We've Got a Lot to Learn About the Power of God

This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Running with Horses, a podcast devoted to inspire you, concerning a relationship with Almighty God that empowers you to accomplish things you never thought possible. Shirley Weaver wants to take you there. And now here's today's episode.

Hello everyone and welcome. My name is Shirley Weaver and this is the podcast where we love to talk about the power of God. Specifically today, we've got a lot to learn about the power of God.

That's the title because we do. We have a lot to learn about the power of God, of understanding His nature and His heart for us to release His power in our behalf. This show is brought to you by the partners of our ministry, Shirley Weaver Ministries, actually our corporate name, A Clear Trumpet Incorporated, plugs us back into or touches on the trumpet, the use of the trumpet, especially in the Old Testament, but mentioned in the New where God signals His people what to do, when and how so that they'll be able to respond to Him. We love that, the trumpets of God.

So we ask God to make every message very clear, make it a clear trumpet. And by the way, we appreciate your support. We love to hear from you. We love your financial support.

Every strength that you lend is so appreciated. If you would be interested in being a part of that financial support, just check out the show notes. You'll find a link there, really convenient, or you can just go straight directly to aclearchumpet.org forward slash give.

Aclearchumpet.org forward slash give. The power of God, what do we know about it? Something C.S. Lewis wrote really stands out in my memory. I love this quote from him.

You remember C.S. Lewis, the popular British Christian writer. If you're not familiar with his writings, you need to check that out. Such an amazing writer, such an amazing testimony. Responding to letters that different readers of his would write to him, they would write a question, inquire about something in specific, and then he would answer their letters. Handwritten.

I think that's amazing. Anyway, in one such letter about a certain subject, I don't remember what, Lewis penned this. An undisciplined mind sometimes admits into its theology ideas whose proper place is in his romances. An undisciplined mind sometimes admits into his theology the ideas whose proper place would be in his romances. So the idea there, the word that comes to mind for me is if we're thinking romance, we're thinking maybe feely, maybe touchy and feely, some imagery, maybe a bit shallow, maybe immature. Anyway, it is descriptive of something opposite from mature theology.

So C.S. Lewis put it this way, when my mind is undisciplined, carelessly, I include in making up what I believe about God, how I see him. In other words, my theology, things that really belong in another category, something less important really, and the word he chose was romances. This idea is such an, it encapsulates what I'm thinking and is the very opposite of the scripture in Ephesians 5, this is the time to walk circumspectly before the Lord, redeeming the time because the days are indeed evil. Walk circumspectly in this time, redeeming the time because clearly the days are evil. And the last part of that verse connects that concept, walking circumspectly, so that you can release redemption into each situation.

The opposite would be unwise. So God's wisdom is to be aware of how to redeem the time and how to do so in light of the evil of the day. So we've got a lot to learn about things that circumvent, obstruct, or get in the way of God's power, and just a few we'll take a look at. First of all, cause and effect, and then the principle of seed time and harvest, because you know everything is a seed, and then tying into the geographic place Armageddon and how that ties into end time theology. First of all, cause and effect.

You know, humanly speaking, I think we all tend to think anytime something is happening, that it had its origin in the last 24 hours. And we look to that range of time for the answers of why, who, what, where, you know, to explain the outworking of what we are experiencing right now, when in fact, and I say this is really true overall, the effect that you see now is coming from something in the past, perhaps distant past, maybe a more near past, but definitely beyond the moment. So you need to look there, that is beyond the moment, beyond the surface for the explanation of what is taking place, whether the thing that's unfolding is negative, positive, doesn't matter. Everything unfolds as it develops. So one of the ways that we describe that kind of thing is the words cause and effect.

And really and truly, from our perspective, we want what we want and we want it now. But God is working over periods of time, over seasons or over the full season of time you're in, over lengths of time to make the things that are not right. He is working to make those things right. In that way, this is miraculous what He is doing just in a different timeframe.

You see, that miracle in my mind would even be greater because God is overseeing and His purview is a wider range of time, bringing in all of the things that are involved. So He is really touching on and involving everything and everyone involved. And so the explanation or the description of what's going on is more accurate for sure. And all of that to say, that is why we discipline our words, discipline our thoughts, because our words carve out and express what we're thinking. We discipline our words, we discipline our thoughts, both are so powerful. We want to think in terms of cause and effect. And anything we set in motion right now, today, will be the cause for an effect that you will perceive down the road.

And I'll just throw one more in for measure here. We also need to discipline the way we judge other people. You know, the Bible says, who are you to judge another man's servant? The other man, of course, in this verse is Jesus. So you are a servant of His, the other people in your sphere of influence, who know the Lord, they are servants of His. So not your place, not my place to judge them, not our place to judge another man's servant. You do not want to set something like that in motion.

You see what I'm saying? Don't initiate a cause that will lead to an effect. And secondly, seed time and harvest. This is huge because everything, believe me, everything is a seed.

The principle holds across the board. What I sow today, there will be a harvest for at some point. A few hours from now, later today, next week, 10 years from now, everything that has a genesis has a harvest time. And so for example, since everything is a seed in the way that I perceive the Lord, and He is quickening me in something concerning His will, the way that I am able to obey that, obey His quickening, that is the seed that I want to sow.

Compared to quenching or grieving His Holy Spirit, quenching or grieving Him. You see the two, each is a seed. Being quickened and obeying God is a seed. Quenching His Spirit is a seed.

There is a harvest at the end of the development of that seed. Light cause and effect, seed time and harvest, all of this applies to relationships, your integrity in business, integrity in your own personal life. It includes the way that we steward the temple of God's Spirit, which is our physical body, the earth suit that He gave us for this time, this part of our eternal life.

We have a physical body, so our physical health is something we have dominion over that would include proper care, proper diet, proper exercise. And we've all learned some the hard way, aside from caring for this temple, stewarding it, knowing that what I do today becomes the cause of the effect down the road. The seed I sow today is the one I will harvest concerning this temple. It's an important part of our lives, to say the very least, but it fits right here what we're looking at concerning the power of God. And do we understand what we've been given?

Do we understand the responsibility here? Ezekiel 38, verse 4 is really a prophetic passage about the last days. And God is referring here, I mean this passage is loaded, but just this part of the verse, this part of the passage, God is saying of the enemies of Israel, He is addressing them now. And of course, an enemy of Israel, let's be clear, is an enemy of God. An enemy of Israel is an enemy of God. And so the Lord is expressing here in verse 4, His plan for the enemies of Israel, the enemies of God. Here's the quote, I will turn you around and put a hook in your jaw and bring you out with your whole army. I, the Lord will turn you, the enemy around, put a hook in your jaw and bring you, I mean visualize drag you out of that environment with your whole army.

Why is He saying this? Because the enemies of God, the enemies of Israel and those people have sown tragically. They have sown malice toward Israel. They have sown destruction against Israel. And now the Lord will have His say. He will turn them around. That means they're under His jurisdiction, put hook in the jaw and bring them out.

They and all of their defenses. The word here is army. So this is a certain judgment, a certain verdict tying us right into the thought here. As I said, Armageddon is a geographic place. It is a location, just a basic definition according to Revelation 16 and also chapter 19 of Revelation. This geographic location is where the final battle between Jesus and the Antichrist will take place. The name itself comes from the Hebrew word for Mount Megiddo.

And it is also an ancient city known as the site of other prominent battles. It's also a reference to the hill country north of Jerusalem, which is known as the plain of Megiddo. So Revelation 19, verse 19 describes the future clearly. Quote, and I saw the beast, the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against him, referring to Jesus, who sat on the horse and against his army. So the vision here that John had in Revelation 19, I saw the beast, the Antichrist, the kings of the earth, those aligned with the Antichrist, the beast, their armies, all of their power, all of their ability to destroy.

And I gathered them, the Lord gathered them down into the valley. That would be the hook in the jaw sea to make war against him who sat on the horse and against his army. You know, culturally, Armageddon is really closely connected to divine judgment and catastrophic events. But in scripture, Armageddon is a place, a particular place. So Revelation 19, beginning in verse 19, kings and rulers gathered together to make war against God's son. It doesn't say that there was a battle. It says that they were gathered together there to make war, to battle against him. Verse 20, then the beast was captured and with him the false prophet. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire that burns with brimstone. And verse 21, and the rest were killed with the sword, which proceeds from the mouth of him who sat on the horse. And then all the birds of prey came to consume the flesh of the dead armies that covered the floor of this location named Armageddon.

You see this picture here. The Lord comes, the battle has been gathered, but it doesn't say there was a battle. It tells you the result of the battle. The beast, the antichrist and his false prophet were immediately cast into the lake of fire, but those aligned with them, they just simply came under the influence of the sword. The sword is the word which proceeded from the mouth of him. Him is the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the living word. So the word in the sword, the word of him who sat on the horse, and as he rode into the battle where the armies were gathered, you know what happened. Everything that happened took place as his presence came onto the scene. Go back and take a look at that passage.

See what you think. See if you read that there was a battle, or if rather just the time that God had ordained to deal with this matter, then the influence of the presence of the Lord Jesus engaged for that purpose is what caused the effect. You know, it reminds me of the story of the Apostle Paul, his encounter with the Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus. And remember, as that happened, he acknowledged the Lord and said, who are you?

And you've often heard it said that he was knocked from his horse, but that is not in scripture that he was knocked from his horse. Go back and take a look at it. You see the presence of God, the voice of God, the reality of being in his presence, which Paul was, which the enemy armies at Armageddon were. That in and of itself is a power. We do not have a prescription, a description that we can conceive of. We don't have in our natural thinking a way to really, you know, take that in. So these things, there's a lot to learn, a lot that we have to learn about the power of God.

We've got a lot to learn. Think about cause and effect, about the power of seed time and harvest, about the experience here, the description here of what took place, what will take place at Armageddon. These are the things that describe God's power. Seed time and harvest.

That is absolutely off the chart. We don't have that power in ourselves. Cause and effect, we don't have that power in ourselves. This thing that we've just described at Armageddon is the way that the power of God is ordained to defeat his enemies, to overcome, and to put hooks in the jaw of each enemy and bring them out into the open along with their armies. Their power and their strength to destroy and deal with them ultimately is his power on display. He is the Lord. He is eternal. He is almighty God. He is the Lord. He is the Lord.