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tjservant
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Joined: 2006/8/25
Posts: 1658
Indiana USA

 Explanation of Ten Shekels and a Shirt - by Paris Reidhead

Paris Reidhead was a missionary in Sudan, Africa. He died in 1992. Below is his explanation of Ten Shekels and a Shirt.

In over fifty years of Bible teaching and preaching "Ten Shekels and a Shirt" is the only message that I feel constrained to explain how it came to be preached.

During a Bethany Fellowship Summer Conference in the mid sixties I was preparing to speak at the Tuesday morning Bible hour. Upon returning to my room after breakfast to meditate and pray about the message for that morning hour, I felt strangely impressed that I could not deliver the message that had been prepared for the session. Instead, I felt that there was some other message that was needed which I was to bring.

After prayer, the message that came to mind was one on which I had begun preparation for the ministry at the church in New York City of which I was pastor at that time. My notes were not with me, but were in a file folder in my study. An empty envelope was on the desk in my room, on the back of which I wrote the scripture texts to be used and one or two ideas that came to mind. With the envelope in my Bible marking Judges, Chapter 17, and my self utterly cast upon the Lord, I went to the auditorium where between four and five hundred people waited to hear from the Lord through me.

I remember praying, "This morning I am utterly cast upon You because I am not really prepared." In my heart I seemed to hear His response, "Well is that so bad, already" (being from New York City it was given in an idiom I would understand.)

I delivered the message and gave an invitation. Shortly the altar across the front of the auditorium was filled with broken people seeking God.

The summer conference was soon over and I returned to New York City and the ministry there.

About ten years later, one of the Bethany Fellowship staff was in Washington, D.C., where we had moved and from where we still minister. His word was, "Paris, I want to tell you that God has repeatedly used your message "Ten Shekels and a Shirt" in my life".

I didn't really know to what he referred, for I had never preached that message again. The substance of it occurs in other messages, but the exact message itself was preached only that once.

A week or two later Harry Conn from Rockford, Illinois was in Washington. He invited me to have dinner with him. In the course of the meal he said, "I buy that message of yours 'Ten Shekels and a Shirt' by the dozen to give to people. God is really using it in lives". My response was that if you have a copy, I would like to have it sent to me so that I can find out what it is I have said. In a few days the cassette arrived.

Since I don't have a tape player in my office, I put the tape into the Sony dictating machine on my desk and listened through the little playback on the hand-held microphone. The element of distance in terms of time, and the distorted sound through the miniature speaker, let me listen to the message with no real awareness of who was speaking. From time to time I felt like exclaiming, "That's right! I wish I had said that!" Then it dawned on me that it was I.... no, not really. I realized that on a Tuesday morning during a summer conference, God had been able to get His message across because of my utter and complete helplessness.

Be sure of this, I take no credit for anything and everything that is good and a blessing from the message. In the past sixteen years several thousands of taped copies of this message have been sold and many more thousands of copies have been made from the ones purchased.

I have never preached this message again, nor will I. This message has not been transcribed and printed, nor will it ever be. Here is the message just as the Lord, Who chose to use Balaam's donkey, was also able to use another who was utterly dependent upon Him.

Paris Reidhead


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TJ

 2007/4/6 23:06Profile
Talkn2u
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Joined: 2006/12/31
Posts: 196


 Re: Explanation of Ten Shekels and a Shirt - by Paris Reidhead

Oh MY goodness!!! What a story!!! Ten Shekels and a Shirt was the very first sermon I listened to when I joined the site in December.
Paris Reidhead is the one that I recommend people to listen to, when they are first introduced to Sermonindex...

This gives such Faith and Assurance of God taking over by the Power of His Spirit to speak thru a vessle that is utterly surrendered to pour out only what has been poured in.

Thank you so very much for putting this article up on the boards here. I am going to go back and listen to that message again.

Isn't it great how God sometimes (many times) does not show us for years upon years the extent of how He has used us.

How dare we ever try to take the credit, for what HE says and does thru us....our only response should be humility, awe and worship.

 2007/4/7 20:48Profile
crsschk
Member



Joined: 2003/6/11
Posts: 9192
Santa Clara, CA

 Re: Shirts and Shekels

Quote:
Isn't it great how God sometimes (many times) does not show us for years upon years the extent of how He has used us.

:-)

Yes...

Here is a couple of older threads that might be of some interest as well;

[url=https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=flat&order=0&topic_id=9708&forum=35&post_id=&refresh=Go]Ten Shekels and a Shirt[/url]

[url=https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=585&forum=34#81580]'Ten Shekels and a Shirt' written transcript[/url]

[url=https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=flat&order=0&topic_id=5487&forum=34&post_id=&refresh=Go]Ten Shekels and a Shirt (share your comments)..[/url]


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Mike Balog

 2007/4/7 21:10Profile
Talkn2u
Member



Joined: 2006/12/31
Posts: 196


 Re:

Thank you... I checked out all of that after I listened to the sermon "again"...
It seems I gain so much more each time I listen to it.

But the result is always the same...my spirit so utterly stirred...I was moved to write a friend who is passionate for the Work of the Lord, and I believe this message will "define the purpose" in it all.

The Power of God always seems to hit me when Paris Reidhead talks about his desire to go to Africa...and then his attention to the state of their hearts when he gets there...

Where my heart "breaks" and tears sting my eyes is when he says that he thot the purpose was to save man from Hell..and he realizes it is to Bring Glory to God...

It is a reminder to me that the purpose of the Lost being redeemed is NOT for their comfort and safety...NO...it is about God NOT MAN....

And when he speaks that part out I am so abrupted in my spirit, I cannot help but want those who say they are out to win the lost KNOW THIS and HEAR THIS SERMON....

Yes, the Son of Man came to seek and save them which were lost...but it is about HIM laying down HIS life for us that is the focus...not shoving that "fact" to the side and accentuating on the Rewards of Heaven/Eternal life...

Praise God for the Hope of Salvation and Blessed be His Name for Eternal life!!! But even if we die and go to Hell God is STILL to be Praised and Glorified and Worshipped...May we never forget or fail to give Him the Honor and Glory He MORE than deserves...

 2007/4/8 0:39Profile





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