Video Transcript: The Cry For Spiritual Fathers and Mothers: Chapter 8 Can These Burned Stones Live?
One of my favorite stories in whole bible was the story of Nehemiah, when he was called by God to rebuild the wall. He got this revelation of His brother, who saw the walls were torn down, and he prayed and sought God, went to the king. He's, you know, he great, the book of Nehemiah is a great story to help us know how to fulfill a vision. May help you as you're planting a house church, look at what he did. And he got the vision from God. He really got it through his brother. He didn't get it directly from God. Guys, God used his brother. And then he he prayed and sought God and and obviously the Scriptures. And then went to the king his authority and was released, and he didn't go tell everybody. He's went step by step. You know, he went at night with a few people, and they walked around, you know, saw the walls down. And that is really important. You may say you're called a plant a house church. You don't need to go tell everybody. Just tell a few. Start with a few. And otherwise, you get the naysayers that people will say, well, it will never happen. Why are you doing that? Well, they say, why aren't you moving faster? You get all these opinions. You start with a few. Get intercessors and people you trust to pray. And then they, you know, they started building the wall. Of course, there's a lot of opposition. We know that they obey God. They had a sword in one and a saw in into on the other hand, you know, he had all these families said all over the wall. He was, he was a master delegator and and Nehemiah was just a real man of integrity. And 52 days, a wall was built. But in the midst of it all, they had some real issues with some of the enemies of God. We have Sanballat was an enemy of God, and His enemy, their enemy, and he would constantly try to tear down the work. And here's what he did. And I find that many people today experiences in chapter 4 of Nehemiah, in verse 1, says, When Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he became angry. It was greatly incense. When you take a step of faith and plant and start a house church, there will be people who probably will not understand. They might say things about you that aren't true. Well, what's wrong with him? He's gonna split our church or whatever. Say all kinds of things. And the Bible says he ridiculed the Jews. And in the verse 2, in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria, he said, What are these feeble Jews doing? Just put them down. What do you think you're doing? He says, You In other words, in other words, he's doing all he can to stop the work of God. He said, What are thesepeople doing? Will they restore their wall? They gotta do that. I never do it, though. When people say, you'll never plant a church, they'll never plant a network of churches. No, it won't do that. But if God's called you, and you have these few people in your life who are affirming you and standing with you, and God's building a team around you, continue to obey God, step by step by step, then he says, Will they finish in a day? Of course, they were trying to finish a day. Took them 52 days. They were obeying God. Then he said, this, can they bring the stones back to life from these, those heaps of rubble burn as they are. In other words, all these stones had been burned. The wall was down. They
were taking these burn stones and placing them back on the wall. He says he can able to do that. Can they actually take burn stones and bring them back and put them on the wall in the midst of this rubble and and the truth is, the answer is yes, and it actually happened. And they built this amazing wall around Jerusalem, and God's blessing was there. And God used Nehemiah and the others who work with him. They each found their place on the wall, and it really happened in 52 days. But what is to look at is this the devil today, I believe, is doing the same thing. He's telling God's people, look, you're a burned stone. Yeah, you were doing well in the past, but you got burned. Something happened. Somebody burned you. Somebody hurt you. You're burning stone. Do you think that God can ever use you? You've had a problem, maybe in marriage problem, maybe in family problem, maybe at work problem, in a church, problem, in relationships problem. And maybe there's areas of sin and you've repented of it, but the devil keeps trying to bring it back in condemnation, even though Jesus sets you free because of his cross. Well, you're burned stone that can you live? Can God use you? The answer is yes, God wants to use you. You can plant a house church, or do whatever. Be the spiritual mother, father, he's called you to be. So I want to read you again. I Peter 2:5, did you also like a living stone? That's you are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ is, yes, you're a living stone. You're being built together into a spiritual house. So when we come to Christ, we're alive spiritually, and God's building us together. And in your case, as you're taking this training, you're praying. Say, God, are you calling me to start a house church? You say, Could I really do that? Am I too burned with the more burned you are when God restores you, the stronger you're going to be. You know, sometimes we get burned in discouraged. You know, the devil says, how you think you can function with all the baggage you carry around. You had a broken relationship, or you made too many mistakes. How can you help anybody out? The devil is the. Accuser. He's accusing us day and night. God is the restorer. He's redemptive. He's saying, Yes, I will use you, turn your heart toward me. I will cleanse you. Have people pray for you, Confess your faults, one to another, and pray that you may be healed. It's powerful, but so we can, yes, we can be set free. So what we have to do is this, we must believe God and not the lies of the enemy. It's so easy to believe the lies of the enemy. No, we need to believe God instead. And you know you might feel unable to fulfill God's call in your life right now because something has happened. But I want you to know that God is for you, and that God loves you, and he wants to take a burn stone, and he wants to make it stronger than ever before. Burn stones were charred. They looked useless, but God's people chose not to look at those visible circumstances, and they saw that wall built, and you'll see your house church built, or house church network built, or wherever God's called you to walk in. Another great example is
Mephibosheth. Remember him, Mephibosheth in II Samuel 9. For many years, he believed a lie. You know, he was of the lineage of Jonathan, and Jonathan was the lineage of Saul. And in those days, you know, David became king. And with Jonathan and his father, Saul, were killed in battle, and David became king, and Mephibosheth realized he better flee, because in those days, they would decapitate the families of anyone who's left of the former regime. And so he lived it. Lived in this little place, this place called Lodobar, and he was he was told someday David might catch up with him, he might find you. He will kill you. It's just a matter of time. And one day they saw him as distant soldiers coming from David, from David's palace. And he thought, This is it. It's over. And they came and they took him. They took him before the king. And when they took him before the king, Mephibosheth, the Bible said, he said, I'm a dead dog. He fell on the ground before, before David. David said, Get up. Get him up. Help him up. He used to sit at my table. He said, your father and my father made a covenant. See, our Father in Heaven has made a covenant through Jesus Christ with us. And he says, No, regardless of what happened, he wants to us to pick us up and get us started again and sit us at his table, and we can do the things that he called us to do. So I find so many people have been burned or dropped. Maybe you know Mephibosheth. He had been dropped a nurse when they were running out of you, when they realized that the David's armies were coming, just a little boy, she dropped him. And you know he was, he was lame, and he walked with a limp, and he thought, well, how you know this? Terrible things happen to me and where David finds me, where David found him. But he said, Look, you're going to sit at my table, and you may walk with a limp. say, man, I've been dropped and somebody hurt me. Maybe a pastor dropped you. Maybe a parent dropped you. So to speak, spiritually, speaking, you've been wounded emotionally, but God says, I want you to know that I'm going to heal you. There is a covenant. In the covenant, praise God for the covenant, Abraham, we understand in the covenant Jesus on the cross, and because of that covenant, we can walk in freedom. You know, I have a friend in Uganda, my friend, Ephraim, and he's a precious man of God, very close friend of mine. And Ephraim helped plant hundreds of churches all over Uganda, and there's a missionary from North America who've been working with him, and he found one day the missionary was using him to raise money in a way that was unethical, and Ephraim had to leave that ministry. And it's terrible. What happened this man who is a quote, unquote missionary using money instead using money for for self, selfish gain, rather than building the kingdom, and actually sent thugs to his house to burn his house down. And he was, it was so, so devastated. And he found, he found a group called Fear fund in England, and that Fear fund gave him money to get more education. He went to Nairobi be Kenya. He enrolled in Daystar University. While he was there. One of his professors was my friend Ibram on Monday, whom I've talked about a few times during this. Course, he's
a man of stature in that part of the world, and Ibram invited him to his church and and you get involved in a house fellowship. And he somehow, he somehow experienced God and experienced love, experienced fullness and and healing in a way he never had before. And eventually, I remember when I met him, and I was so devastated by what I heard. It when I heard his story. Have someone from my continent, he could do something like that to this precious man. I remember I wept. I don't cry easily. Remember I wept and I said, I'm so sorry. I will stand in the gap for this person. I don't know who did this from my continent, I'm so sorry. And God brought healing to him and healing to us, and he went back to his country and began to plant churches. Today, there are more DOVE International churches in his country than any country in the world at the time of this taping, because God restored him. And even though he was dropped, God took him and put him back on his wall of service. Most Amazing, amazing Way. He's now helping many others. So if you've been burned or you've been dropped, I want you to know that God loves to restore you know, Paul said it like this when he wrote to Timothy. II Timothy 4:7, I fought the good fight. I finished the race. I've kept the faith. And, you know, near the end of his life, and all those who left him, he still said, I fought the good fight. I finished a race, and I've kept the faith, and may we do the same. There's this little scripture in in the book of Numbers 5, starting in verse 11, and I won't read it here, but it's a story of when a man and his wife are having problems, and a man is convinced that his wife has committed adultery, and she said, No, I have not committed adultery. And they, you know, how do they know what really happened? And the Bible says, There he and I paraphrase. They go to the priest, and they go the priest, and the priest hears their story, and the priest then gets a cup, and he gets a cup, and he goes down the floor and puts dirt in the cup, and then he gives it to the wife to drink, because she said, No, I have not committed adultery. He says, Yes, you have. And she drinks it. And the Bible makes it clear, again, I paraphrase this Bible makes it clear that if she is guilty, her thigh will rot and she'll probably die, but if she's not guilty, she'll live and be fruitful and have many children. Now, what is the moral of the story? The moral of the story is either way she has to drink that cup. And there's times we have to drink the cup. There's times people lie about us, people abuse us, people hurt us, we simply drink the cup because God will vindicate you. I've been vindicated many times. We're ever trying to vindicate myself, it doesn't work. Please trust God. Just trust Jesus. You trust him. Sometimes it's taken 10 years, 15 years, sometimes even longer. But you know, I've had a man in my life who he left our church. Is a man in leadership. He left our church and and he believed lies about me and and years later he called me the phone. He said, Can we sit down and talk? And sat down with another one of our brothers in the Lord. And he said, I want you to know that God showed me something. He was now part of another church. He said, What the Lord showed me is this. He said, there are two ministries before the throne
of God. One is a ministry of intercession. The others a ministry of accusation. Obviously, Jesus is ministering, ministering intercession for us day and night. The devil is accusing us accusation day and night. Then he said this. He said, I realized I was in the wrong ministry. I was in ministry of accusation rather intercession. So I'm so sorry. Will you forgive me? I said, Why forgave you years ago, of course, that man today is one of my personal intercessors, praying for me as I'm giving this teaching here that's going throughout the world here through CLI Now, why is that important? Because God's a Vindicator, and because I had to for many years, I knew some things were happening behind the scenes, we simply have to drink the cup, and you allow God to vindicate because he is a Vindicator, and you can trust him to do that. So I thank God for His grace, and I thank God for His vindication. Let me just give you a couple steps to be restored. I find this is work for me. Many times I mentioned Galatians, 3:13, and in the and another setting, you know, Jesus became a curse for us. Jesus redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse. For us, the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. I John 3:8. And you know, I just want you to know that God is the one restores because the curse has been broken. Here's some steps of help me. It's faith that unlocks the door. It's just believing that things can change. You know, a friend of mine in India many years ago, a pastor said, the Bible says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. He said, in my part of the world, I can see that. He said, faith comes. I see it coming. It's coming. I read the word, it's coming. It's coming. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. We spiritual fathers and mothers impart truth and faith into our sons and daughters by the word of God. And secondly, we need to stake our claim. Joshua 1:2-3, God promised the children of Israel. He given the land they had to walk on the land. We need to stake our claim and to take it from the enemy. Number three, receive prayer from someone you trust. Ice mentioned a few moments ago. James 5:16, confess your sins to each other. Pray for each other. You may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and is effective. So find someone you trust, have them pray for you that God would heal them the memories of what you've been walking through and again, this is if you've been, if you've been somehow hurt, because you've got to be free to be a house church planter, free to help people find out Sure. I mean, the skies are limited to what God was to do in your life in your life in the future. But we need to find freedom so we can walk in that freedom and then be patient. It doesn't happen overnight. Hebrews 6:12, imitate those who, through faith and patience, inherit what has been promised. I learned something years ago tonight, the people really It hurt me. And you know, I thought, I kept thinking, Man, this is so painful. I wake up every day I think about these people and things, as they said, and then I read how the Corrie Ten Boom, Corrie Ten Boom was in a concentration camp, remember in Holland, years ago during the II World War, and how, after
she was out, after the war was over, and her sister, you know, they were persecuted and and her sister was badly hurt by this, this, this certain general, or there is certain soldier, I'm sorry. And she saw this soldier years later at a Christian meeting here. He was a believer now, and something rose up in her heart, and she said, I had a hardest time forgiving this man. And can we forgive people? Because Jesus forgive us. We forgive people so we can walk in freedom. And even though we don't feel like, I never feel like forgiving people, I do it because Jesus forgave me. I do because if I don't forgive others, God can't forgive me. You know, Matthew 6:14-15. And so she said, I learned something that day, and I call it the bell theory. She said, I learned when you pull a bigger church bell, she didn't, we have people pray for you, and you receive healing, she said, and you ask God to heal you the memory, it might come back the next day, but you pull that bell, it's really loud, bang, Clang, Clang, Clang, but less and less, she said. So I say the next day I was healed yesterday in Jesus name, and the next day, the memory comes back with a little bit less. And say, I was healed two days ago in Jesus name, she's I continue to do that, and so I can still remember what happened, but the pain is gone. I found this work in my life many, many times. I call that the bell theory and something no like you apply to your life in house, church, ministry, but you can also help other people in the same way, find the same freedom in their lives, and then keep your branches going over the wall. Genesis, 49 you know, Joseph was a man of moral and spiritual strength. He was like into a tree who's branch is going over the wall. What I mean by that. Keep reaching out to other people. Refuse to just end up being by yourself. Trust that God will use you because you will be stronger. I remember when I almost quit in Christian leadership. I went to Steve, our staff counselors, a very close friend. I said, I'm having problems in leadership. Will you counsel me and help me? And He is very kind, and he prayed with me. He said, I give you in those days, it was cassette tapes long before podcasts and everything we have today. He said, I want you to listen to this will help you. So I got in my car one day, about two weeks later, took this little cassette tape, put it in, and the speaker was speaking to leaders, the pastors and future pastors, about the Messiah Complex. They don't try to be the Messiah, only Jesus is the Messiah. If you try to be the Messiah, you try to fix everybody. You can't. Only Jesus can fix people. And listen, this sounds so familiar, and all of a sudden I realized it was me speaking. He gave me my own message. I've been trained pastors about a year or two before gave me my own message. He was a crazy he thought it was really funny. His Craziest thing. But I will tell you what I learned from that. I learned that Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so I learned through that time that all the matters is that I'm loved by God, and I'm secure in him, and I am healed, and I can be stronger than it ever was before. And I want you to know it doesn't matter now what people think or don't think, what matters to what God thinks. And the same is true for you. Whatever you've
walked through, he is giving you the grace to go step by step by step, to walk in His healing and His grace and His blessing, so you could be the house church leader. He's called you to be