By REV. TIMOTHY L. MELTON
Cherokee Pentecostal Holiness Church pastor
Transcribed by Myra D. Colgate
Read: Psalms 91, Isaiah 10:1-31, James 4:7-10, Matthew 6:3-4, 17-18
In Psalm 91, we are to submit to God, submit to the Lord yield to Him, draw nigh (draw closer to Him), honor Him and He will honor the one honoring Him, cleanse the heart, purify the heart. As it tells us in Psalm 91, it is in the secret place, that His secrets are revealed.
In James 4:7-10 there are four things I want to show. Get close to the Lord and He’ll come close to that one. Take a step toward the Lord, He’ll honor the one honoring Him. If one will lift the Name of the Lord, He’ll lift that one’s name. It is whatever it is that one will offer Him, He’ll multiply it and then He will give it back to the one giving it. He said draw nigh to Him and to cleanse the hands, sinners, and purify the hearts, ye double minded. Not every Truth do we rejoice over. Our mourning, even our joy, can become a heaviness.
When we go into the secret place, whatever we go in to and learn we should carry out with us from the secret place. When the Lord shares a secret, He intends for us to tell it. If it was a secret heard, when one gets it, when the Lord shares a secret revelation, know that then one can run out and tell seven other people and what God as He operates in their lives.
In dealing with the parable of the Sower, we want to see what we can get out of these verses. This is on growing up spiritually and sustaining that growth. Really it is because of what God is doing in Cherokee and here at the Cherokee Pentecostal Holiness Church. It is a phenomenon, if one will see that can go around the earth, around the world because there are so many churches that so very rarely make it into the places where the Lord has allowed us to go, and we don’t take it lightly.
Some may ask, well where are they? Where have we gone? We have been experiencing revival around here. And, in fact, we’re watching where God is miraculously healing bodies and how God is growing up people and how He’s building them to do bigger and better things.
For now, I’ll just go ahead and tell all of us that I don’t know the day nor the hour. I don’t profess to, the fact that the Lord is coming back very, very soon. And, because of that, we all must get ready for the return of the Lord.
Before He comes, I want to make sure that I’m everything that I can be. That I’ve done all that I could do. That I’ve carried all the anointing that He’s ascribed to me. That I’ve operated in all the power that He’s given.
I’m tired of watching people declare Christianity and never see anything in their lives beyond misery and pain. I want powerful people to rise and begin to declare it.
Someone said, “I have got a testimony.” She said, “I had a friend who had a heart palpitation, a heart problem, and I said to her, “lay your hand on your heart as you begin to pray”, and when she began to pray. When she began to pray, she said her heart just went right back into rhythm.
How many realize that God’s power is real? That He wasn’t kidding when He said, “Greater things shall you do.” He wasn’t kidding. He wasn’t playing. It wasn’t rhetoric. It wasn’t preacher-talk. This is the real thing that we’ve got our hands on right now.
Years ago, Coca Cola used to say, “It’s the real thing. How many remember? They decided to change the chemical makeup of their formula and about went bankrupt. How they had to change it back and those of you who don’t remember, the 80’s, don’t have a clue of what I’m talking about, but one day someone got up and thought it was a good idea to change around the chemicals that they had put in that thing. That stuff will take rust off an engine, it’ll melt meat. Why would anyone mess with it? It’s powerful. What can one do with a good Coca Cola?
But this is the real thing. I’ve never put my hand to anything in my life that was as real as what I’ve got my hand on right now! I’ve had people literally say to me, “Preacher, you’d better be careful what you pray, cause God answers your prayers. I’ve got good news for you. He’ll answer yours too!
