Hey

I was looking at verses containing the phrase “son of man” and these verses in Psalm 80 were interesting.  In the main the Psalm speaks about Israel but in the latter part the subject possibly changes.  “Branch” in v15 is actually ben, son, and there is an al prefixed to it.  I guess that could be “look down … upon the son that you made …”.

14  Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts: look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine;
15  And the vineyard which thy right hand hath planted, and the branch that thou madest strong for thyself.
16  It is burned with fire, it is cut down: they perish at the rebuke of thy countenance.
17  Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself.
18  So will not we go back from thee: quicken us, and we will call upon thy name.
19  Turn us again, O LORD God of hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.”

Damien

=============

Hey, Damien.

Funny, but I was thinking about those verses just a couple of days ago.  Brother Schambach preached on that part of Psalm 80 years ago, and I have never forgotten it.

Jesus is obviously the man that God made strong for Himself.  That is a wonderful prophecy about Jesus.  Thanks for reminding me of it.

jdc

Hi, Pastor John:

I was reading in Exodus 32 about Aaron getting gold earrings from Israel , and then making the golden calf.  When Moses came down, he saw it, and the Levites put to death 3000 people.  I often wondered why Aaron, along with all the others, was not put to death by Moses.  The reason, given to us in the Bible, is that Moses pleaded with God not to destroy Israel and start over with him, as God had offered to do, because it would give the enemies of God reason to blaspheme. Moses’ said to God, “They’ll say you were not able to bring these people into the Promised Land.”

Maybe why even today God doesn’t deal with us according to our past sins.  It would give His enemies reason to blaspheme Him all the more, and say that Jesus was not able to save us.

Billy 

http://www.pioneertract.com/

Hi John

I’m watching an old DVD of you and your dad.  He said, “Preaching without holy ghost was one of the hardest things I ever tried to do.”  He said that when he was a Baptist minister, it would take him all week to work up a sermon.  After receiving holy ghost, when he got under anointing, the message would come,  He didn’t have to work up anything.  His stories are so good.  I am very thankful I was able to spend a few years with him.  Such a sweet man.

Sheila P.

===============            

Amen, Sheila!  Thank you for the time you spent with him during in his last, lonely years.  All of us who had that opportunity and took advantage of it benefited from the experience.

jdc

Pastor John,

I’ve been listening to you preach on “Form versus Life” from a sermon on 4-4-09. Man, you said some amazing things on that cd. I felt like it was going deep in my heart. When you were talking about Paul saying that he was an apostle by the grace of God, something hit my heart! Oh Jesus I am just a Child of God by that same Grace!

I just had to stop and go hug another child of god. I stopped by and hugged Bess. I saw Donna and hugged her. I went by your house, but no one was home. 🙁

I had this thought about our children. Maybe they should go out and visit Christian churches, where all that’s there is form. I don’t think they, or maybe even some of us, understand sometimes what it is that the Father really hates. The ceremonial form is leaving out his son! I want to hate that thing with all my heart and life!

Jammie C
============

Hi Jammie.

The closer we get to God, the more we will love what He loves (His Son, most of all), and the more we will hate what He hates. Your feelings are being created within you by the God we serve. Live them! Our heavenly Father is shaping your heart to be like His!

Pastor John

Good morning John,

I had to work late Friday night; I got home in time to hear you all read the last 4 pages. But I did read it all.  I feel like it is one of best summaries of the divided kingdom and the prophets that you have written.  It may be the clarity that God has given us about his Son that makes the words jump off the pages and penetrate my heart more.

I feel I understand more now how evil Jeroboam’s sin really was for God’s people. To be given the true and only way God has chosen for his people to worship him, and then to turn and go another way – that is evil!  And then to teach others to do so, and claim it is from God and the right way he should be served, that hurts my heart.  And it is so good to understand that God, not the Devil, sent the suffering that came on his rebellious people. 

What does that say about us today? The ones he has given the truth to and who have sat under the anointing and power of the holy ghost, and then walk away and go try serve God another way!  That is evil; and then to teach others to do so as well!  God help us hold fast to the truth and love it.

I pray, God let me feel the way you feel about everything. Let me love what you are doing and the anointing you have put around us, to love the truth and to walk in it with all my heart and live it every day.  If we don’t, we will end up doing the very thing that we hate right now.  God help us!!!  Thanks John

Stuart

===============

Hi, Pastor John.

The reading of chapter seven in the Suffering and the Saints book was very sobering but very wonderful to me.  I told Judy how refreshing it is to read about the things of God. We read hundreds of years of history, even thousands of years, in just a couple of hours, but it put me in tears with the love, grace, and above all the patience of God for Israel. It’s the same thing that is happening today with the way God feels towards his people in Christianity.  He still is very loving, caring, and patient for hid children.  Just like he destroyed Israel (and Judah) because they turned to idols and false worship and “sinned after the manner of Jeroboam”, the end will be the same.   He will destroy that filthy whore that is defiling God’s people today.  The call is still the same, “Come out of her my people” (and serve the true, loving, patient, & graceful God).

Thank you, John!!!

Billy

Hi Bro John,

It’s been such a cold day but I have very much enjoyed keeping the fireplace going this afternoon. I wanted the house to be very warm when Sammy gets home from work. So just now, I put in a really big piece of wood and that very thankful feeling (one that we all have experienced) came over me and I said out loud, I am so thankful that I am strong enough and able to lift this piece of wood and know how to put it in the fireplace properly.

Being thankful for a lot of little things each day sure does add up and make us very rich people.

Sheila

Bro. John:

I’ve been thinking a lot about your Pearl from a few weeks ago:

“It doesn’t matter how cold their (children of God who have fallen away) hearts are, it matters how warm God’s heart is.”  Oh, how encouraging!  Then the Lord reminded me of these verses this morning in Isaiah 55: 8-9:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.”

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

So good!  Just made me realize that whatever I am thinking right now about anything, His thoughts are higher!  I love that!

And then in Jeremiah 29:11:

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”

These verses speak of God’s warm heart towards His children.  His thoughts and ways are not just “higher” because He is God (though that would be reason enough) but His “higher” is full of righteousness and holiness, sprinkled with His mercy, grace, and love, and His overwhelming goodness!  He wants us to have that expected end that ends with Him! 

I have just feasted on these thoughts today.  How good God is and how He wants good for His children. 

Sandy  🙂