Beware of the Angry Watchmen - Part 1

Turn with me this morning, please, if you will, to the Song of Solomon. Go Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, then Song of Solomon, and Isaiah in the Old Testament, if that helps you to find it. Song of Solomon. Just open your Bibles to the beginning of that book and just set them down for a moment. Father, God Almighty, I thank you for the anointing of the Holy Spirit. I thank you, Lord, that this is something from your heart, that you will enable me to convey this. I give you the praise and all the glory. Oh, Jesus, Jesus, bring your bride home. Bring your bride home. God Almighty, God Almighty, God Almighty, let my voice be yours. Let the intonations of my life be yours. God, I don't want to do anything that would hinder this. Help me, Holy Spirit, to be animated by the very heart of Jesus Christ. God, help me to speak this. I ask it in Jesus' precious name. Now, I want to ask something. Those that are going to be listening on the Internet in the future, I'm going to ask you to duplicate as many copies of this message as you can and get it out to as many people as you know. Get it out to your friends. Get it out to people who are struggling. Get it out to people who are caught in things that perhaps are not the ideal of what the church should be and should embrace. Just duplicate it and get it out as quickly as you can. I was in another state this weekend. I was visiting. I was speaking somewhere. And I went to sleep one night, and this message came out of a dream. Now, you know I don't do this very often. I'm not really led by dreams and visions. But I'm telling you, God spoke to me. And let me tell you about this dream. In this dream, I was in a house, and I was working on the actual message I intended on speaking this morning. I was sitting down at a desk, and I had my pen out, and I was beginning to write some notes. And as I was beginning to work on it, I looked over my shoulder, and somebody had put a candle on a shelf. It was a three-tiered shelf, and the candle was on the lower tier of this shelf. And there was a piece of paper hanging off of the top of the middle shelf over the candle, and I thought, what a careless place to put a candle. And I was annoyed by this, and I thought, this is a nuisance. Why would somebody do this? It's not doing any good for me here. And why would they even light this thing in the first place? So I ignored it. I kept on working. Worked for a few more minutes, looked over my shoulder again, and the piece of paper had caught fire that was over top of the candle. So I left my seat, went over, and just stomped it underfoot on the floor, put it out, literally. And I remember thinking, what a foolish place to put a candle. And I went back to work, and worked a little bit more, and I looked over my shoulder again, and now the shelving was on fire. The first two tiers of about a six-foot-tall shelf was on fire. So I grabbed a jug of water that was close by and threw it on it and put it out one more time. And went back and kept on working. Worked for a few more minutes, looked over my shoulder, and the whole shelving unit was on fire now. And I knew that there wasn't enough water around to put it out, so I looked around the room and found a fire extinguisher, and I began to use the fire extinguisher on it. And the more I tried to put it out, the hotter it began to burn, as it is. And I saw that there was something about this fire that it couldn't be put out. And I looked, and it was spreading across the ceiling and going into even the furnace ducts in this particular house. I ran up the stairs, and my wife Teresa was there with the lady who owned the house, and I said, call 911 immediately, there's a fire, it's out of control. And the lady of the house said to me, why did you wait so long to call for help? And I said to her, well, because I thought this was just a nuisance. I didn't realize how quickly this was going to grow. I went out the front door of the house and into the street. It was a long, long, narrow street, and there were houses on fire all over the street. Not every house, maybe every second, every third house was on fire. And people were in the street trying to make their way to higher ground. There was a sense that there would be safety found in this higher ground, and they were trying as best as they could to get there. But they were so discouraged, they could hardly move forward. And I was standing among them and telling them, listen, there's safety up here, you've got to move a little faster, you've got to head in this direction. And they were so discouraged, though, I found it really strange. They could hardly form the ability to go forward to this place of safety. And one man in particular left this march of people going to safety and went back into his house that was already on fire, sat down in the living room, and the whole house just burned down on top of him. And I woke up. And I was so troubled by this dream. I was in my room. It was just about daybreak, and I was just pacing back and forth. I was so troubled in my spirit that all I could do was pray. If you've ever had a dream and you know it's a whole lot more than a dream. And I was pacing, and the Lord opened this message to me. Within about the first 20 minutes of going to prayer in its entirety. I'm going to share it with you. And it's called, Beware of the Angry Watchman. From the Song of Solomon. Now, I'm going to take you through, it's going to be a parable. I want to speak to you about some of the church of Jesus Christ in our day. Some, not all, but some. Actually, probably many. Now, the Song of Solomon tells us the story of a bride. And it's the story of many who have loved Jesus Christ in this generation. Chapter 2, verses 3 and 4. It says, As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love. You see, this is a bride who knew that she was loved. And she loved to be with her bridegroom. Do you remember the day you first came to Christ? Many who are here today, and hopefully you're still actually in verses 3 and 4. He brought me. I sat down under his shadow. In other words, I knew he covered me. The heat of the day couldn't get at me. I sat there with great delight, and everything he spoke to me gladdened my heart. Whether it was hard to understand or not, it was sweet to my taste. And he brought me to his house, and there was a banner that he had spread over me. And that banner had a name on it. It just simply said, Love. God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Verses 5 and 6. She said, Stay me with flagons. Comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love.