Wednesday Night Bible Study

praise the lord everyone we greet you tonight in the wonderful name of the lord jesus christ the only name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved and what a joy it is to come to you tonight and getting ready to to teach the word of the lord i i must there's a saying about a method of my madness and i hope there is a method to my message i uh i've been on a a overall theme now you really have thought you're really spoiled when they have a certain size glass they give you and take the fat glass away and make got one that i believe it was sister tilde got me that fits my little hand but thank you sister tilden thank you uh ushers for being so observant but um it's uh it's a joy to be in the house of the lord and and to be able to get a i have a a method to my message that i'm i'm going from one segment to another and we may go for uh many weeks i don't know or may stop it at any time but i i want to uh i want to recall something tonight we don't have i'll probably uh repeat myself sunday but um i saw something this week that thrilled my heart so so gratefully i got to see my two great granddaughters my two great-grandchildren one her first day of of daycare school in the two-year-old class and the other one her first day of grade school she's in the first grade and to think i'm getting to see my own two great grandchildren start their education here at apostolic christian school and apostolic kiddie academy now i'm speaking to each one of you from this father's corner back over here i believe that's brother eddie bernard no that's not i i can't see huh there he is there he is okay well forgive me but uh uh i i'm my my distant vision is really good i can see the moon and that's how many hundred thousand that's a long ways away but anyway i'm looking at all of you back there and it's hard to to make you out this far uh but um uh what a joy it is and i'm talking to each one of you and i want you to understand what i am saying as i uh make a half circle of this congregation sunday morning and sunday night there will be probably twice or three times this many people here but um well i would like to impress upon you the ministry that you are involved in now we send missionaries around the world because we are a missionary-minded church it's so good to have a brother krause's son here and to be a part of that ministry going way back to brother grant was our first missionary project in the philippines we built a bamboo church in the philippines many years ago and since then we've had the part and uh many churches on the mission field but god gave me a a great burden for home missions and i have a saying that i've been quoted many times on the light that shines farthest shines brightest closest to home and what we're doing right at what you are doing it's not me now the old saying if you ever see a turtle on the fence post you know he didn't get there by himself and if you see a a pastor of a great church you can be sure that he didn't get there by himself but um understanding what was happening i asked sister our pastor uh first lady sister jamie mccool pastor mark mccoon's wife um she's so good at uh keeping track of everything i asked her to make me a list of all the ministers ministers wives and uh that has come out of our christian school well when i got the list uh there was a note that i didn't understand it said none f a c attended acs and said none fac and i really didn't know what that what that meant because uh my intentions were to let you understand i don't think many of us really can fathom the far-reaching uh benefit of the ministry of this church and um when i began to inquire sister ashley explained it to me a little more clearly and she said this is students that have come from our school but they have gone out from our church said if you start naming all the ministries and ministers ministers wives and so forth in the church you're going to miss somebody so it'd be better to have everybody just uh maybe sunday night stan that's been a a student of apostolic christian school or apostolic kiddie academy uh there's such a sister eve and and sister sandy ryan uh sister daniel and here here i go i have to need to stop right there but the many students they have taught through the years now they could not have done this without the ministry of first apostolic church now let me quickly run over some names and i'm not gonna i'm i'm purposely not gonna be calling any names of those who are in the church don mcbroom mcgee pastor's wife kevin hopkins pastor jamie field and ball pastor's wife wes comer pastor kenny carpenter pastor penny bennett carpenter pastor's wife gray holsack pastor's wife adam hundley missionary stephen cockendal missionary brian henderson pastor michael maupin evangelist matthew o'shell pastor melissa o'shell reinhardt pastor's wife jason barber pastor phyllis wilson magnus pastor's wife elaine triplett solomon minister's wife marcus wade pastor kim colby delaney pastor's wives i'm going to break the rule i'm going to take executive privilege because there's three more i want to mention but they're in the church pastor's wife jamie sellers mccool pastor's wife ashley whitley mccool pastor anthony mccool now this is a very limited number now this is what you teachers an apostolic christian school have produced now would you try to imagine with me for just one moment do you know of another church anywhere that that many ministries had come out of that church do you know of any other that any other ministry you could be involved in you what missionary work could you do that you could reach as many as you are doing right here at apostolic christian school and apostolic kitty academy all i can and you know when they begin to caution me today sister mccool and sister ashley and pastor i i i went to to brush my teeth after breakfast or something and and um i stood in the mirror and i caught myself laughing out loud because the scripture came to my mind in the 11th chapter of hebrews paul and i believe paul wrote hebrews as a lot of discussion about that among the preachers among the theologians but i believe it was paul and in the 11th chapter he starts out with abel and on and on by faith abel by faith noah by faith abraham by faith moses by faith without only and he went all the way down and then he said but time would not permit to tell all of them and they called over several names and then it said but there were others who were sown asunder who were fed the wild beasts and it set up there were others whom the world was not worthy of of whom the world i can see it don't do to you what it's doing to me but when i think of what the saints of god in this church the elders and leaders and ushers and technicians and sunday school teachers and uh staff workers and janitorial and musicians and and and all the different ministries and when i read that of whom the world was not worthy and look what we're doing where he jesus said go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature how does how does it make you feel what how do you feel sister saying how do you feel about having taught all these that i've talked about you probably told everyone sister eve you probably have and sister daniel came to us at an atom at a most crucial time and she was a public school teacher with all the degrees and everything and what a job she has done down through the years thank you anyway uh let me read you this i'm i'm forgetting what i wanted to tell you this i wrote a uh employee handbook many years ago and the pastor told me he still has it in digital form and and i have an old yellow copy here and in this um in this book i wrote many many years ago your training and qualifications apostolic kidding academy an apostolic christian school and i'm not going to read the whole page employees should be free of physical handicaps which would interfere them from handling the safe care of children and it said some things that is a must and then it said the apostolic kitty academy and apostolic christian school are inseparable as ministries our staff are more than employees they are ministers of god if you don't feel the call of god on your life to teach children and teach young folks be praying about it we i have one of the biggest and most frequently asked questions to any ministers as pastor what is the will of god for my life how do i find the will of god for my life well the will of god is for us to go into all the world their minister of god and there are many benefits to working here the joy of working for the lord the satisfaction of molding lives for jesus christ clean christian environment no smoking or filthy talk no quarreling or fussing no telling of dirty jokes fellow employees are of the same faith in our spirit filled not having to listen to others criticize the way you believe or the way you dress excellent experience in dealing with people making new friends learning the element of teamwork learning useful and satisfying skills what an opportunity we have to do a work for god if you want to do a work for god what a valuable opportunity it is pastor said we may have opening for uh folks who would like to uh be on the staff of apostolic kitty academy or so forth don't be hurt if there's not an opening that fits you but if you want to we've even got some folks coming out of retirement and helping sister pat is so good i saw you walking the halls today how great it is well i got to get on with my teaching i going to get get stuck and reiterating this and that and the other and i told you uh last week i was going to be teaching tonight deborah's sarcastic song and i'll get to that in a little bit let me quickly do some reviewing and i'll promise not to get hung up on this i started out with this subject entitled it was good genesis 1 4 and god saw the light that it was good genesis 1 10 and god saw that it was good talking about the dry land and the earth and the earth brought forth grass and herbs god saw that it was good and the son of the moon ruled over the day and over the night and god saw that it was good genesis 2 18 and the lord god said it is not good that the man should be alone i started out with that subject to impress upon us that god said it's not good for man to be alone you could put that a person and uh take out the the gender aspects of the of the statement it isn't good to be alone in your theology uh it isn't good when when when uh the early church when they became there there came a discussion over circumstances it had been a very that's a very very delicate subject and some of the converted jews they they were converted to the new apostolic doctrine and holy ghost but some of them felt like they needed a hold on to believing that circumcision was essential to their salvation and after much discussion uh the paul went up to jerusalem and conferred with the rest of the apostles and they put their heads together and they they they worked it out they didn't all see alike but after they came together and they they once said this and one said that and uh the first dissension in the early church was in the days when the number of of the disciples were were multiplied there are rows of murmuring it didn't say there arose a revival or a great move of god but in the days when the there was a a multiplication adding together the plus of the disciples and anytime you get a large group together you're going to have differing opinions some were getting the feelings hurt because some were being neglected at the daily administration so they got together they said it's not meat for us to leave to the teaching of the word of god and wait on tables so they sought out seven men for the holy ghost with good report and appointed over these matters so they worked out that's that that situation they were not going to be a long one this is going to be my way bless god no other way they worked it out and then there was a discussion concerning the eating of meat and since the old testament had a lot of uh restrictions and so forth but yet they worked it out and what i'm saying is is it's not good to be alone and what i think i i like to bounce off somebody else how do you see this scripture what do you think about what do you think about this after all i'm the fellow but the first car i got that had automatic locking doors i took it back to the dealer and told them i needed to get that thing fixed every time i put it in gear the the doors lock on me i understand they laughed at me said you paid you paid money for that i thought there was a short in the system years ago when they first got the electric windows you get that thing mixed up and the the winners go up and down when you wouldn't expect them so i thought there's something wrong with it so it's good to listen to somebody else see what they think i don't mean to follow everybody's idea but it's not good to be alone and then i went from that uh in ecclesiastes nine said two are better than one if one falls the other can lift up his brother but war unto him that is alone i don't want to be alone i need you i don't i i can't make it by myself i've got to have my brothers and the sisters that's why the bible said behold i good enough pleasant is for brethren to dwell together in unity forsaken out the assembling of yourselves together and the man will sell me and some will get the wrong manner but he said don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together then i talked about in the book of judges uh there there was a a man and his mother that got off way up away from everybody else and the bible said they were careless quiet and secure and when the household of dan who had not been able to secure the land that god had assigned to them they found a place where they'd got way off by themselves and and then they they saw that they were all by themselves and they they attacked and took away their idol gods and so forth you remember that i talked about the state of the danites and uh and then i'm going to skip over a whole lot of things and get on to the subject tonight uh and then uh micah and his mother they hired them a preacher i talked about beware of the preacher who goes to the highest bidder they hadn't found a levite i called her the levi on the loose and uh they said where are you going so i'm looking for a place to land and they hired him to be their preacher and he was their preacher for a while he's micah had saw one of his sons as his priest and but when a real levi came along he hired him and he went to whatever price that mike offered him but by and by the household dad and came by and said how much they're paying you so much i'll say would you rather be the the pastor wouldn't you rather be the the priest of a of a whole tribe and a crowd than the man just one man in his family oh the bible said it made his heart glad he gathered up the isle of gods and took off with a bigger crowd i'm paraphrasing a lot of this and i i said beware of the pastor of the preacher that goes to the highest bidder the book of judges covers a period of 410 years it's the history of a time when there was no king in israel and every man did that which was right in his own eyes the book has 21 chapters beginning with the death of joshua and concludes with the death of samson this is a book which tells of god's people repeatedly forsaking god god would turn them over and they would go into captivity to some heathen regime or even doctor or even a bunch of people and then when they suffered enough they would return to god and then they suffered the consequences and enjoyed the benefits of repentance and returning to god now my point in this is uh a 21 books when they were judges no king but judges and the bible said in those days there was no king in israel and every man did that which was right in his own eyes and as we talked the other week there was no one to shame them no one to correct them because everybody did their own thing they did that which was right you hear opi well here's what i think about it now if you want to know the plan of salvation ask your barber he can tell you don't tell dwight i said that but uh that's my barber's name uh ask the mechanic ask the fellow they can tell you all about it what you need you need a man of god you need man that's been called of god that'll tell you how to be saved and not be afraid to tell you that listen to somebody that knows what they're talking about [Music] [Applause] oh brother newcomb told me the story he uh he started to go into the chicken raising business years ago and selling eggs and so forth and the fellow came by and he said uh uh you're doing this all on this they do it with this way and said he told me all about how to do it and uh so i said how come you knowing you know so much about raising chickens and eggs and all that well he said i went broke doing that well that sure is a good source of advice isn't it all right well in this story i'm telling you tonight the 21 chapters of uh the book of judges and it is so interesting you you you get a you get a enjoyment out of reading the whole 21 chapters but it tells about how they fell and how god brought them back in line how they fell and how they got them back in line it got to the place they didn't have any leader and there was a a prophetess by the name of deborah she was a prophetess and she also was a the judge the leader of israel and after judges 1 starting at verse 1 now after the death of joshua it came to pass that the children of israel the lord saying who should go up against the canaanites and fight for us against them and the lord said judah shall go up behold i have delivered the land into their hand you see god said he was going to give them canaan's land but it didn't mean they just walked right in and all the inhabitants said come right in you can have it it's yours but they assigned them this this belongs to you pastor but you're going to have to run those out that's occupying it every one of the tribes they were assigned a certain portion and it was theirs but they had to fight for it and let me say something there's a lot of things that belongs to us from god but you're gonna have to fight for it you're going to you're going to have to fight for it and and so now notice this thing right here god they they after the death of joshua the lord saying who shall go up against the canaanites first to fight against them and the lord said judah shall go up behold i have delivered the land into your hands oh boy that's signed sealed and delivered yours judah go get it they're waiting on you to take it no judah said to simeon his brother come up with me it's not good that man should be alone judah said simeon to come up with me into my lot that we may fight against we may fight against the canaanites and likewise i will go with thee into the lot so simeon went with him pastor you help me and i'll help you it's not good to be alone two's better than one we're talking about the benefit and the strength of unity one can put a thousand to fly two ten thousand and so judah and simeon join together jesus 1 4 and 5 and judah went up and the lord delivered the canaanites and the peace of rice into their hand they slew them and visit ten thousand men men alive what they were able to do these two tribes now i don't know what would have happened had judah tried it by himself and then here is the essence of deborah's sarcastic song when deborah the prophetess and king prophetess and judge saw that their land was being dominated by the idolatrous enemy she said god wants us to conquer that enemy and she said we're going to fight them and we're going to win but she said i need help and she called on a man by the name of borac and she called him up and said barack god has told me that we can be delivered if we'll go up against these enemies and she said i want you to go and fight with me and be the leader of the army and barack being the uh the bold brave man it was said will you go with me i said i ain't gonna go let you go he said to her if you'll go with me i'll go but if you're not willing to go with me i'm not going to go well that wasn't such a bad decision wasn't such a bad statement to make i'm going to go but i need you she was a woman she was a prophetess and she was a judge and she said well i'll go so they went there there was a man by the name of sisera and he was the captain of the enemy's army he had 900 chariots of iron and he miserably mistreated and ruled over israel for 20 years now think 900 chariots of iron he ruled and mistreated brutalized the israelites for 20 years and that's who they were up against a man that had 900 chairs and a huge army but she said god told us to go and so he went and they went and they engaged in battle and it was a it was a furious furious battle and at the end of the day they won the victory and i'll tell you how they want it later on in my message but there were certain ones that didn't go with them to fight and in the fifth chapter of judges deborah composed a song it's a rather long rather lengthy chapter but she's saying praises to the ones that hazarded their lives and then she got to the point that she wanted to throw in a sarcastic verse and here's what she she said of a reuben verse 16 of judges five now this is part of the song sing it with whatever two you want to sing it why i bought us thou among the sheep bowls to hear the bleeding of the ship of the flocks now this is where i get my idea that as a sarcastic song reuben why didn't you go with us to fight you what did you stay with your bad bad black sheep have you any wool was you more interested in listening to sheep blade than you were winning the victory how sarcastic can you get for the divisions of reuben there was great searching of heart you wanted to go you wanted you had the heart to go but you didn't have the bonus to go gilead aboard beyond jordan and why did dan remain in ships asher continued on the seashore and a boat in his breaches yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah why couldn't you go to church you could go to walmart but you can't go to church you can go fishing but you can't go to church that's a little sarcastic in it but that's telling him out to what deborah was doing she was chiding those that refused to get in the battle listen i don't want to stay back to listen to the to the to the sheep and the billy goats and i don't want to stay behind to watch the car races i don't want to stay behind to watch my garden grow i want to get involved i want to be part of this battle i want to see these young folks around this altar shouting and talking in tongues i don't want to be sarcastic but i want to tell you i want to be involved i am not a spectator i am a participator [Applause] it might be pronounced participant but it don't rhyme as good as a participator now moses he had a verse to that sarcastic song and numbers 32 and 6 moses said unto the children of gad and to the children of reuben shall your brothers go to war [Music] and shall you sit here are you listen oh yeah listen moses said shall your brothers go to war and you don't get involved to help him yes i want to tell you something when you have a problem i've got a problem brother jones when you got i've got a problem and i'm not going to sit back and and let you fight your battles and weep alone i'm going to pray for you i do pray for you every night when i get on my knees with that with that 96 year old man laying in the bed and sister mccool at one end of the bedtime we pray for every one of you i want you to know you're not alone i'm not going to be just watching you i'm going to be ringing the bells of heaven saying god you know what i'm saying you're going through i'm going to get involved i'm not going to be a participant i'm not going to be a spectator i'm going to be a participant give the lord a hand clap would you please judges 4 2 and the lord sold them into the hand of jabin king of canaan now this was the king and that reigned in hazor the captain of whose host was sisera which dwelt and whoresheth of the gentiles and the children of israel cried unto the lord for he had 900 chariots of iron and 20 years he mildly oppressed the children of israel and deborah a prophetess the li the wife of lapidoth she judged israel at that time and she went under the palm tree of deborah between ramoth and bethel and mount ephraim and the children of israel came up to her for judgment and she sent nicole borak the son of bentley out of kadesh nephilia and said unto him hath not the lord god of israel commanded saying go and draw toward mount tabor and take with thee ten thousand men of the children of naphtali and the children of zebulun and i will draw unto thee to the river of keshon sisera the captain of jabin's army with his chariots and his multitude and i'll deliver them into thy hand and barack said unto her if thou will go with me then i will go but if thou will not go with me i will not go and she said i will surely go with thee notwithstanding the journey that thou taketh shall not be for thine honor for the lord shall sell sisera into the hand of a woman and deborah arose and went with barak and borack called zebulon and went up with ten thousand men at his feet and deborah went up with him now hebrew the canaanite which was of the children of hobart the father-in-law of moses had severed himself from the canaanites and pitched his tent under the plains of zionium which is by kadesh and they showed sisera and barak the son of our ability and was gone to mount tabor and cicero gathered together all the his chariots even 900 of iron and all the people that were with him and to the river of kishon and deborah said unto barack up for this is the day in which the lord hath delivered sisera into thy hand it's not the lord gone out before thee so barack went down from mount tabor and ten thousand men with him and the lord discomfited cicero and all his cherished and all his hosts with the edge of the sword before barack so that sisera lighted down off of his chariot and fled away on his feet but as he fled there was a woman by the name of jay hill j e j e j a e l she saw sister coming and he was on foot left his chairs and she stood in the door and said come on said come come on in come come on in and and and he came in and he said i'm tired i'm wore out i said could you spare me some water i need some water oh she said i've got something better than that the bible said she opened him a bottle of milk and she he asked for water she gave him milk and brought forth butter in a lordly dish and then he was so sleepy after the the warm milk and the butter from a lordly dish he laid down and she took a blanket and covered him said you go to sleep you're safe now everything is fine everything is fine and when he was fast asleep she goes back here and she pulls up a nail that was holding the tent down i meant to bring a mallet with me tonight but i got some great big nails about that and she walks over to where he was sound asleep jay hill was about to nail the problem j.e was just about to nail the problem when he was fast asleep she put that nail in his temple and took that mallet bam with one lick she drove you think you got a headache with one body with one mighty lick she drove that nail clean through his head and into the ground and he was a dead man i want you to know she knew how to nail the problem let me say this in this message tonight they had put up with this scoundrel for 20 years for 20 years he had oppressed them and this woman was able to nail that problem and then this was in deborah's song she sung about this and and it was a song of a victory my dad used to try to quit smoking and he had to go to the altar and seek the holy ghost and throw his cigarettes out the window and after the church he go out there and feel around his afraid he's gonna rain and he get his cigarette pick him up and finally he said he realized that the only way to to to quit smoking cigarettes if he wanted to break the habit of smoking was to drop it and when he made up his mind he wasn't going to smoke anymore and he quit right then and there brother brian used to tell about smoking in this endless in the shower he smoked a little narrow cigars and he would take a shower and and with that but it said when god got a hold of him he dropped it listen we can we can agonize with a problem we need to nail that thing down and drop it then paul shook the viper off into the fire the thing that's that's that's bothering you let's let's shake it off now she didn't do it by herself there was ten thousand soldiers that had helped route the enemy and she had a leader of deborah that was the judge and prophetess of israel and she had some let me tell you something we as a church god may use you to be the one that nails the problem down god made you you use you to be the one that brings that person to the altar we're going to send folks around this world we're going to send folks out to take care of this gospel to a lost in the dying world would you stand your feet with me next week i'm going to be teaching on not i but us that's my subject next week not i but us judges 3 1 and 2. now these are the nations which the lord left now listen to this would you please are you listening now these are the nations which the lord was still talking about in this 410 year span when they didn't have a king did what was right in their own eyes and then there were some that would was able to go in and win their territory then he couldn't do it he found some easy territory but then the bible said now these are the nations which the lord left to prove israel by them even as many of israel as had not known all the wars of canaan only that the generations of the children of israel might know to teach them war at the least such as before knew nothing thereof god leaves a few things in our path to keep us praying god leads a few things along the way to teach us to pray and we'll be covering that in in future lessons god help me to know how to fight the enemy god help me to know how to nail that devil that's trying to torment me that devil is trying to torment my finances the devil is trying to torment my marriage the devil is trying to take my children the devil that's trying to i want to nail that thing down once and for all and get the victory over and i need your help to help me pray about it father we thank you tonight for the precious word of god i pray lord you'll let the word of the lord sink deep into our hearts and let us take it to heart and may we understand that we have within us that mighty spirit that pastor told us about that you said that you was with us but you would be in us he told us last week that you were in us and you were there to be our comforter and we will receive power after that holy ghost to come upon us and we believe that now lord i pray you'll help us to encourage one another stand by one another and love one another and win this world for jesus christ dismiss us from this place but not from your presence in jesus name we pray amen shake hands and be friendly you are dismissed in jesus name