Month: October 2021

GET TOGETHER- Witchcraft and Rebellion
1Sa 15:23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He also has rejected you from being king.”
This morning as I was standing near our Keurig and getting ready to get J.J. and I our second cup of coffee I heard the Holy Spirit speak this passage as plain as anything as I have ever heard Him speak. King Saul was Israel’s first King. He had been to battle with the Amalekites. He had been directed by God to destroy everything that the Amalekites were, had, or possessed: 1Sa 15:3 ‘Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.” He didn’t do it. He spared King Agag and the livestock. His disobedience would cost him his Kingship. Later on, during the night before he would take his own life after a battle with the Philistines at my Gilboa he would even visit a witch.
Rebellion against God happens when we think that our way of doing something is better than God’s way of living life. When this happens, it opens doors for the demonic influences of witchcraft to have sway in the lives of individuals, in schools, in colleges, and universities, in businesses in communities, in government and in nations.
Many people don’t believe that witchcraft is real. The Bible certainly speaks about the reality of witchcraft. We are told in De 18:10 “There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer.” Witchcraft certainly had a terrible effect on the rebellious Northern Kingdom of Israel through Jezebel the wife of King Ahab : 2Ki 9:22 “Now it happened, when Joram saw Jehu, that he said, “Is it peace, Jehu?” So he answered, “What peace, as long as the harlotries of your mother Jezebel and her witchcraft are so many?”
All of us were created by God for a desire for the supernatural. God’s plan for that desire to be fulfilled is through a born-again Holy Spirit filled relationship with Jesus Christ. Joh 7:38,39 “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”
There have been several times during our ministry that we have encountered spiritual attacks of witchcraft. Some have happened here in our own community where we serve in Hamilton, Alabama. Some other times in Kenya being woke up in the middle of the night and the enemy sending a spirit of fear telling you that he is going to take the life of a loved one while you are gone. The answer to that is to get out bed and get on your knees and know that as we are told in 1Jo 4:4 ¶ You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. (NKJV) The answer is to put on the full Armor of God as Paul talks about in Ephesians 6:10-18. And pray in the Spirit.
You might say how do you know when you are encountering a demonic assignment that has been released through the practice of witchcraft? That is why we want to be filled with the Holy Spirit. God has given us the gifts of the Holy Spirit to help us as we wage the good warfare. Without going into an extended teaching on the gifts of the Holy Spirit the gift of discerning of spirits will enable us to know where the assignment is coming from and what type of assignment that the enemy has launched against us to inhibit what God desires to do in us and through us. This gift along with some of the other gifts of the Spirit is listed 1Co 12:10 “to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.” 1 Corinthians 12 :7-10 lists other gifts of the Holy Spirit
Right now, there is much rebellion against God that is taking place in our nation. Some symptoms of the effect of witchcraft on our nation are evil being called good and good being called evil. Confusion over people not knowing that God has created us male and female, and God does not make mistakes. Confusion over marriage. Jesus had this to say in Mt 19:4,5 And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ “and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? Confusion in thinking that the vain philosophies of sinful men and women are the answer to racism. The answer to racism is to repent of the sin of racism and do not practice it or glorify it in anyway. And to ask the Holy Spirit to deliver you from it and to give you a love for people of all colors.
The good news for us is that through prayer, fasting and growing closer to God we can be used by God to enforce the victory that Jesus Christ has won for us on the cross at Calvary. The Apostle Paul wrote about this in Col 2:15 “Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.”
More good news is that when we press through and walk in victory over the enemy’s use of witchcraft, we will see big victories. I remember one year when we were in Guatemala. We went into a village where we were told that there was a large practice of witchcraft there. Well, the people in the church had been praying and fasting for a week when we got there. That night there was a demonic attack on the sound system. The Lord took care of that real quick. At the end of the service there was a man there who couldn’t hear. The Lord healed his hearing that night. We also had the opportunity to pray for some women that the drug lords had contracts on their sons. What a great night in was. Remember great battles bring great victories!
Hopefully through this you will have an understanding that rebellion against God and witchcraft go hand in hand. Hopefully this will help you to walk in the victory that Jesus Christ has provided for us in His death and resurrection. and during this time of year when well meaning people and Christians don’t understand that witchcraft is an evil demonic tool of the devil. May we will celebrate every day that Jesus Christ is Lord and that He has conquered death, hell ,and the grave!
Let us Pray
Lord Jesus, we thank you that You have created us to have a supernatural Holy Spirit filled relationship with You. Today we pray for an awakening in our nation and every other nation. We pray that the demonic influences that are attempting not just to destroy this nation, but every nation will be exposed and vanquished. Help us to wage the good warfare and to walk in the victory that You have provided.
In Jesus Name
Amen

Love You All
Your Friend/Kinfolk
Preston
Every day is the day that the Lord has made! We will rejoice in it!

Get Together- His Word Never Returns Void
Isaiah 55:11
New King James Version
11 So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me [a]void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

This morning this is what I hear the Holy Spirit saying, “My word shall not return to me void.” I believe that He wants me to share with you a few things that have been beneficial to me in my journey with Jesus Christ and the word of God.

First, it is always beneficial to read and to mediate on the word of God. When we do that, it helps us to distinguish between when the Holy Spirit is speaking to us through His small still voice than from when the enemy is bringing words, of discouragement, condemnation, and fear. Jesus said that we could hear His voice “ John 10:27My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.

It is beneficial to hear the word of God preached. Jesus preached the word while He was here on the earth. When He preached lives were changed, miracles, and healings took place and I believe that He still does that today when the word of God is preached and proclaimed under the anointing and power of the Holy Spirit. “Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.” (Matthew 9:35)

It is beneficial to hear the word taught. Jesus in Matthew 28:19,20 before He ascended to Heaven commanded the disciples to make other disciples by teaching “Go [a]therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” [a]Amen.”
It is beneficial to pray and declare the word of God. In Acts 4 :24-31 they did both:
So, when they heard that, they raised their voice to God with one accord and said: “Lord, You are God, who made heaven and earth and the sea, and all that is in them,
“who by the mouth of Your servant David have said: ‘Why did the nations rage, And the people plot vain things?
The kings of the earth took their stand, And the rulers were gathered together Against the LORD and against His Christ.’
“For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together
“to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done.
“Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word,
“by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus.”
And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.
Pray the word over your children, your friends, your workplace and yes for your enemies. Paul’s prayers in Ephesians Chapters 1 and 3 are excellent prayers to pray as well as any word from the scriptures that the Holy Spirit has you to pray.
Speak the word into the environment that you are in. You don’t have to call out the Chapter and verse. Today I was in a setting, and I was able to just say “life is a vapor.” I believe that someone in that setting will be affected by that in some way.
I could give several more examples of ways that the word does not return void, but time won’t allow me to do that today. I pray that this will help you in some way as you serve the Risen Christ. And remember this as the writer says in Heb 4:12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.(NKJV) So whether the word is being preached, taught, read, declared, or prayed life is going forth! Power is being released! Jesus had this to say in Joh 6:63 “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. The word will not return void. Believe it, receive it, declare it, pray it, and stand on it!
Let Us Pray
Lord Jesus, we thank You for the living and powerful word of God that never returns void. Today we pray for the Holy Spirit to help us to get in the word, stand on the word, declare the word, pray the word and leave the results to You.
In Jesus Name
Amen!

What a great blessing it was to work with our dear brothers and sister from the Tuscaloosa/West Alabama Emmaus Cluster on Alabama Emmaus Walk 497 last week! The Holy Spirit did great and mighty things !
Love you all!
Your Friend/Kinfolk
Preston