By REV. TIMOTHY L. MELTON, PASTOR
(Transcribed by Myra D. Colgate)
Cherokee Pentecostal Holiness Church
Read Isaiah 61: verses 3, 2, 1, and 4.
“Today, my Assignment is to start with the end and then go to the beginning, and finish with Verse 4,” stated, Pastor Tim. So, I’m going to read the verses but we’re beginning with verse three, and will work our way back up to verse one today. So, if one wonders what’s going on, that’s how this is going to play. How many know we serve a God Who always finishes things before He ever starts them? Amen.
“That’s why I’m saying, I know the end from the beginning. In other words, before one was ever created, He already knew one’s every step. He knew every word that would proceed out of each one’s mouth, before one even learned to talk. He knew the number of one’s days, and we still don’t know that. He literally said, at the very end, He has a latitude in His Amazing Ways, that God has so planned one’s life, before He ever started, He knew what they were to do, but He can still get a person where He wants them to be in the end. Come on, so tonight, I’m just going to begin at the end and go through to the beginning. I want to be like My Lord.
“God, I thank You for the Word and so I pray, O God, that you open the eyes of every individual within this House, open our ears and our understanding, that we would walk out of here excited and will begin to put it to use. I give You Praise for it in the Name that is above every name. Amen.”
When Jesus walked into the Temple as He began His Ministry, Jesus was 30-years-old, and He walks into the Temple and the Priest hands Him a Scroll. It’s not by accident that He wanted this prophecy to read for as He opened the Scroll, He found the very one He was seeking, the one concerning the Jewish Messiah.
When Jesus had first been noticed in the Temple in Jerusalem, He had been 12-years-old. He was asking the priest questions that were so insightful that even the priests there that day were learning from His questions.
We all must realize there are some things we each have to go through that may not look like they’re going to bring God any Glory today, but tomorrow suddenly, the Light begins to shine, and one looks at it and can say, “I see why I had to go through that.” Yeah, Praise the Lord!” And so what I see is, when I look at this, He can say, at the end of all our ‘stuff’, “It will all be for the Glory of the Lord.”
“I would like it to be, to the very end, all for the Glory of the Lord, that when people see me, they will also know that all the hell we have been through, all the trials that have been experienced, all the ‘stuff’, that the enemy thought he was going to use to break us with, and even all the good days, and the wonderful things, the Lord allowed us, too, I’d like to know they were all for the Glory of Almighty God in our lives. Wouldn’t everyone here reading this, like this, also, to make life and all that happens, more worthwhile?
We all should realize that there are some things one has to go through in this life that may not always look like they will bring God any Glory today, but tomorrow, all of a sudden, that Light will begin to shine, and we can look at it one day and go, “I see why I had to go through that, Yeah. Praise the Lord! We should see when we look at this, He says, “The end of all this ‘stuff’ will be for the Glory of the Lord.”
“People I know will see me then and they will still know it was God, because they may have known I wasn’t good enough. They would say, I couldn’t have pulled that off by myself. There must be a God in Heaven. I don’t know about people here, but I’ve been through this several times. Things happen and I’ll get asked, “How’d you, do it? And I’ll look at them and say, “It wasn’t me; it was for the Glory of the Lord. It was His Plan all along and He wants us to boast of His Glory and His Power, all for His Kingdom, He brought me through.”
