Matthew 3:9 And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.
I just want to say to begin that this has been one of the greatest weeks I have ever had in the Lord!! Our Church has just finished a week long revival and all I can say is that God is good. It has been an absolutely amazing week of watching the Lord move and work in individuals including me, in families and in Churches. Being in Church for 8 days straight has been beyond wonderful, the preacher who preached, preached some of the best messages I have ever heard in my life. It seemed that each day the Spirit moved more and more greatly, and although Saturday was “officially” the last day of revival I can tell you that the revival Spirit was just as great during both the Sunday morning and Sunday evening services as it was all week.
If you were to ask me is God interested in revival and I can tell you with complete assurance that yes He is. The Spirit was good, the unity of the Churches were great, and I can declare that many and all who wanted it were revived this week. I just have to praise the author of it all, Jesus Christ and thank Him for all He has done, He is a great and wonderful, a mighty Savior that I serve!!!
As the week went on I knew that God still wanted me to write and post something for this week and as I began to pray about what it would be that God would have me to write about the verse above came on my heart. Being in revival this week there has been two things that have just been swimming around my head, the first is Salvation. I would have to say that it was clear in the preaching that the focus was to revive the Church more so than preach to the Lost. That is not to say that the Lost couldn't have gotten saved at any point in any of the Services but those who attend Gospel Preaching Churches are aware of messages aimed more towards the Church and those aimed more towards the Lost.
Although the preaching was more towards the Church, there isn't a service that I go into that I am not expecting and hoping someone to get saved and since this was a week of services, the idea of Salvation was ingrained into my mind. Not only was the idea of Salvation ingrained in my mind but there is a passage from Nehemiah that I have written on in the past which I will upload here for more context and the full message behind it, that was also overshadowing my thoughts and that verse is:
Nehemiah 4;2 And he spake before his brethren and the army of Samaria, and said, What do these feeble Jews? will they fortify themselves? will they sacrifice? will they make an end in a day? will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned?
Here we see that the enemies of Israel came mocking them as they were rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem and in doing so they asked the question, will they revive the stones. So in my praying, in my thoughts and meditations I had the idea of Salvation and the verse of reviving the stones mixing around, and those thoughts and ideas lead to God putting that verse and this message on my heart and today I would like to share with you what God shared with me when He opened my eyes to how He brings Children from Stones.
In the opening verse we find ourselves with John the Baptist as he was baptisting those who had come out to him. We find John in the wilderness preaching the Gospel telling the people to repent, and baptising in the river Jordan when the Pharisees and Sadducess came out to him. I want to tell you a bit about the Pharisees and Sadducess in case there is anyone reading who doesn't know much about them. The Pharisees and Sadducess were the Religious gatekeepers at that time in Israel. They were the Priests, they were the ones who would tell others how they ought to live, they were the teachers and preachers of their time.
One key component of their ideology was that they put almost everything concerning their Righteousness as being directly tied to their lineage. Since they were the biological descendants of Abraham they believed themselves to be superior to everyone else. Because they could trace their lineage naturally back to Abraham they thought that alone made them right with God. Being a descendant of Abraham gave them the right or ability to do the works needed to please God.
Essentially the doctrine of these Pharisees and Sadducess came down to being blessed, favored and considered Righteous before God because they had the right lineage and because they were able to do works that merited them to be the ambassadors of God. They thought they were good because of works and their bloodline but we then see what John says to them. He warns them about their pride and leaning on their lineage for their Justification and proclaims to them that God can raise up Children from the stones.
Not only did John warn them that God could raise up Children from the stones, I am here to say that God Himself not only could, but DID raise up Children from the stones. That may sound crazy but let me show you exactly how it is that God has raised up for Himself Children from stones. As I was praying on this to understand fully how this could be possible God asked me to think about what are the traits of stones. There were many different things I began to conjure up in my mind but two of them came to the forefront and it is what I want to focus on today.
When I think of a stone the first and most recognizable thing that I think of is that stones are hard. Stones are usually impenetrable unless a massive force is applied to them and if that happens that stone shatters into pieces. Stone is used in places where you don't want water to seep down, it casts water off and away from it. This quality of a stone, hard, impenetrable, unrelenting, is the most obvious trait we can see when we look at them.
The other trait that is clearly recognizable of a stone is that it is inanimate. A stone has no life within it, there is nothing alive, it has no consciousness, no thoughts, it has nothing about it that one would ever look to and say life is present within it. Hardness and being inanimate are the two main traits of a stone, but you may be asking what does that have to do with anything.
What I can tell you is this, God has raised up to Himself Children from stones. If you are Lost today I declare to you that your heart has the exact same qualities Spiritually as these stones. A Lost man's heart is just as hard as a stone, and a Lost man's heart is just as inanimate as a stone. The saying in today's society is that we ought to just follow our heart but what does the Word of God say about our hearts?
Gen 8:21 And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.
Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
The heart of man is wicked, evil and deceitful and if we do as the world tells us then we will find ourselves in a place of destruction and misery. So what then can we do? If we have a heart that is wicked, evil and deceitful, if our hearts are hardened and inanimate like stone, how can we ever be changed? Is there any hope for us with dead hearts of stone?
I want to declare to you today, if you have come to a place where you recognize that you have a stony heart, that your heart is set on evil and wickedness, that your heart is dead and inanimate then you are in the best position you can be. The first thing needed for Salvation is recognizing where you stand before God and who you are in your Flesh. The only requirement needed to be able to come to Salvation is to understand you are Sinner with a stony heart.
If that is you today, if you have come to that place where the Holy Spirit is convicting you of where you stand before the Lord, where the Holy Spirit is convicting and has shown you the condition of your heart, that it is dead and stoney then I want to let you know that you are in the prime place that God can deal with you and show you the hope of Salvation. You are right where you need to be so that God can raise up a child from stone!!!
The Lord knows all about the condition of your heart and that you have no ability in and of yourself to change it so He has provided a way that He Himself can raise up from stones children unto Himself. The Lord has made a promise to all people who find themselves at this place, who recognize their condition before Him, and who call out to Him for help. If you call out to Him, if you believe that He can do what He says He will do, then this is the promise He has given to you:
Ez 36:26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
God has made a promise to all who find themselves at the place that they recognize that they have a stoney dead heart before the Lord, that if you cry out to Him, if you put your Faith in Christ that Jesus has taken upon Himself your Sins on the Cross and that on the 3rd day He Resurrected for your Justification, then God Himself will take out that stony heart and give to you a heart of Flesh which He can write His Laws on and He will give you the Spirit needed to keep in a relationship with Him!!!
I am thankful to God for the time in which He showed me that my heart was stone, that He convicted me and told me that I couldn't do anything to change it on my own. I am even more thankful that God didn't leave me in that place, that He showed me that He can and will raise up a Child unto Himself from that heart of stone, all I had to do was believe in His Son Jesus Christ. And I am thankful for that day over 20 years ago in the basement of a Drug Rehab Center where I came to that place of desperation and cried out for Jesus to save me and in an instant He rose up from my heart of stone a Child unto Himself and gave me a new heart and a new spirit!!!
If you are there today I am praying that you follow not your heart but the Word of the Lord and call out to Him right now, so that He can once again rise up unto Himself a Child from the Stones!!!
I love you all, have a great day and blessed day in the Lord!
If you need prayer or anything else please feel free to reach out to me and I will help you the best I can and if I can't help I know one man that can, this man named Jesus!
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Matthew 12:35 A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.