Praise And Walking
We have a wonderful set of Home Group leaders - Ed & Rachel. They have such a wonderful spirit about them. None of what we did tonight would have gone as smoothly had they not been surrendered to God and willing to take Him along with us. I laud them for their submissiveness to Him and their leadership of us!
As an aside, I’m pretty new at this kind of thing. I have done it (some) before, but I’m still basically a novice. But, I did love listening to those who do it often and was able to draw inspiration from them as well as from the Bible. This morning in my devotional time, I had a verse that I felt God gave me for tonight. I’ll share it with you:
We met at the church – 23 of us in all (including children ranging from my age 2 months (my infant son) to 14 or so). We mounted our church bus (faithfully driven by Captain
First stop: High School #1
We didn’t actually walk any at this school. We just stood in the parking lot and lifted up praise, did warfare and unleashed the grace, mercy and power of I Am. It was really very wonderful – all those voices carrying up together in a unified sound of praise to our God. One woman had a word about witchcraft and we spent some time praying against that. That word really set something off inside of me and I prayed hard against those spirits. We spent about 30 minutes there, then were back on the bus and continued our singing. As we went to …
Second stop: High School #2
Here we said a quick prayer and then began to move out. Immediately, several people began to feel a resistance to us here – darkness and immorality seemed to hang about this school. We did some walking and praying, then someone said that we needed to walk around the building. So, we took off making our lap and praising God and warring in His Name at the same time. I felt it was a powerful and wonderful thing. I believe that we changed something at that school tonight. We stayed there longer than we had budgeted, and so were nearly out of time when we hit our last school of the day.
Third stop: Elementary School
We had people from our fellowship who work at this school and they had arranged for the secretary of that school to join us as well. But, we were met by the principle. She invited us in and allowed us to walk the halls of the school – she even specially asked us to pray over her office. It was a wonderful time of prayer and praise. The principle not only invited a few worshipers and prayers into her school – she invited the Lord Jesus Christ – and He entered. We met for one last prayer in the lobby of the school and a several prophetic words came forward. I will share a couple of those:
Word #1: The Banner – one of our group saw a purple banner that flew outside from the flag pole. The banner said “Victory!”. The teachers and principle were told that when they felt down or like things were getting tough to remember the banner that flew in the spirit world. That banner proclaimed Victory – not the promise of victory; but actual victory.
Word #2: Salt and Light – another said to the principle and the two teachers there that they were sowing mercy, grace and courage into the lives of the children they touched. It might not always show – but they were creating powerful leaders: for our city, our state, nation and world.
We then re-loaded the bus and returned to the church where we said a few prayers for other schools that we didn’t have time to reach and we went home.
My impressions: It was a great night – a holy night. And I believe that God moved to teardown strongholds and to build up His holy places. My church has always believed that God wants to use us to bless
JC and the music: music really is a lubricant that allows a more intimate and powerful prayer time with God. By setting up the guitar and singing on the bus as we went out – we acted like the Army of Israel, sending out our Praisers first into the battle. Worship and music combined is like the sharp, pointy-end of the spear that God uses to prick our hearts and to unharden them.
What kind of army sends the band out before the warriors? The kind of army that has already won the fight. God’s kind of army.
posted by AndyM at 10:35 PM
7 Comments:
I noticed you made a reference to Joshua and the fall of Jericho when you wrote:
"we acted like the Army of Israel, sending out our Praisers first into the battle".
I'm not sure you fully realize what your saying. Nothing could be more despicable than comparing yourselves to this ghastly story and to the cold blooded murderer, General Joshua. After he conquered Jericho, he proceeding to slaughter every living thing in it, including men and women, young and old. His name is filth in my ears and should be placed next to Adolph Hitler and Ted Bundy.
Hopefully after Jehovah uses your music as a spear to prick hearts and unharden them, he won't use that same spear to cut through these children's flesh and impale their mothers.
Wow. Putting the above comment aside for a moment...
AndyM, this is awesome! What a bold and worshipful spiritual warfare your home group did! I pray that God moves in mighty ways to break lose demonic holds and opens the hearts of those children and teachers there to see His love!
To bornagainsatheist,
I'm so sorry that you feel so strongly against God and His ways. Perhaps you don't understand the fullness of what Jehovah was doing in the battle of Jerico, as well as in ordering the Israelites to go in and conquer all of Canaan to possess it. This land was a promise of God to His people, and the land was filled with sinful people.
God knows the hearts and futures of all humans - He knew full well that the people of Jerico would bring His people into worshipping false gods and not the other way around - that His people would not bring the truth of God to them, nor that the people of Jerico would be saved.
If a person isn't ever going to repent and turn to God - they will be judged. The wages of sin is death. God gives us time in order to come to Him - but if He already knew that they wouldn't, why leave them there to destroy the spiritual lives of the only ones on earth who knew Him as the One True God? Sure, He could raise up new people, but He had a promised covenant with the Israelites.
To group Joshua, who was only obeying God, with those who do not hear from God (or even think they themselves are God) in killing people is wrong. God was teaching His people spiritual warfare - to battle demonic spirits and not let them into your heart. Because of Jesus - no longer does blood have to be spilled to atone for sin, but each must believe in Him and rely on His sacrifice to gain eternal life even after we die in this world.
I pray that God will open your eyes and turn your curse into a blessing for the children of those schools.
If this story isn't enough to convince you that Jehovah is a myth (or else insanely wicked), I'm not sure I can say anything else to convince you. But I will make a few comments.
If God had to slaughter the people of Jericho in order to keep his fickle people from worshipping false Gods, would they really be worth having as a chosen people in the first place? If God knew it would come to this, why did he make this foolish covenant to begin with? Besides, what kind of holy covenant would it really be with the blood of innocents having forever stained its history? You propose that children and babies were slaughtered because God knew they wouldn't believe in the first place. If that's the case, why doesn't God abort all the infidel babies at conception if he knows they won't come to believe?
After Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge, the Lord God says, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil" (Gen 3:22). If humans are now like God, knowing good and evil, how come most of us know that genocide is wrong (for whatever the reason), and God doesn't?
You said, "I pray that God will open your eyes and turn your curse into a blessing for the children of those schools."
You pray that MY eyes will be opened? YOUR TRYING TO JUSTIFY GENOCIDE! I think you need to take a step back and see whose eyes need opening.
There's no such thing as innocent people. We are all born in sin, no one deserves to live. The consequenses of sin is death. All people are fickle, no one loves God on their own - those who love God do so because He loved them first and He gives them the grace to see Him and they choose to believe Him. God made the covenant out of His mercy, to extend salvation, love, and redemption to people. God gives everyone a chance.
Those people of Jerico knew of the one true God, that's why they were fearful. They had heard of His great deeds, and one woman in Jericho helped the Israelite spies before they came, and she and her family were spared. She helped them because she believed God - out of all the people in the city, they feared for their lives, but she acted out in faith and was saved. Now THAT's a merciful God!!
We are not all knowing like God. We see the moment we are in, from our own tiny perspective. God sees everything - in the hearts of everyone, each of our past, present, and future, He sees the overall picture from end to end and He allows or prevents whatever we stupid people do down here according to His design (whether we agree or not from our tiny perspective of the moment). We are not to say what is right and wrong over the spand of eternity - none of us but God has that knowledge.
After being reminded by the Holy Spirit that I left out the most important part... this is an addition to my last posted comment.
All that happened at Jericho when the Israelites first marched into Canaan happened before Christ Jesus, the Son of God, came to the earth. Jesus lived a sinless and truly innocent life in perfect obedience to the Father, and then gave up His life to death on a cross as an eternal sacrifice for the sins of all humankind. He paid the price for all our sins, so that we don't have to die. All those that come to believe and rely on Jesus are reborn new and saved from death (not death on this earth, but eternal death), and given eternal life with new bodies. We know this is true because Jesus Himself was raised from the dead which proved what He said and did was true. He paid the price of our sin for us so that we may be seen as righteous before our Father God and live forever. Because of Jesus, we can be close to God our Creator and know truth, we can trade in our sinful nature and dying life for His righteous and eternal life! This is the most important and merciful act of God ever to bring people back to Him! He loves us all that much!
Genocide or any killing after this awesome event of Christ's atoning sacrifice IS a horrific tragedy, because people who now have the chance to live forever may die without knowing Jesus. To reject Jesus and His sacrifice is to reject God's free gift to live forever after we leave this earth, but that's our choice to make, and we condemn ourselves. But how sad it must make God when those who never even got a chance to hear about Christ are cut short without getting the chance to decide. I'm sure God's mercy will provide justice for those fallen.
The next time you go for a walk and pass by a playground with mothers watching their children play, stop and imagine the scene of soldiers (in a holy act) drawing their swords and slaughtering them all. As that gruesome scene is playing in your mind repeat those justifications to yourself. Do you really believe your Father God would do this? Can't you see that Jehovah was a man made god created in the mind of a primitive, barbaric people from some bygone age? Instead of thinking up these convoluted explanations, isn't it easier just to admit that the NT's Father God and the OT's Jehovah are two separate gods?
The story continues. After they conquered and destroyed Jericho, Achan sinned against Jehovah by taking some of the loot. The result of this is a defeat in the next battle causing more death. Then Achan, along with his sons and daughters, proceeded to be stoned to death. How's THAT for a merciful God!! Besides, doesn't it seem a little odd that Holy God Almighty would declare that all the silver and gold are SACRED to him and must go into his treasury. Who was in control of the treasury? How can you not see that these stories are man made?
Let me ask you this: what evil act would have to be written in the bible for you to admit that it wasn't from God? I can think of a few acts that are worse than killing children but I don't want to defile this page by saying them. Just think about it.
I'm not saying any of this out of hate or anger, but just as Christians strive to love the sinner but hate the sin; I too will strive to love the believer but hate the beliefs.
See - I go away for a week and people actually stop by to read my blog. Serves me right.
BAA - I do not offer a defense for anything that happened in the Bible. I certainly don't understand it all. I accept - by faith and my experience - that my God is Holy and that He is Righteous. When He commands His people to do something, I believe that that command is righteous. If that meant putting people (everyone - the old, the young, the weak, whoever) to the sword, I believe that that action was a Holy one and a right one. Even if I don't understand it.7
But - I believe it because I believe it. Circular logic – yes; I admit that. It is a matter of faith.
I'm sure that you see my faith as folly; and I do not expect you to see things in the same way that I do. Just as you would not expect me to see things in the same way that you see them.
I pray that your eyes are opened, even as you wish that mine were opened. I have no way around that disagreement other than agreeing that we don't agree.
I do appreciate the way you expressed yourself here. You were kind and level-headed. Thanks for popping over.
Kindly - Andy
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