Most of us had been at the manse the evening before when Roselyn (who is not part of the Monday morning team but is part of another prayer team on a Tuesday afternoon) who had been reading the original diary from the Web and our notes to date, did a short Bible study on Nehemiah (especially chapter 4).
Nehemiah is wanting to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. She thought that this not only spoke to us as a church but also for Peterhead and the churches within its 'walls' (boundary). The priests, the goldsmiths, the merchants, the ordinary people all helped - except the nobles(3:5) who could not work under another's supervision. There will always be people who will not help.
Each person (church) rebuilt (built up) the section (the
congregation) in front of their house (they were responsible for)
until the wall was built.
'laid its beams and put its doors and bolts and bars in place' 3:3,
3:6, 3:13 etc.
Not sure about this for the churches/town because we should be open.
We'll have to pray into this.
Stones and rubble were used to rebuild the wall.
4 :2 'Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of
rubble?'
Roselyn illustrated the cement they were using - the cement is love
and the Holy spirit is the water to mix it.
There were WORKERS and WATCHERS. 4:16 Half of the men did the work
(workers) whilst the rest (watchers) were there, ready with their
armour on to protect the workers.
As the gaps were being closed (4:7) other people were getting
angry and conspired together, so the workers/watchers prayed to God
and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat. WE MUST DO THE
SAME. Soldiers 'standing in the gap' with all their (spiritual)
armour on. These are people who the Lord will use to share the word
and to cover things in prayer to protect everyone.
Some of the workers also (the ones carrying the materials) just
worked with one hand and carried a weapon in the other, and every
worker had his sword (the Word of God) at his side. BUT the man with
the trumpet stayed with Nehemiah.
Two sets of people working side by side alert and ready to repel attacks. 4:19 Roselyn likened this to the group from Wales and ourselves. 'The work is extensive and spread out and we are widely separated from each other along the wall'. 'Wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet, join us there. OUR GOD WILL FIGHT FOR US.'
We determined to build a spiritual wall around Peterhead and the soldiers standing in the gap would be intercessors. Christopher had spoken the night before about when we felt that we were up against a stone wall, we must back back and rise up to a higher plain, fight the battle there and then we would find that the stone wall had crumbled. Pray in the spiritual and it changes the physical! We have to be aware. The physical will go forward when the spiritual is dealt with. Everybody should be in the gaps that they should be in.
We spoke about Frank Piretti books. Piercing the Darkness and This Present Darkness. Although they are fictional, they certainly give you an insight into the battles in the spiritual and the natural won through when the spiritual was covered.
Mary had been praying this morning and asking God what the trumpet
meant.
The trumpet is a call from the Lord to His CHOSEN people - those who
know Him and have a deep understanding of the things of God. They
will hear it loudly. Others will hear but not all will obey.
The song which came to her was
'He is sounding forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat,
He is sounding out the hearts of men before His judgement seat.
So, be swift my soul to answer Him, be jubilant at our feet,
Our God is marching on.
Once you are His, there is no going back, He is selecting His chosen
people and we will have to be quick to answer His call before it is
too late. We must give Him all our praise and we will have the
victory. God does not want us to stand still, He wants us to go on
with Him. It is through our obedience that when the trumpet calls,
we will obey.
The sound of this trumpet is different from all others. It is
like the sound of the Lord's voice and only His people will hear it
and obey.
Thinking about gates we went on to speak about John 10. Kathleen had been troubled by the first verse which she had applied to herself. Was it aimed at her or was it for everybody? After we had all spoken about it we thought that Kathleen was doing herself a terrible injustice. Was she cutting corners to get in to know the Lord, she asked? NO The verse should be taken in the context of the rest of the chapter, it should be taken as a whole. AND - here we were back again to gates and watchmen etc. The thieves in verse 1 were likened to Sanballat and his cronies (colleagues) back in Nehemiah.
We were reminded that the shepherd WAS the gate to the sheep pen in
those days. (v.7) The sheep would go in and then the shepherd slept
all night in the opening and was the physical gate. These days the
shepherd rounds them up and they go ahead of him but then the shepherd
went ahead of the sheep and the sheep followed him. The shepherd
knew his sheep by name and called them individually. They listened
to his voice. (V.4) When he has brought out all his own, he goes on
ahead of them and his sheep follow him because they know his voice
(trumpet? - see Mary's above). They will never follow a stranger.
We want to hear the Lord clearly calling our name and we want to be
sure that we won't be listening to the thieves, robbers and 'hired
hands'. We want a long-term blessing whereas the hired hand abandons
the people because he doesn't care enough (vv 12, 13). The Shepherd
is interested in the 100th sheep.
If there is ever anything that troubles us we were urged to write it
down and the Lord would gradually open it up to us through His word.
Back to the notes : Betty had been urged to watch and pray - that the church had been slumbering but God was going to wake it up.
Anne J had been told this clearly with a picture of a massive bear waking up which had turned into a great big wide awake giant. This seems to have been coming to fruition this last week, especially in one particular conversation which seemed to be speaking for many people. Our church is waking up, not only to the Holy Spirit but to the people taking responsibility for its organization and future plans and not leaving it to the cliques. It really is a wonderful awakening. She admitted that she had possibly just been worrying about this situation and not praying enough about it. We have to be sure to actually take things to God and not try to work them out solely in our own strength.
Mike - Two hands almost touching in prayer. After Susan had been filled with the Spirit at Aberdeen and her hands were shaking, Mary had been given a picture of praying hands. She felt that Susan's hands were praying hands and that the Lord would use her mightily in prayer. It was thought that perhaps more prayer was needed to make the hands close together.
Pauline's diamond and its different facets being different denominations : The night before Susan had shared an illustrated page from her Bible and we had photocopied it at the manse. It talks about the diamond and its facets and there being 8 jewels in the Ring of Reconciliation (Romans 5 : 1-5). Above it is an illustration of the complete story of the ruin and reconciliation of the prodigal son - 7 x 'S' and 7 x 'R' (Luke 15:11-24 cf. Romans 5:1-18). Very powerful stuff.
Talking about unity Susan read out a portion (p.273) of The Spiritual Warriors Prayer Guide about Praying for your Neighbourhood. Do you know your city? We have to go out with a census in one hand and a Bible in the other. We have got to know what we are praying for, we have got to know what spirit is controlling what.
Back into Ephesians with Mike:
Helen : Ephesians 6 : 10 from the Good News for Modern Man : Written
down by Helen last Monday 26/8 when she went home.
"Finally, build up your strength in UNION with the Lord and by means
of His mighty power. Put on all the armour that God gives you so
that you will STAND up against the devil's evil tricks. For we are
not fighting against human beings but against the wicked spiritual
forces in the heavenly world , the rulers, authorities and cosmic
powers of this dark age. So, take up God's armour now, then, when
the evil day comes you will be able to resist the enemy's attacks and,
after fighting to the end you will still HOLD your ground.
So - STAND ready :- have truth for a belt tight round your waist - put
on righteousness for your breastplate and the readiness to announce
the Good News of peace as shoes for your feet. At all times carry
faith as a shield - with it you will be able to put out all the
burning arrows shot by the evil one. And accept salvation for a
helmet and the WORD OF GOD AS THE SWORD that the spirit gives you.
Do all this in prayer asking for God's help.
V.18 Pray on every occasion as the Spirit leads. For this reason
keep alert and NEVER GIVE UP.
Pray always for all God's people and
pray also for me that God will give me a message when I am ready to
speak that I may speak BOLDLY and make known the gospel's secret. For
the sake of this gospel I am an ambassador though now I am in prison.
Pray therefore that I may be BOLD in speaking of it as I should.
(This is a wonderful portion for Helen because she has been forbidden
to give her testimony publicly).
Helen had written all this down before looking at episode 2 of the
diary notes.
She had also written : Wed 28/8/96 Studying the diary notes this
morning I am amazed that yet again God has sent confirmation of
Ephesians 6 : 18.
On listening to the reading Kathleen had realised that she hadn't got all her armour on. Helen said that when her son, Stephen, was smaller he often had nightmares and she would go and lay her hands on his head and pray for the helmet of salvation for him.
In the notes also Frances had recalled Christopher's sermon about 'we are going forward, no retreat, no backsliding, no going back. These words were important to Helen and was all the confirmation she had been waiting for.
Mike's sword - and righteousness being another important strand. Susan felt that truly God wanted His people to be holy and righteous so that they could be used by Him. We are being purified and refined. God is making us deal personally with things about ourselves and we are getting prepared. God's word is offensive as well as defensive.
2 Tim 2:21 If a man cleanses himself (from sinful things) he will be
an instrument for NOBLE PURPOSES, MADE HOLY, USEFUL TO THE
MASTER AND PREPARED TO DO ANY GOOD WORK.
Made holy, useful to God and prepared to work for Him..
Spiritual cleansing : 2 Cor 7:1. We are to purify ourselves out of
reverence for God.
Jeremiah 1:10 - So many strands coming together. This is definitely happening with us. Prophesy is the living word of God We discussed this. We'll maybe need to come back to this. Helen thought that pinning paper hands (with someone's name on it that we wanted to see saved) on a cross was a super idea. We all agreed. On one of our banners are the footsteps of children from the Sunday School with their name on it. We'd also certainly seen paper hands with children's names hanging up in the fellowship room but this was a novel idea for prayer for the unconverted. We might do that sometime.
Various kinds of trumpets with different uses.
We mulled this over.
Can the Biblical trumpet be likened nowadays to a church bell. No
church bells were rung as a matter of course during the war because
they were kept strictly for warning of an emergency.
The trumpet is God's call, we have to identify the different sounds so
that we are clear what we have to do.
1 Cor 14:8 If the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get
ready for the battle?
Mary L felt sure that only God's people would hear it and obey. Lots
of others would hear it but would not obey.
Back to the shepherd and the sheep. ONLY the sheep know his voice.
(Tongue in cheek) We were all glad that we didn't have a ram's horn because no one fancied going up Bennachie to blow it!! Pauline is to be commended!
'There is a feeling around that the coming revival will happen as a
result of the love that outsiders see Christians displaying'. As said
in the notes, this is challenging stuff.
Anne J said that she had been doing an essay for her Candidates
Exams about how the first Christians behaved and how so many people
came to be 'Followers of the Way' just because of the example they had
seen around them and because of the love they had been shown. The
essay question was 'to what extent should Acts 2 : 42-47 be a
description of a present-day Christian community'. The first
Christians were powerful people. She promised a copy to the others.
We agreed with Habbakuk and Jeremiah and were pleased that we were being obedient. WRITE THINGS DOWN!
aj/2.9.96