In The Midnight Hour

In The Midnight Hour

I am standing here for your wonderful Pastor who has encountered a Midnight Hour. I know everyone by now is aware of the unexpected passing of his brother Tom and his wife. Please keep them in your deepest prayers, which I know that you are.

Saturday morning at 6:05am, I experienced a Midnight hour; I lost one of my strongest and anointed encouragers I have ever known. Little did I know, last Sunday evening when we spoke as church was ending, the next time we would meet would be in glory.

I was awakened this Saturday morning at the midnight hour! I could not sleep and I got up and begin to listen to some music and eventually found myself listening to some preaching on the Internet. Then, out of the blue, I found myself thinking about my Aunt that passed away back in the 1970’s. What was intriguing about this was that she was my favorite Aunt that I spent the night with and was like my second Mother. One day my Dad came to me and said my Aunt was in the hospital and she wanted me to come and see her. My Dad was insistent, being young I did not realize the peril that she was in. I told my Dad that I would go the next day.

Later that night, in the midnight hour, my Aunt passed away. I was devastated as a child. I felt so guilty for so many years after that for not going to visit. It was God that I was revisiting this again, because I had eventually let this get behind me. Hold on, here is the rest of the story.

Last Sunday night, my greatest encourager came to me after church and said he wanted me to come to his home. He said he had some things he wanted to give me. He was persistent to the point that I was going to go this coming Friday. Unfortunately, my schedule got away from me and I did not make it by…Saturday morning at 4:00am, God called him home. When I received the call at 6:00am, I was extremely upset. I began to weep and knew immediately why I was awakened in the Midnight hour…I thought.

All day, I was very distraught and felt the way I did when my Aunt passed away. At this point I was so discouraged! Hold on; the story isn’t over yet! God is about to come on the scene amen!

During my time of distress and second-guessing, I get a call from your wonderful Pastor who wanted me to come and speak to you this morning! Here I am going through a midnight hour, your Pastor is going through a midnight hour and I didn’t know if I was going to be able to stand in for him. I hesitated, but God spoke to my heart and said, "Go,I have been preparing you since last night,in the midnight hour!" God knew that the Devil was going to bring up my past about my Aunt and let me wallow in my failure from the past and make me miss a blessing God was going to impart to you this morning! Let me tell you, God isn’t about the past failures and mistakes we make. God is about what we do with failures and mistakes that we make, Amen!

God knew that my brother that was an encourager to me was passing a baton to me as an encourager to be an encourager. When God showed me that, I knew that I was to come as an encourager this morning. From that moment, I asked God to give me the words on such short notice that I might be an encourager to you this morning.

If you would turn your bibles to Acts chapter 16, we are going to read verse 16 through verses 28.

16 And it came to pass, as we were going to the place of prayer, that a certain maid having a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much gain by soothsaying. (A Fortune teller that made money for her masters)

17 The same following after Paul and us cried out, saying, These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim unto you the way of salvation.

18 And this she did for many days. But Paul, being sore troubled, turned and said to the spirit, I charge thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And it came out that very hour. (He finally got tired of the hassle and cast the demon from her)

19 But when her masters saw that the hope of their gain was gone, they laid hold on Paul and Silas, and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers, (The masters got mad at them and dragged them before the rulers)