Nahash= (Serpent from it’s hiss) Ammonite= (To dim to darken)
Came up = To excel, to go up and over (used of boundry)
We can become used to the devil in certain areas, and learn to co-exist agreeably,
Reminds me of King Ahab.
IKing 20:2-4
Thus saith Ben-ha’dad, Thy silver and thy gold is mine; thy wives also and thy children, even the goodliest, are mine. To avoid a fight ahab was willing to sacrifice his gold, and silver and wives and children
But Ben-ha’dad wasn’t satisfied, he came up over his boundries.
IKing 20:6 Yet I will send my servants unto thee to morrow about this time, and they shall search thine house, and the houses of thy servants; and it shall be, that whatsoever is pleasant in thine eyes, they shall put it in their hand, and take it away.
You cannot trust the devil, he is not an ally he was, is, and always will be your enemy, his only desire for your life is to steal kill and destroy.
Jabesh Gilead: dry, ashamed, withered, confused.
This speaks of a people or person who has lost their joy, the anointing has seeped out of their lives,
Make a covenant: = An alliance, a marriage.
Servants: We’ll be your slaves ( your bondmen) What are you willing to sacrifice to maintain a peacable existence with the devil.?
Nahash agrees to the covenant, but only on his terms.
Terms: (That I may thrust out your right eye) To lose that eye was to render them ineffective for warfare, nahash would never have to fear them.
Secondly it’s symbolic: (the right hand is the hand of blessing, it symbolizes that which God has chosen, and conversely- that which has chosen God.
To give up the right eye means to choose that which God has not chosen, it means to choose not to see the way God sees. (it means to live by that which satisfies self).
It means, I agree not to call sin sin.
For a reproach:= (To pull off, to expose by stripping,)
Stripped of conscience, of integrity, of conviction, of courage
The world calls it Alternative lifestyle, (God calls it homosexuality and he calls it sin)
The world calls it Pro choice, (God calls it abortion, murder and he calls it sin)
The world calls it the lotto. And says by participating we are providing for higher eduacation. (God calls it gambling, and calls it sin)
They wanted to give me chips to use at the nearby casino
They had church members working in the restaurant in the casino’s. They had gotten comfortable where Christians should never feel comfortable.
As the children of God we are not to live by lady luck, or chance.
We are commanded to live by faith. I.e. =(every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
(Sex before marriage)The world calls it experimenting or shopping around. (God calls it fornication, and calls it sin.
The world calls it a mistake- bad judgement. (God calls it adultery, and sin)
The elders of Jabesh said give us 7 days respite to search for someone to help us.
Someone had a memory of what it meant to walk uprightly before God and to live in his presence and power. ( They weren’t doing it, but they hoped somewhere somebody was)
There is a world around us, that is crying out for help, their very lives are in the balance.
Can we show them that there is still a people who have who have not made a covenant with the world, who still believe that only the pure in heart shall see God, and that without Holiness no man shall see the Lord.
When Israel heard: They wept.
The weeping of hopelessness and helplessness. *Much of the church today, rather than to lift up Gods righteous standard, simply fold their hands and weep.
Saul heard it: Saul = The Anointed of the Lord
His anger was kindled:
Satans kingdom will not suffer at all, until the church rises up in a Holy fire of anger against satan and his works.
It is a Horrible thing to see, lives destroyed by satan, and by sin. But the greatest reproach there is, is when Those who are bound and oppressed, and possessed by the devil come looking to the church for deliverance, and instead of casting out the devil, binding up their wounds and pouring in the oil and the wine, all we can do is weep over their sad condition,
because we have broken the covenant of the right eye, = we have chosen to live by the power of the flesh, instead of the power of the Spirit.
I have to admit to you today, there was a time when I had made a covenant with the flesh, to do what seemed right in my own eyes, to use the word of God only when it was convenient, and when it would justify my actions.
I lost my joy, I lost the presence of the Lord, my conscience became dull and insensitive,
I entertained lewd and lustful thoughts and imaginations, I chose what pleased me, (not what pleased God. (I chose to do my will, not his will,) The saddest part of all = I did it in his name. ( I repented and God forgave me, and restored me)
(Thank God. He came to give recovering of sight to the blind,)
There are 3 classes of people in this message this morning:
#1 Those who are willing to give up their right eyes
#2 Those who are hopelessly and helplessly weeping over the sad conditionof losing their right eye.
#3 Those who are filled with holy hatred and anger against sin and satan, and move to bring deliverance to the oppressed, because they have not given up their right eye, and they have a covenant with God, and God’s power flows through their lives.
