Calvary Temple

God had a dual intent and purpose for the children of Israel. On the one hand, He wanted them to learn to trust Him, depend fully upon Him, but He also wanted to bless them. To provide for them. So He took them through the desert, through hardships and trials to teach them.

And God will do the same for us. Whatever it takes—whatever it costs, for us to learn to trust Him, for as Psalm 46:1-3 assures us, He is our refuge and our strength, our very present help in time of trouble. Even when the earth changes beneath our feet or the mountains disappear into the seas, the seas roar and the mountains quake. Still, God’s intent is to be our refuge.

One of the most confusing aspects of Jesus’ power is that of healing. Isaiah 53:5 tells us that the reason Jesus bore vicious beatings and the stripes on his back was for our healing.

Jesus healed every single person who came to him in faith. He also said that those who believe and follow him will have visible signs that follow them—signs that identify believers with Jesus. One of those signs listed in Mark 16:18 includes that believers who have faith in Jesus will lay their hands on sick people in the Name of Jesus, and the sick person will recover.

In the Name of Jesus, be healed. Rise up and walk. Recover. Be well. Colossians 3:17 says that whatever we do, whether we give a word to someone or we do a deed, that we are to do it all in the name of Jesus and then give thanks to the Father. And that’s what we did today!

In the 17th Chapter of Judges is a very disturbing story of how a mother and son blended the teachings of God, which they knew from childhood from the Books of the Law written by Moses, with idolatry to suit themselves. On the one hand, the mother was thankful to God for the good fortune of the return of her stolen money (stolen by her own son!), but on the other hand, she used part of the money to create idols for her son’s house and the son used his own son as a fake priest, overseeing his fake idols…until he found a ‘real Levite priest’ who was willing to serve in the house of idols for money! Verse 6 was certainly true when it said that “every man did what was right in his own eyes.”

Yet, as ludicrous as this sounds, the Apostle Paul wrote in II Timothy 3:5, that in these treacherous last days, we would also see the exposure of men who oppose truth, men of a depraved mind, who rejected the faith and who had a form of godliness, but who would deny the very power of the one true God who could make the pure and holy.

We certainly do see this today, but thanks be to the one true living God, because in Verse 9 he assured us that “they will not make further progress; for their folly will be obvious to all.” Amen!

A prophecy, a prayer, and a praise.  Many times, God uses the physical realm as a prophetic model of what He plans to do in the spiritual realm.  This has recently happened at our church.

In Job, God instructed Job to pray for his friends as they made a sacrifice to God because they mis-spoke about God to Job.  In doing so, God doubly restored all Job’s losses.  Focusing on others is paramount to our own healing.

Praise God for the entirety of the Bible, the logos, which is the inspired word of God. But, the work of the Holy Spirit is to enlighten the RHEMA of the word to our hearts; the RHEMA are those words that make an UTTERANCE to our spirits, and have IMPLICATION to our lives, thereby building the faith that comes by hearing the word of God.

Have you ever felt the need to present your evidence in God’s courtroom of prayer? King Hezekiah did in II Kings 18-19, when Sennacherib, the wicked king of Assyria and his even more wicked cup bearer, Rabshakeh, came against him to seize the throne in Judah.

They brought railing taunts and blasphemies against the Lord God of Israel, so Hezekiah took it to prayer, calling out their crimes and presented all the evidence before God.

God heard Hezekiah and confirmed with signs that He would indeed, deliver Judah from the enemy. God sent a death angel and in one night, when the death angel was finished there were 185,000 corpses in the streets and the king and cupbearer were dead.

God knows where the enemy’s abode is, and where he comes in and goes out and He’s well able to judge the matter on our behalf. We mustn't hesitate to be specific about the “crime,” and spread the evidence before Him.

Genesis Chapter 6 paints a very bleak picture of how evil man had become in such a short time from creation. The Bible says that every thought was continually evil.

Yet, in the midst of all that debauchery, there was a man who was pure in heart and walked with God. Noah was that man and that’s why God chose him to build the ark, to sustain the flood and repopulate the earth.

Sometimes we might become overwhelmed with the conditions in which we live today. But. like Noah, if we remain pure in heart and walk with God we, too, will find the grace in the eyes of the Lord to sustain us through the evils of this present world and not only that, but also be equipped to live with Him in eternity.

In addition, we address recent 'revelations' in congress and in the media regarding aliens and UFOs -- from a bible-based, Christian perspective.

Have you ever wondered why, and how you ended up here on earth? In Genesis 1:26 God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness and He created male and female; and then God BLESSED them, charged them to be fruitful, and gave them dominion over every living thing that moved upon the earth. There’s how.

Wise King Soloman said in Ecclesiastes 7:29 But this one thing I’ve found, God created man to be virtuous. In John 15:16, Jesus said, I appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain; and that you would love one another. There’s why.

He created us to be virtuous, blessed us with all good things, and made us fruitful, both physically and spiritually. How and why.

And Stephen, full of grace and power, was performing great wonders and signs among the people.  Acts 6:8.  Stephen was used powerfully by God in the demonstration of miracles and in preaching the Word of God.  But, yet, evil men took his life for his good deeds.

So, where is the hope in this message? It is in this: that even as these evil-doers were stoning Stephen to death, he looked into Heaven and saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God, waiting to receive his spirit into everlasting life.  He kept his eyes locked upon Jesus, and even prayed for his tormentors.  We may face some impossible situations in life, but by faith, we must keep our eyes steadfastly upon Him.

Have you ever had an encounter with God?  Isaiah saw the Lord, high and lifted up in the Temple and he felt overwhelmed and unholy in the presence of a Holy God.  Moses had an encounter with God when God called him from the burning bush and charged him with leading the children of Israel out of Egypt and he felt incapable. Jacob physically wrestled with God for his blessing, and he was left with a permanent physical mark from the encounter. 

God wants to have encounters with us but we must guard our minds from outside noise and influences, protect our time and keep our ears tuned and listening, if we want to encounter God.

In II Kings 20 we read of the plight of King Hezekiah. In the space of three verses, King Hezekiah was going to die; so then he prayed, and then God reversed his plan and gave King Hezekiah another 15 years of life, and he healed him using a poultice of figs.

Life is truly fragile and our days are numbered by the Lord. Should we be fearful then? Bible tells us that men’s days are like grass; only a fleeting time on this earth. But the lovingkindness of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting. God has given us understanding that we will live again—if we are in Him, meaning if we have accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord. Men are as grass, but our lives are safely held in His hands.