Sunday VT – 02/01/2015

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Speakers:

• Steve Atherton
• Charles Hocker

Scriptures used:

• Matthew 13:9-17
• James 1:17-25

Subject:

• Hearing is a gift from God.  How many times do we hear the Word of God and turn away from it?
• It is a testimony against me.  I have been given the opportunity to hear the Word, and how many times have I turned from it?  When I look at my life I’m like that man in James beholding himself in a glass and goeth his way and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he is.
• We are in a place where things are going to break forth.  We have to receive that Word that the Lord has given us, and to deliver it to the churches out there that we have given us.  In order for there to be hope it has to be delivered.  It’s only by His Word that we can have hope.
• We sang a song just before the preaching.  His love came down and turned me around.  The switch that is being thrown in our lives, is that when you testify about your miserableness and your failings.  That is true of every single one of us.  His love came down and turned me around.  I didn’t turn myself around.
• The movie The Hiding Place is a movie from a book written by Corrie Ten Boom from Holland, a Christian woman during WWII.  She and her sister and father and other family, at personal risk to themselves, chose to protect Jews.  They built a hiding place for the Jews.  As they chose this their pastor came by and told them not to do what they were doing.  The pastor was a coward.  The other people were righteous and good and wouldn’t do a thing like that.  That is cowardice.
• When you read about the men and women of God in the scripture, are they testifying of themselves?  Not a single one.  Moses wasn’t ready to do what the Lord wanted him to do, but he went back to Egypt, and did what the Lord commanded.
• At the end of the movie, Corrie, the woman, was interviewed.  She looked like a happy old lady.  She seems bright and joyous.  She testifies of when she was giving Jews a place to stay and be safe, and putting her own family’s life in danger.  They were in their own home, and the neighbors knew about it and yet they were hidden in plain sight.  Someone betrays them and they were caught and the Jews got away, miraculously.  Her dad is dead within 10 days, her sister dies in a work camp.  The Lord prepared her for the work she had to do.  Every time someone came to the door, she was thinking it was her that might be carried away.  She wasn’t some pillar of strength, she was terrified.
• Her simple prayer:  Lord, I’m not strong enough.  Help me.  Then she saw a little ant and went to try and get it and it crawled into a crack and the Lord showed her that He was her hiding place.  He hides you in plain sight so you can’t see a wall around you and sends you forth saying trust Me, I am your hiding place.
• Where did God hide Moses?  In Pharaoh’s household.  Where did he hide David?  Amongst the Philistines at times.  You have to stand and trust Him in the midst of that and love the one in front of you.
• Corrie is on the cattle cars and going to the work camp.  She prays and asks the Lord to hide her bible, so she could get into the camp with it.  Every person as they step forward is fully searched.  The person before her fell and caused people to look and instead of waiting to be searched, she went through and wasn’t searched.  If she had not stepped through when the Lord opened the door, she would have been searched.  You do these things by faith.  Jesus died for us, and because He died for us we don’t have to be a poor miserable schlep any more, we are in Him.   If you don’t walk in it how will others be brought the truth?
• They could die for preaching that Word in the camp and sharing it.  They had bible studies twice a day!  The barracks was so miserable with lice, etc. that the prison guards wouldn’t go in there, that gave them a separation so that they could preach and read the Word.
• The testimony was both would be free.  Betsy got free because she died, and Corrie got out by a clerical error.  She was in her 50s when she went in.  Her testimony was even in that hell hole, nothing can separate you from the love of God.  It was not a testimony of David, or Paul the apostle, but because she was the person and no one could take away the truth of God being with her in the midst of that place.
• God does not want you or me to be hid.  He does not want you or me to be afraid.  He does want us to be wise.  He wants us to treat the enemy with kindness, as Corrie did to the gestapo who came into the shop.
• Anybody who will stand up is in danger.  These things from this movie can happen right now, and we have to realize that Jesus is bigger than that.
• With man, these things are impossible.  But with God, all things are possible.  I can’t imagine what the people in the bible went through such as Jeremiah, Daniel in the fiery furnace, etc., and William Tyndale being burned at the stake, I can’t imagine me passing through any of these things.  I see me as a big coward and not wanting them at all.  But I know that God is bigger than any of that.  All we have to do is look to the Lord in whatever situation we are in.