By REV. TIMOTHY L. MELTON, PASTOR
(Transcribed by Myra D. Colgate)
Cherokee Pentecostal Holiness Church
Continued from last week…Read Acts 16: 16-34; 2 Corinthians 11:24-33.
There is a God in Heaven Who knows how to keep and preserve those He loves, those whom He has anointed. If one is here, it’s because everyone who has a purpose, would not be here otherwise. We each must seek out what our purpose is and get it done.
Here again, we have Paul and Silas. They had just been beaten, cast into prison. It really must have looked like all was over for them, but they had a purpose. Yes, so God had kept them. Are we seeing this? What I need all to understand is, if a person has a purpose, we must quit sitting on “our blessed assurances”, get up and get that purpose done. Come on. There are rewards for doing so, and problems for others if we don’t. That means a person has no extra time to keep playing or messing around.
It’s time to get serious with the Lord and declare, “My very best is ahead of me.” Somebody asked me, “Do you miss the fire department?” No, I don’t miss the fire department.”
“Do you miss all the things you could’ve had? No, I don’t miss any of it, because the Lord has blessed me beyond blessing. He has carried me to places that nobody would have ever guessed. I have been able to go, and done things that everybody else wishes he could have done, and it’s all because of the Almighty. (This means that when one serves the Lord, by heading down the pathway He has said and told them, He has told us He would carry that person for He has said, “the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord and He has got good things in store for each person.” Thank You, Lord!)
“But, Pastor Tim, “I believe that this might be for everybody else, but not for me.” The old preachers would say, “I remember them from when I was a kid.” The old timers’, I remember the “old hell, fire and brimstone preachers.” I loved them, and I wish they were still around today. We don’t have too many “hellfire” preachers anymore. They preached that “hell was hot, and Heaven is sweet.” I do a lot of that. They don’t seem to want the context that there’s still death, hell and a mess, but I can tell you today, that as bad as hell may be, Heaven is a whole lot better, and a whole lot sweeter.
Paul said it this way, in 2 Corinthians 11:24-33, if someone wants to look it up.
We seem to suffer fools gladly and we see ourselves as wise having the confidence of boasting in the flesh. Many glory after the flesh, but this can only bring people into bondage. If He has a plan for fools, He certainly ought to have a plan for me.
One night last month, I was driving on my way to go by the Post Office near our house. It was late about 11:30 p.m., I’d left Cassie at home and told her I’d be back in a few minutes. Up the road, there was a car parked and sitting on my side of the road. The only place in the entire area where I could get around that car was a little grassy area. It ‘just happened to be right where I needed it’ and was ‘free at just the right time.’ One could say it was ‘just dumb luck,’ but, I don’t believe in luck, and it wasn’t ‘just a coincidence,’ which I don’t believe in either. See, I only believe that this was in the Providence of the Lord. Amen. I believe that God saw the enemy lying in wait. How many of you know, the enemy will try to send assassins to take a person out. Yes, he does this, maybe more times than we know.
This wasn’t the first time, either. Some years ago, I was taking Cassie to her school. We were driving and came through a curve with the same kind of option. I could drive and hit a dump truck head on or take off the side of this mountain on our side. I chose to roll down the hill. It was the slowest wreck we’ve ever seen. I literally zipped over and thought we were going to make it around and then our car started doing one of these slow motion roll overs. Cassie was sitting there holding her cup of water level and finally over we went until we finally landed at the bottom of the hill. Nobody was hurt and the car was hardly messed up. I think we just broke a mirror. We crawled out, but I’ll never forget it. The enemy had sent an assassin, but he had missed. We all need to know and understand the enemy would have taken us out if he could have already, but God knows what He’s put on the inside of us—every gift He has put in us. He can take all your experiences make the worst of worst and turn it into the greatest of the great. Look at all Paul did in writing two-thirds of the New Testament, yet he was a murderer of Christians, before the Lord got hold of him.
