Chasing The Vultures Away

Chasing the Vultures Away

This message contains a shocking ending. I’m telling you now, but I don’t think that can fully prepare you for what is ahead.

PPT 1 Series title: (Hidden Gems)

Last week we began this series and discussed how God has secrets He wants to share. I mentioned the passage in Jeremiah where God says, “Call unto Me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things you do not know.” I also mentioned how I began praying earnestly about that and the Lord dropped Colossians 2:3 into my heart: “In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” So He didn’t tell me about secrets of the universe or of end times, but pointed me to the true repository of God’s greatest secrets, the person of Jesus Christ.

Today we begin talking about the specific secret God had in mind in our series passage.

PPT 2 Series text

Psalms 25:14 The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant. (KJV)

Psalms 25:14 The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them. (NIV)

So there it is, the secret God wants to reveal is His covenant. At the outset of this message I want to say to you that the thing God most wants to show us is the thing hell most wants us to prevent us from understanding.

That is why the message today is entitled:

PPT 3 Title: Chasing the Vultures Away

Covenant is a religious and a legal term that we really don’t understand, but if you can grasp it, it will bless you.

This week I want to talk about the obscurity of the covenant, that it was intended by God to be that way, and that their are demonic forces that are laboring to see to it that people never understand our covenant relationship with God.

PS 91 last week I mentioned He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Lord, the secret place of the Lord is understanding your covenant relationship with Him. It is a secret place, hidden even from many Christians, who only have a very cursory or minimal understanding of the full meaning.

Psalm 25 calls it a secret that God will reveal, which means that it is hidden until God shows it to you. If you remember last week we talked that gems are not usually found lying on the top of the ground, but they must be dug from the earth, blasted from rocks, and polished before they can fully be enjoyed. In some ways the blessing of understanding covenant is similar, it is not just lying around to be easily grasped.

I believe Psalm 25 is nothing more than a bread crumb left by God to tell us there is a secret He wants to share, and that we are to keep digging. Spoiler: At the end of the rainbow is Jesus, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. But here is the rub, just because I told you the spoiler doesn’t mean you get it. You have only seen the forest view, it is the incredible trees of individual revelation that fills that forest than many miss.

So let’s talk about three impediments to understanding the secret of the Lord. They are:

Lethargy

Humanity

Vultures

I will only speak briefly of lethargy and humanity, but will speak more on vultures, Lethargy is laziness and lack of effort. Humanity is the fact we need God to open the eyes of our understanding, the natural man receiveth not the things of God.

That leaves us with the Vultures.

So we turn now to Genesis 15:

PPT 4-9 text

Genesis 15:7 And He said to him, "I am the LORD who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it."

Genesis 15:8 And he said, "O Lord GOD, how may I know that I shall possess it?"

Genesis 15:9 So He said to him, "Bring Me a three year old heifer, and a three year old female goat, and a three year old ram, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon."

Genesis 15:10 Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, and laid each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds.

Genesis 15:11 And the birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away.

Genesis 15:12 Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him.

Genesis 15:13 And God said to Abram, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.