come back that night, and they were still going to come the next night. That was the plan.
Well, as it turned out, the baby did not get any better. Wayman and I ended up at the emergency room with her the rest of the evening while they tried to figure out what was wrong. Nobody ever really figured it out, and she is fine, but the doctor said she should not go anywhere around crowds the next day because she was so young.
I was devastated. It was like my whole idea of us all being there—the family—was broken. I tried so hard not to push her. But she said to me, “Mom, it’s okay. We can all go next year, and things will be better. We can put her in the nursery, just like I was always in the classes.”
She has often said to me, “We are going to raise the child just like you raised me,” and I think, “You know what you are saying?”
I want to read James 5:13-16:
Is any among you suffering? Let him pray.
Is any cheerful? Let him sing praise.
Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church;
and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
and the prayer of faith shall save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up;
and if he have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him.
Confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed.
The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working.
I realized that it is not about the conference. It is not about any particular meeting, being there, or being in attendance. This idea I had was just an earthly idea of how it was all going to end.
We just have to have faith that our children will take up and take hold, and have faith in the Lord. Thank you.
Well, with that, I guess it is my turn.
As always, conference was such a blessing, from the Saturday workday right through Friday afternoon when we came home. But the one thing that touched my heart most was Brother Kong’s first ministry.
He spoke of God taking the risk of giving man free will because He did not want robots. He wanted man’s love, but not a forced love.
Then he said, “Out of the failure of man, God came in with something bigger, something more.”
With tears and a quivering voice, he shared, “We never know the love of God until we see Him give His only begotten Son, the One always pleasing to Him, to show His love. To you and me, He is willing to let go His only begotten Son.”
A few weeks ago, I gave my testimony of how God is such a great, loving, merciful Redeemer. He took a sinful situation and redeemed it. He has been doing that for thousands of years.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had glorious and miraculous beginnings with God, and from them came the nation of Israel. He redeemed them from captivity in Egypt and meant for them to be the head and a light to the nations.
Solomon’s kingdom was glorious, but they forgot their God and went into captivity again, to both Assyria and Babylon. Finally, with the rejection of the Messiah, they were dispersed among the nations. But He has now brought them back, and one day soon they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son.
Micah 4:1-2 says:
But in the latter days it shall come to pass,
that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains,
and it shall be exalted above the hills;
and peoples shall flow unto it.
And many nations shall go and say,
Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
and to the house of the God of Jacob;
and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths:
for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
The church had a glorious beginning on the day of Pentecost. But how many times has she been taken into captivity by false doctrines, with only a remnant remaining?
But Ephesians 5:27 says that one day He will present to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish.
Saul had a glorious Damascus-road experience, but Paul experienced Romans 7:19:
For the good which I would I do not:
but the evil which I would not, that I do.
But he was molded by his Lord. Each one of us has had glorious salvation experiences and mountaintop experiences, but we have also had our valleys of sin, mistakes, and failure.
Yet it is in our failures and our weakness that He shows Himself as a loving, merciful Redeemer. He has promised us Jude 1:24:
Now unto Him that is able to guard you from stumbling,
and to set you before the presence of His glory without blemish in exceeding joy.
Finally, one day God will have His great city, His holy Jerusalem. Revelation 21:10-14 says that its gates will have the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel, and the walls of the city will have twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
How ever grateful we will be that we will be there. But it is only because God gave His only begotten Son, who went to Calvary to be our great, loving, merciful Redeemer.
So, with our brother Jude, we will forever say:
To the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord,
be glory, majesty, dominion and power,
before all time, and now, and for evermore. Amen.
And I love what Lance said: “Amen means, ‘I believe.’”
In that story Callie shared, when the auctioneer was trying to sell the painting of the son, what he said was, “The son! The son! Will no one take the son?”
When that one man stood up and took the son for such a small price, he got everything. Now, will we take the Son and receive everything that the Lord has for us?
Sometimes the Lord speaks to us in just a phrase rather than an entire ministry, although He does speak to us in entire ministries. Lance made a statement on Wednesday: “We have many things buried in Achan’s tent. We need to come clean with the Lord.”
That was a profound statement to me. The Lord led me to Joshua 7. The whole chapter deals with Achan’s sin, but beginning in verse 11:
Israel hath sinned; yea, they have even transgressed My covenant which I commanded them:
for they have even taken of the devoted thing, and have also stolen, and dissembled also;
and they have even put it among their own stuff.
Therefore the children of Israel cannot stand before their enemies;
they turn their backs before their enemies, because they are become accursed:
neither will I be with you any more, except ye destroy the devoted thing from among you.
Then, in Joshua 7:19-26:
And Joshua said unto Achan, My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the Lord, the God of Israel,
and make confession unto Him; and tell me now what thou hast done; hide it not from me.And Achan answered Joshua, and said, Of a truth I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel,
and thus and thus have I done:
when I saw among the spoil a goodly Babylonish mantle, and two hundred shekels of silver,
and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them and took them;
and, behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it.So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran unto the tent;
and, behold, it was hid in his tent, and the silver under it.
And they took them from the midst of the tent, and brought them unto Joshua,
and unto all the children of Israel; and they laid them down before the Lord.And Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah,
and the silver, and the mantle, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters,
and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had:
and they brought them up unto the valley of Achor.
And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us?
the Lord shall trouble thee this day.
And all Israel stoned him with stones; and they burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones.
The Lord led me to three other Scriptures. Psalm 90:8 says:
Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee,
our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance.
Psalm 19:12 says:
Who can discern his errors?
Clear Thou me from hidden faults.
And 1 Corinthians 4:5 says:
Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come,
who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness,
and make manifest the counsels of the hearts.
This statement Lance made, as brief as it was, spoke to me not only of the consequences of our secret sin, but also of the repercussions it can have on others: the defeat, the suffering, and even the Lord’s statement, “Neither will I be with you any more.” It puts in jeopardy our fellowship with the Lord.
Yet, in the midst of this, Joshua has such a precious, merciful entreaty to Achan. He says, “My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the God of Israel, and make confession unto Him.” He calls him his son.
When Kenny opened the meeting this morning, he talked about the mercy of God and how He is uncondemning. I thought, “Here is the Lord entreating us: uncover these secret sins and make confession.”
Then we see, as a result of the sin, the severity of the punishment that came not only on Achan but on his sons, his daughters, and everything they owned. I really believe that speaks of the repercussions when we continue to harbor secret sin in our hearts.
But the Lord, in His mercy, just as He entreated Achan so gently, shows us that there is a way: the way of confession. The Lord desires that we make these things known, that we confess them.
It brought me to that song Dana recorded:
Every key, every key to my heart, Lord Jesus—
can it be that You see every secret, hidden doorway?
Enter in, cleanse from sin, fill with strength and power.
Prayerfully, I give to Thee every key.
May that be the prayer of our hearts: that the Lord would, one by one, help us surrender these hidden, secret sins and open those doors, because He is offering us the key—the key of confession to God.
Achan was taken to the Valley of Achor, which means trouble. That is why Joshua said, “Why hast thou troubled us?” Yet Isaiah 65 says that He will make Achor a place for the herds to lie down, for His people who have sought Him.
When we seek the Lord, make confession, and give Him an open doorway to cleanse us from these sins, He makes the Valley of Achor a door of hope, just as He also says in Hosea. I believe the Lord truly has a way of hope for us, but He desires those secret doorways.
John read Philippians 3, was it? “More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”
As you may know, we have school-age children. When June comes around, everything is a rush as we get them prepared for exams. The conference theme is, “The time is at hand.” Another way of saying that is, “There is not much time.”
I remember when I was in school. I am no longer in school, so I can joke that I do not have any more tests to take. Sometimes I wish I did not say that.
When I was in school, every day involved studying, preparing for exams, and listening to teachers. So when tests and exams came, they were not such a burden because you had prepared.
I think the Lord reminds us in the same way through this conference: there is not much time. We may not think that we are going to be tested by the Lord Himself, but we have to remember that when the Lord comes, we shall all appear before the judgment seat.
How do we prepare for it? The Lord reminded me in these words: “I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” That is how we prepare to meet the Lord.
In the little time we have today, what do we occupy our lives with? Paul said, “All things.” I think what he meant is that anything that hinders us from knowing the Lord has to be cast aside.
That is how the Lord spoke to me through the conference: He reminded me once again that even though I do not have to take any more school exams, we are all in the school of Christ. We are all learning Him.
We should be occupied in our lives with a new passion to come to know the Lord. As the Lord comes—as a brother shared—it is only a short time. It will not be much more time until we are truly prepared to meet our Lord Himself.
The last call got me. I do not want to miss the last call. I tell you, none of us wants to miss the last call.
I think it was obvious that the Lord tremendously impressed upon my heart this year His soon return. I went to the conference with my heart saying, “Lord, You have got to get my heart ready,” knowing, of course, that I do not know if anyone could say, “Oh, I am really ready.”
It was interesting to me how the Lord touched me personally at the conference through the ministry of my brothers. I was wondering what the Lord was going to do to get me ready. Frankly, all I could see was the Lord’s love.
The tremendous impact on me personally was the Lord’s love for me, and also for all of us. I said, “Well, Lord, in this last hour, what could be greater than to have a deep affection for the Lord Jesus?”
Without that deep affection, we are not going to desire His return. That is what I really saw the Lord wanting to do: to touch our hearts deeply and show His great affection for us, that there might be affection in return.
When Brother Stephen shared about free will, I had known about free will for many years—I have exercised it ever since I was about six months old, I guess. But I had never really considered what a great gift free will is.
We are the only creatures that really have free will, and how carefully this gift should be utilized and given back to the Lord, that it might be His will. The Lord really touched me with that.
Then I thought, “Well, Lord, I have got this free will, but I do not seem to exercise it very well.”
Brother Stephen spoke on what the Lord gives to us of His very life—His life residing in us. I have known this for many years, but at the conference it became very personal for me: His life residing in me.
That is what will get us through in this last hour: His life coming forth. One of the brothers mentioned the need to see the reality of His life. Is it just a doctrine that we hold, or is it something the Lord has really revealed to us?
It is His life that is going to make it through, and that life needs to be exercised. We cannot do it. It has been said many times before: it is not a changed life, but an exchanged life.
Afterwards, I said, “Well, Lord, I know what is coming. After the conference is over, all this testing is going to happen.” And it did. The enemy wants to draw us, the old man, back to the world and back to the things of this world and this life.
As soon as that happened to me, a verse came to my heart. The Lord gave it to me: “I do not know the man.”
Now, that was used by Peter when he denied our Lord Jesus Christ. It was as if the Lord was saying, “Okay, Jerry, it is time for you to deny the old man like Peter denied Me. I do not know him. He is dead. He has been crucified.”
That helped me tremendously. Then he kept persisting, and another verse came: “Away with him.”
Those were the very words they used for our Lord Jesus Christ before He went to the cross. The crowd said, “Away with Him.” It was as if the Lord was saying, “Jerry, away with him—away with the old.”
Hallelujah. May we be encouraged. The Lord loves us. I do not know any other way to say it, but the Lord loves us so deeply.
I really think the way of preparation in this last hour is that He is going to have to regain our affections for Him. Otherwise, we will not be longing for Him as the Bridegroom.
May the Lord be merciful—I know He is. May He touch our hearts anew and afresh. I pray that everyone’s heart was touched at the conference in some way. Do not lose what the Lord has given. I pray in Jesus’ name.
I will not say anything about the linens or any of that. That was an exciting time—how the Lord prepared my heart, running up and down the stairs doing the linens.
Really, there was just so much. I cannot imagine anyone here, if I asked individually, “What did the Lord say to you?” not saying something, because He spoke in so many ways.
It was interesting to me to talk to my children and ask them, “What did you get from the conference?” Kyle told me, “The music.” He loved the music. He is a little boy. Then he mentioned his craft. He loved being able to hammer and make the trophies.
Then Callie spoke about her teachers, and one of Courtney’s teachers spoke to me about Courtney. It was good.
As much as the ministry, the speaking, the messages, and all that Stephen, Lance, and all the others shared—and being able to talk to Rob afterward and share the ministries with one another, which was so encouraging to me—it was watching the Lord through the people.
Watching the sisters pushing screaming babies; watching the teenagers and college-age children make these fabulous things; watching the obstacle course being made—I do not think I could have gotten through it. Seeing how the Lord used His people just blessed me so much.
One of the brothers shared the story about handicapped children in the Special Olympics. The children were in a race, running for the goal, and one of them stumbled. Two of the other children came back, picked the child up, and carried him to the finish line.
That is what I saw this week in the ministry. I saw brothers and sisters disregarding their age and their limitations, just depending on the Lord and letting the Lord use them. They went out of their comfort zones, said no to the old man, and let the Lord use them in many ways.
I would like to thank everyone who allowed the Lord to use them. I thank the Lord for using you—all of you who were a part of the ministry, in whatever little way it might have seemed.
I thank you all for blessing my family and encouraging us. May we all continue to do that as we get closer to the finish line: encourage one another, allow the Lord to use us, and let Him knit us together.
Take these ministries and messages we heard and talk about them as you walk along the way, as you sit, as you get ready for bed, as you wake up in the morning, and when you talk to someone on the phone. Encourage them. Bring back some of these things you heard. Share them with one another.
Let us see what we can do to lift each other up, carry each other to the finish line, and encourage one another.
Let’s close in prayer.
Lord, we thank You for speaking. Lord, we believe and trust that You have spoken to each one of us a living word, and we pray that You would keep that word which You have spoken.
We pray that the things spoken this morning would be encouragement to each one of us. We pray that the love of God would be manifest in our hearts and shed abroad in our hearts.
We pray that the Body of Christ might be built up by the love of God shed abroad in our hearts, one with another. We pray that You would quicken to us the hour that it is.
Lord, have mercy on us that we not get off. As Johnny shared, we might take a big detour just off the road. Keep us out of the ditch. Keep us encouraging one another and carrying one another to the finish line.
We pray that You would keep our eyes sharp, keep our attention focused on You, and turn us away from the things that distract us. We pray that You would cause each one of us to rise up and stay in the race.
We pray that we would be those who are building up the Body of Christ and hastening Your return.
Have mercy on sinners such as we. At the same time, build Your house in our midst. We thank You for what You have done, and pray that You would seal it up in Jesus’ name.