A Great Light In The Midst of Darkness - Part 3

Standing up with tears in his eyes and he turned to them and said you know I've got one longing for you all and that is that you'd all be saved and your family and here was a man that had a fairly big business and you could see he was transparent before them. That's the first qualification for a man of God. Where you work, no matter what it is, you're glorifying the Lord. Then she said my husband. Now what does this mean? Men of God who have a public ministry can be a seraphim on the platform but they can be serpents in the home. Now that's so. And therefore this woman looks at her husband and she realizes that he's gone to paradise and she's saying something like this. I dearly loved him because he was a lovely man in the home. You see what you are before your children and before your wife is a wonderful testimony to God. Don't live a two-part life. One in the work and the other in the home. Be before God. Then she said thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord. Now what does that mean? In the scripture if you trace it very carefully the fear of the Lord means first of all an awe and it not only means an awe but it means a loving awe. It's not so much fearing the judgment of God. It's fearing lest we should hurt a loving heart. That's fear. Secondly the fear of the Lord is always associated with faith and that means when a man feared the Lord he had implicit trust in the Lord. And then lastly when a person feared the Lord and if you look at it carefully he always worshipped the Lord. It's a sense of worship and here is a man, a witness in his life commercially, a witness in the home, a witness before God, a man of God and his taken. The Apostle Paul as you all know was an outstanding man of God and he said this, after my departure shall grievous wolves come in among you not sparing the flock. What does it mean? When men of God are removed and they're not replaced the devil gets in and the devil got in here. And he got his eyes upon those two lovely sons and he must have said in the person of this creditor I'd love to have them as bondmen. Now why? Those two men he would get 30 shekels of silver that would really be more expensive than the house in which he was living in and he had his eye on those two men. So can you see my husband is dead. That was a predicament but now the creditor has come and is after my two sons. What do we mean by bondage? First of all there is a bondage to the flesh, Romans 7, a terrible thing. Secondly there is a bondage to the world that can rip us. Thirdly there is a bondage to self that makes us ugly people and lastly there's a bondage to the law and legality and no one was ever blessed by the law, no one. Thank God for it, it's holy, just and good but it never saved the people and it never sanctified the saints. Now can you see the point? The moment this man of God is taken away the creditor comes and he's after the son and that's what's happening today. There are thousands of broken-hearted mums and dads because their children are in the world. There are hundreds of our young people and they're in bondage to the flesh and they're longing for victory. So many of us are caught up with self and we're afraid of becoming a living sacrifice and legality is stripping us of power. The man of God is taken, the enemy is coming in. Now what is this woman going to do? As I was looking at this this afternoon I thought well she could sit in the chair and pine away until she died and you can do that you know. When God takes someone from you that you dearly love, it's like two-thirds of you are missing and you can pine away and wish you were dead. She could have done that but she didn't. There were the deep throbs of bereavement, there was this monster coming every week demanding bits of her furniture. There were those two lovely sons and she could see week by week they were getting near to bondage and she came to the prophet and she cried. That's it. When burdens come and difficulties come, go to the Lord. Weeping and weeping will never help. Go to the Lord. Now that's what we need. You know I have been giving these talks on revival and I've seen people leaving troubled and people have thanked me invariably in some places they put their heads down and I can see there's disapproval and we stand alone but not this time. But listening to a message on revival is not revival. It's when we are so burdened that we come to the Lord and the message leads us to prayer and forgive me shouting, we cry to the Lord. A heart cry goes up to God. Lord we can't live until you come among us. That's what we need. I saw it with some of the young people yesterday. We all need it. That cry that goes up from the heart. That fervent believing prayer. When Elisha saw the woman and saw the tears, heard the cry, he got disturbed. He said what shall I do for you? Thank God she moved him. Do you remember when Martha came to the Lord Jesus when there was great bereavement in that lovely home? She said Lord if thou has been here my brother had not died. But even now I know that whatsoever thou would ask of God, God will do it. So the Lord Jesus quietly said thy brother shall rise again. Then she came out with all her pharisaical theology. I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last days. The Lord Jesus said I am the resurrection and the life. He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Do you believe this? Oh I believe that thou art Christ the Son of God which will come into the world. And then she went and called her sister. You know he can stand all our theology. We can scripture and thus to the Lord and he hears it, he knows it. That never moves him. But when Mary came, you know the difference. She fell at his feet.