Touching Heaven, Changing Earth

Last Sunday night we talked about our vertical relationship with God. We decided it was important for us an individual believers to improve on our vertical relationship and I believe after last week many of you are experiencing a refreshing in your experience and relationship with God. But, that was last week, and we can choose to live on yesterday and remember the history and experience, our we can decide to press on, to touch heaven and change earth tonight. I don’t know about you, but I am pressing on. I want to see fresh wind and fresh fire today, to see God rise up within us so we can indeed touch heaven and then change the earth.

Does anyone know what nerious is? This is where something becomes numb. We have this problem today, that is why people are not pressing in toward God. We have societal nerious. We have become so numb to the things going on around us we have lost the full impact of its meaning. We can talk about the over 700 people who committed suicide or were murdered in Uganda two weeks ago just as casually as we talk about the weather. We can watch a movie, view a video or watch a program on television and the language alone is so offensive but because we have been numbed by hearing those words so many times we are basically unaffected. I could go on, but I am not going to pick on you, I am just wanting to respond like Jimmy Cricket and say, “Let your conscious be your guide.” I have another nerious I want to discuss, a more threatening nerious to us than anything else I could talk about tonight, and it is Gospel Nerious. This is where a person has become deadened to having their heart broken for God. And without a broken heart for the things of God, we will never experience revival. The broken heart I am speaking of is not some procedure in need of physical surgery but spiritual. This broken heart speaks of the type of individual response God is looking for in each of our lives.

I want to talk about a man who has set an example before us of what it means to be broken before God. I am speaking tonight from 1 Samuel 17, and I am talking about a young David, a man who was called one after God’s own heart. I think tonight as we look at this we need to allow God to restore the youthfulness of our relationship with Him.

1 Samuel 17:12-14 Now David was the son of an Ephrathite named Jesse, who had eight sons and in Saul’s time he was old and well advanced in years. Jesse’s three oldest sons had followed Saul to war: The firstborn was Elibab; the second Abinadab; and the third Shammah. David was the youngest. The three older ones followed Saul.

David was radical for God and verse 14 gives us the picture of why. He was the youngest of his brothers and did not follow after Saul which was the case of his elder brothers. David did not have the Saul syndrome. Keep this in mind, for the Saul syndrome is where you seek after familiar spirits, spirits who will agree with what you want. Instead of falling into this trap, David sought after God.

Many of you are knowledgeable of this biblical account. The brothers had gone off to war, fighting against the Philistines. The word Philistine means enemy of God. In verse 15 we read how David had gone back and forth, feeding his fathers sheep and going to Saul. David saw what Saul was doing. He saw how ineffective Saul was in fulfilling the plan of God. Saul had nerious, he had become deadened to the things of God.

For 40 days the giant Goliath had spoken to the men of Saul. For 40 days the men were nerositized, they had become deadened to the things they knew to be right. They had forgotten God’s power listening to the words, taunts and threats of Goliath whom they became to view as much larger than God. They had in essence become too numb to respond to the giants attacking and slanderous words.

But Domino is now on the way. Fresh and hot. At age 17 David gets his assignment from God who used his father Jesse as the messenger for David. It was time to deliver pizza to the battle. Verse 17-18: Now Jesse said to his son David, “Take this ephah of roasted grain and these ten loaves of bread to your brothers and hurry to their camp. Take along these ten cheeses to the commanders of their unit. See how your brothers are and bring back some assurance from them. It is ten cheese pizza time. The deliverance from God is just about ready to happen.