Turn this evening to Amos 8:11-12 (READ)
The days are coming, declares the Sovereign Lord, when I will send a famine through the land. Not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. Men will stagger from sea to sea, and wonder from north to east, searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.
There is a starvation that exists in the church today. Here, and elsewhere. Part of the problem comes from the pulpit where we pastors are guilty of trying to keep conflict in the congregations at a minimum but I think in order to pacify a minority we have not only driven people from the church doors to have their needs meet elsewhere, but we have in an attempt to keep peace forfeited the purity of the Gospel. Lord forgive us for listening too often to the people, and not enough to You.
But shepherds are not the only ones who have brought about this famine, we who sit in the pews Sunday after Sunday, who withhold our support and labor in the church also have a measure of guilt upon our hands. We who desire pleasurable pabulum on Sunday morning, wanting to be catered to and not offended by what the preacher has to say.
Sadly we try to justify ourselves, we take offense to someone who questions our lack of hunger and desire to see God move. We do our part. We worship, we listen, and we go home to return again next week.
Listen to me church. Worship from unclean lips is actually an abomination to God. praise that flows from hearts full of adultery, lust or pride is a stench in God’s nostrils. Christian hands held high by sin are nothing more than arrogant flauntings of rebellion.
Have we become like the children of Israel who in Numbers 11:6 said, "Our appetite is gone. There is nothing except this manna?" I wonder church, could it possibly be that we are bored with sitting at the precious table of the Lord?
How many of you have heard the statement, You are what you eat? It’s true. What you feed your mind you will become in time.
Jesus said in John 6:53-59 "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up in the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remain in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever."
Last week we watched a video from Brownsville. The worship leader said what was taking place in Brownsville was not just for there, but was spreading out across the land. Another of the pastors said it was possible for the revival, the great outpouring which will happen in the last days before the Lord comes, to pass over churches that were not prepared to receive it. I know we live in a time where there is a famine of the Word, where people are not feasting and hungry for God in their lives, but I also know from watching the people at Brownsville, and from talking with others who have been touched by this revival and others that are currently breaking out, that there is a priesthood of believers who are rising up in this hour who desire to be the servants of the Living God. I know there is in this hour a separation taking place where anointed preachers are taking this remnant the Lord has given to them to shepherd and leading them into the fullness of Christ. Believers who are consumed with a love for the Lord, who have been stripped of all their pride and worldly ambitions, who have within their souls a burning zeal for the holiness of God. Right now, in this church, the numbers are small, but I want you to know they are beginning to sprout and grow. People who have no other food but Jesus because they know there is no other source of life. People who love according to the truth, believers who are fearless in their desire to bring others into the Kingdom and living a Kingdom led life.
Rising up in this hour are people who denounce sin without apology, who tear down idols and strongholds, doing this to bring freedom to their brothers and sisters so as to produce in them a hunger for the reality of Christ Jesus and then discipling them so as they too can feast on Him.
But there is an oppression in this community, one that has come into the church doors, one which puts a damper on what God can do. The Holy Spirit will not permit the bread of God to be brought forth wherever people are holding onto lusts and idols. There are those who have come into these doors and are eating at the tables of demons, serving their own lustful appetites, and then attempting to come to the Lord’s table and feast with righteousness. And there is a spiritual sickness in this community as a result. Sheep so sick, so spiritually weak that they cannot eat on strong meat, but prefer to have their ears tickled with feel good messages, or they don’t come.
God said in Jeremiah 2:11, 13 "My people have changed their Glory for what does not profit...They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns---broken cisterns that can hold no water."
This is a strong word tonight but let me ask you, are you truly hungry for God? Are you tired of fighting and getting nowhere with your life, climbing up only to fall down again? I have an answer for you tonight from God, for He has provided a way for every child of God to resist the enemy, to be strengthened in their Christian walk as they follow after Christ, and it is this. Eat the Bread send down from heaven. Remember earlier when I quoted the words of Jesus, "I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on me will live because of Me."
How did this work for Him? Jesus was in close communion with the Father. Jesus was committed to doing only the Fathers will. Are You? Jesus sustained himself daily by hearing and seeing what the Father wanted, and this was the result of spending much time alone with Him.
In John 4:32,34, Jesus told his disciples, "I have food to eat of which you do not know...My food is to do the will of Him who send Me, and to finish His work." In John 6:27 Jesus said, "Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you."
Did you catch the secret to strength? Even as Christ lived by the Father, so must we receive our life by feeding on Jesus.
It is time that we run back to the Lord’s presence. It is time that we seek Him anew with all of our heart. As we all know, I have been dieting, but Laura has reminded me continually, it is not a diet, it is a change of our eating lifestyle. We had to get rid of the junk food and begin to eat the right food. The junk food with its high cholesterol and high fat substance, even though it tastes good, was killing us. Church, the same is true of the junk food we feast on in our lives rather than the right spiritual food, the Bread of Heaven, Jesus Christ. It’s time to throw the junk out and get the real thing in our life.
God’s manna is dispensed daily, just as it was to the Israelites. In Deuteronomy 8:16, the Bible teaches us God have the people manna to humble them. They were not humbled because it was food for a poor man’s plate. We know from the word, the manna was the food of angels. What humbled them was the fact they had to seek the manna daily. In this they were reminded that God supplied their cupboards, not themselves. They were forced to wait upon Him and acknowledge continually that He alone was their source.
The same is true of us today. Listen church. What you ate yesterday will not supply your needs today. Without a fresh daily supply of Christ in our lives, we will be spiritually starving, malnourished. We must come to the Lord’s table often, we must make up our minds that we will never go a day without his supplying our strength.
Even as I read the words in Amos, church, I know that famines do not last forever, as we have witnessed in Brownsville. There is a hunger that is spreading in this land. Are you hungry for Jesus tonight? I am going to open these alters tonight, and if you are hungry, I invite you to come and feast here. I want to give you these instructions as you pray and seek God. First, as I spoke tonight about people harboring lusts and idols in their lives, if the Holy Spirit spoke to you, repent tonight of your past sins and ask God to fill you with the power of His Spirit to help you to walk away from unrighteousness and make a covenant with Him to get into the Word of God daily to provide your strength. If you have never asked Jesus into your life, come to the alter and talk with me so I can pray with you and show you the way to being a Child of the King. Or, perhaps tonight you just need to take some time at the alter and cement some things with God.
But before you leave the alter, I want to take time to pray with each of you individually. I will be here tonight for as long as it takes. I feel a real spiritual renewal and revival about to break forth in some of your lives as you become awaken to a new hunger for God.
ALTER
