Mustard Seed Faith
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Re-Emphasis about New Years Eve service. Which is in Baltimore
New outreach times.
Just want to thank everyone that have laid down there lives for the furtherance of the gospel.
Women’s ministry,
Praise and worship
In 2025 we want reform but we don’t want revival. We want little adjustments here of there but no real change.
We want good things good circumstances but do we really want God. Good outcome good morals but do we want God.
We want reform but we don’t want revival?
WE don’t want God to cancel our plans. Our “growth” or “received growth”.
We just want God to make my life better!
We just want change but not a quickening of the Spirit of God.
WE want reform in government, at work, in my life.
Revival precedes true reform.
These people of Israel and Judah they wanted reform but not revival.
“Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem; See now and know; And seek in her open places If you can find a man, If there is anyone who executes judgment, Who seeks the truth, And I will pardon her.
Theres a greek philosopher, who went through the streets of Athens with a lantern, They ask what was he looking for, and his answer was, “I am looking for an honest man.” He never did find one. I think you would have the same trouble walking the street of Baltimore or Edgewood.
Essentially what God is saying is that there is not a solitary soul that loves righteousness.
He can seek in private houses or in the open city Jeremiah couldn’t find one.
There way of life reflected the very opposite of what God was looking for which was justice and truth.
So God sent Jeremiah on a divine scavenger hunt in Jerusalem.
Only needed one who dealt honestly with his fellow Israelites and who sought the truth.
Jeremiah didn’t raise this statement but it is God the searcher of hearts.
These people were considered to be of a reprobate mind.
Amos prayed this prayer but to no avail
Amos 5:24 (NKJV)
But let justice run down like water, And righteousness like a mighty stream.
This story reminds of the story of Abraham were God would’ve spare the city of Sodom and Gomorra for the sake of a few righteous.
BTW a few right can save a city. A few righteous in Edgewood can save this city.
At this time you had a few righteous in this city. You had Josiah, Zephaniah, and Buruch.
Though they say, ‘As the Lord lives,’ Surely they swear falsely.”
They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.
Before the all-seeing eye of God no man is pure and good. They are all gone astray, and there is none that doeth good.
Pivot verse!
The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if there are any who understand, who seek God.
They have all turned aside, They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one.
Who truly seeks after God?
No one seeks God perfectly. As long as we have sin in our body’s our pursuit of God will be imperfect.
This is how we seek God.
Firstly, we seek God but not for Himself alone. There tends to be a hidden motive. We don’t seek Him with pure intent
Secondly, we seek God not alone but other things with Him. I’m seeking God because of what I can get out the deal.
Thirdly, We seek other things before God; as the world does. God is generally our 5th or 6th option.
Fourthly, we seek God coldly or carelessly. “Let me pray my 40 second prayer before I eat,” or my life is good no need to seek God, “all is well.”
Fifthly, we seek God inconstantly or irregularly, every time we pray its almost like we are praying to a different God all together. Just like Judas or Demas one minute you are on fire for God next minute you agape the world or turning your back on God.
Sixthly, we don’t seek God in His word. The heretics do that. WE seek God in the moon or my job but never in His word. Then we fall into subjectivity all ultimately we think God
7. Seventhly, we don’t seek Him in all His word. The hypocrites do that. They take what they want from the word of God and ignore the rest.
Woe is me! For I am like those who gather summer fruits, Like those who glean vintage grapes; There is no cluster to eat Of the first-ripe fruit which my soul desires.
The faithful man has perished from the earth, And there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood; Every man hunts his brother with a net.
Help, Lord, for the godly man ceases! For the faithful disappear from among the sons of men.
Justice is turned back, And righteousness stands afar off; For truth is fallen in the street, And equity cannot enter.
Going back to Jeremiah 5:1.
Pardon, would be given to the just; they are the ones who live by their faith in God (Hab. 2:4 ; Rom. 1:17 , etc.).
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”
“Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith.
I believe Jeremiah 5, though its speaking about a nation I believe it also can represents our hearts on an individual basis.
Is there in your heart for Gods justice and His ideal of justice to reign is there a part of me in my heart that wants to seek truth. God can build on that.
Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field,
which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”
This seed was in fact the smallest of the garden seeds known. (orchid seeds, though smaller, were unknown in that part of the world.) Also “small as a mustard seed” was a proverb by which people then referred to something unusually small (e.g., “faith as small as a mustard seed,” 17:20).
Though its seed is so small, a mustard plant grows to a great height (12–15 feet!) in one season, and is a nesting place for the birds of the air.
In one season God can take your mustard seed faith and sprout it. In one season God can change everything around you. In one season.
Not just reformation but revival in one season.
So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.
So the Lord said, “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
pardon
We are certain that there is forgiveness, because there is a gospel, and the very essence of the gospel lies in the proclamation of the pardon of sin.
Charles Spurgeon
He who has loved thee and pardoned thee, shall never cease to love and pardon.
Charles Spurgeon
To understand is not only to pardon, but in the end to love.
Walter Lippmann
O Lord, are not Your eyes on the truth? You have stricken them, But they have not grieved; You have consumed them, But they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; They have refused to return.
Therefore I said, “Surely these are poor. They are foolish; For they do not know the way of the Lord, The judgment of their God.
I will go to the great men and speak to them, For they have known the way of the Lord, The judgment of their God.” But these have altogether broken the yoke And burst the bonds.
Therefore a lion from the forest shall slay them, A wolf of the deserts shall destroy them; A leopard will watch over their cities. Everyone who goes out from there shall be torn in pieces, Because their transgressions are many; Their backslidings have increased.
“How shall I pardon you for this? Your children have forsaken Me And sworn by those that are not gods. When I had fed them to the full, Then they committed adultery And assembled themselves by troops in the harlots’ houses.
They were like well-fed lusty stallions; Every one neighed after his neighbor’s wife.
Shall I not punish them for these things?” says the Lord. “And shall I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?
“Go up on her walls and destroy, But do not make a complete end. Take away her branches, For they are not the Lord’s.
For the house of Israel and the house of Judah Have dealt very treacherously with Me,” says the Lord.
They have lied about the Lord, And said, “It is not He. Neither will evil come upon us, Nor shall we see sword or famine.
And the prophets become wind, For the word is not in them. Thus shall it be done to them.”
Therefore thus says the Lord God of hosts: “Because you speak this word, Behold, I will make My words in your mouth fire, And this people wood, And it shall devour them.
