Turning the Father's Heart

Come out and ask for the people to bring their offerings to front, as the worship team continues to play.

Show Father’s Day video

Have all of the Father’s in the audience stand and recognize them for Father’s Day!

Open in prayer over the service and over Margot Smouthers, Pastor David Wilkens and others and also for the will of Holy Spirit to be accomplished in the message!

Thank everyone for their prayers and grace extended to us, as we traveled to Florida! (Tell everyone that we had a good time as a family and spending some quality time together!)

Thank Pastor Linus for his willingness to come and share with everyone and for his and Karen’s hearts to bless the body!

In light of mentioning Pastor Linus, I would like to also say what an amazing message that he delivered to everyone on the subject of FAITH and of our persistence in prayer, as we find in Luke 18, where Jesus taught the parable on the persistent widow and her continual pleading to the ungodly judge.

When Pastor Linus contacted me and told me of what he was wanting to speak on, I exclaimed to him with a resounding, yes and amen, “Do it Pastor! I told him that it was a very timely message and very much needed with where the body of Christ is going!”

In Pastor Linus’ message last Sunday, he mentioned to you all about the issue of our praying and of it seeming like our prayers sometimes were not being heard, or answered, correct?

How many of you feel like you’ve been praying, but no answers are coming to your prayers?

Trust me when I say this to you all, you are FAR FROM ALONE in this area!

There are many of us who feel like our prayers have gone up, or are going up and to no avail!

If you remember, Pastor Linus shared with you from his own personal testimony, about the issue of that of his and Karen’s younger son, Trevor, and of the issue of his seizure activity that he has been afflicted with, since he was 7 years old.

He said that they had prayed for years for Trevor and that at times, because of discouragement, he even stopped praying when he felt that nothing was happening.

Then, after 25 years of praying and pressing in, the miracle took place. Trevor was touched by the Lord and healed and over the last 9 years, he has had only 1 seizure! AMEN and praise God!!!!

The reason that I mention this, is that sometimes it seems to us as if our prayers are not being heard or answered by the Lord and that it’s nothing more than a waste of time, because He has more important things to do, besides listen to and answer our petty requests of Him, right?!!

How many of you know that there are different reasons, according to the Bible, as to why our prayers may not be being heard/ or answered?

James 4:3, says,

James 4:3 ESV

You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

Which shows that we sometimes pray for things that are our own passions/ desires, and not what we truly need, or what God wants for our lives!

Matthew 21:22 says,

Matthew 21:22 ESV

And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”

And also James 1:6, where we read,

James 1:6 ESV

But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.

Our prayers to the Father, are to be asked in FAITH and belief that they are being heard and without doubting that they are going to answered from the Father. So, disbelief in prayer is not pleasing to God.

I John 5:14 tell us,

1 John 5:14 ESV

And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.

Which tells us, that are prayers are to in line with God’s will for us and for our lives!

Matthew 7:7,

Matthew 7:7 ESV

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

This, passage, along with the one that Pastor Linus spoke on last week, in Luke 18, shows us that many, many times over, our prayers are not answered, simply because we are not persistent in our prayers. As Jesus, Himself, stated to His disciples, “that they should always pray and never give up.”

Isaiah 59:1-2 says,

Isaiah 59:1–2 NLT

Listen! The Lord’s arm is not too weak to save you, nor is his ear too deaf to hear you call. It’s your sins that have cut you off from God. Because of your sins, he has turned away and will not listen anymore.

And again I Peter 3:12,

1 Peter 3:12 NLT

The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right, and his ears are open to their prayers. But the Lord turns his face against those who do evil.”

In both of these passages, the Bible clearly tells us that when we are living in sin, it causes the Lord to stop listening to our prayers!

And in fact, the Bible also clearly states that just the opposite of this scenario occurs when we are living in obedience to the Lord, as we find in I John 3:22, where it says,

1 John 3:22 NLT

And we will receive from him whatever we ask because we obey him and do the things that please him.

And coming behind Pastor Linus’ message from last Sunday, I emphasize this to you this morning, about God hearing our prayers and answering them, even when we do not think that He is, or that He does, because He is a loving FATHER!

Just as Jesus reminds us in His Word, in Matthew 7, “Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your FATHER who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

Jesus, through His teachings, made it very clear to us, that when we believed in Him and who He was and is, we would come to know the Lord God as ABBA; as our heavenly FATHER!

Again and again in the gospel messages, Jesus made reference to the FATHER and our relationship to Him.

Jesus very clearly taught and demonstrated to us, the love and the grace and the mercy of God the FATHER, BUT He also taught that the other side of God was very much there and should not be taken lightly.

That God the FATHER loves us and that He gave us the greatest gift known to all of creation, which was Yeshua, Himself, and by our accepting and believing in the Christ, we could obtain salvation and thus become true children of the Lord God.

Just as John 1:12-13 tells us, “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

Jesus also clearly stated to us, that the rejection of the Son of God, produces separation from the FATHER and ultimately that rejection would bring about the wrath of God upon the unrepentant sinner.

In John 3:36, Jesus said, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”

But throughout the Bible, God is depicted as a FATHER to the nation of Israel and to His chosen people:

In Jeremiah 31:9, God says, “for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.”

Isaiah 64:8,

Isaiah 64:8 NLT

And yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter. We all are formed by your hand.

In I Chronicles 29:10, we read, “And David said: “Blessed are you, O LORD, the God of Israel our father, forever and ever.”

And at the closing of the Old Testament, in the final prophetic book of Malachi, God makes mention of Himself as being a father, where He says, “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor?”

And it’s this passage and this closing book of the Old Testament in the Bible, that I wanted to bring to everyone’s attention this morning and of what the Lord was saying through the prophet Malachi the people and of how this applies to us today!

I spoke to the Wednesday group the week before last, about my reading through the Old Testament book of Haggai that afternoon before service that evening and of what I felt that the Lord was saying to me and to the church. In the book of Haggai, we find the people of Judah, having already returned to Jerusalem, from their captivity to the nation of Babylon, and of what the Lord God brings to their attention.

ELABORATE ON WHAT TAKES PLACE IN HAGGAI AND OF GOD MENTIONING THAT THE PEOPLE HAD BUILT THE ALTAR, REBUILT THE WALL AND THEN ALSO BUILT THEIR NICE HOUSES.

God reminded the people that although the may remember the former temple of Solomon and its glory and splendor and riches, He would shake the heavens and the earth and all nations and bring all of the riches of nations into the new temple.

He said that He would fill the temple with glory and that the latter glory of this house would be GREATER than the former and that in that place, He would give PEACE!

And so, this is what happens in the book of Haggai, God called the people out on their complacency and comfort of operating without Him as the center/focal point of their lives, and they rebuild the temple!

Then in the closing book of the Old Testament, Malachi, which would have taken place somewhere around, maybe 70-80 years after the exiles had returned from Babylon and finished rebuilding the temple, we find the people of Judah in a strikingly similar place, again, as where the Lord had called them out of in Haggai’s book.

The prophet Malachi speaks to the people, as directed by the Lord, and begins to show the people why it seems as though God isn’t blessing them and the temple as they thought that He was going to.

God, through the prophet Malachi, begins to show the people, why their offerings and sacrifices and their worship and prayers, were not getting them anywhere with the Lord and why He was so displeased with them!

In chapter one, God establishes that He loves His people and that it was He who called and elected the nation of Israel for Himself and not the other way around.

And God establishes that He is a FATHER to them and that a father deserves honor from the son.

God points out to the priests that were operating in the temple at that time, that they were corrupt and that He knew what they were doing and what they were allowing to happen within the temple.

The priests were allowing the people to offer to God blind, sick and lame animals as sacrifices to God and thus keeping the best and most choice animals for themselves.

God challenged the people to take their blind, sick and lame animals and offer them to the governor of their region and see how well that would work for them!

God said to the people, “Cursed is the cheat who promises to give a fine ram from his flock but then sacrifices a defective one to the Lord.” (In other words, keeping the best for yourself and for your own personal gain and pleasure, while making the appearance of giving God the best, produces a curse upon you and not the blessings of God!)

God told the priests that He had put them into place, to bring about life and peace to the people. They were to pass on the truth and the instructions to the people that they had recieved from God.

Instead, the priests were telling lies and being deceitful and causing people to stumble in their walk with the Lord!

The Lord also points out the people that they should return to Him and He would thus return to them and to this, the people said, “How can we return when we have never gone away?”

And it’s here that God shows the people how they have gone away from Him. They were trying to cheat God with their tithes and offerings due to Him, thus showing that they had already departed from God in their hearts!

And God said to the people that He was sending His messenger of the covenant to the temple, whom they were eagerly looking for, but it would not be like they thought!

He said that His messenger would come like a refiner’s fire and like a fuller’s soap.

The Lord also spoke to the men of Judah about their marrying in to pagan cultures and embracing such wives.

He told the men of Judah that they had profaned His sanctuary, by their marrying the daughters of foreign gods!

And then God told the men that they covered the Lord’s altar with their tears and their weeping and their groanings, because the said that the Lord no longer accepted their offerings; the men cried out, “Why doesn’t the Lord accept my worship?”

And then God answers and says, (NOW LISTEN TO THIS PEOPLE), Malachi 2:14-16,

Malachi 2:14–16 NLT

You cry out, “Why doesn’t the Lord accept my worship?” I’ll tell you why! Because the Lord witnessed the vows you and your wife made when you were young. But you have been unfaithful to her, though she remained your faithful partner, the wife of your marriage vows. Didn’t the Lord make you one with your wife? In body and spirit you are his. And what does he want? Godly children from your union. So guard your heart; remain loyal to the wife of your youth. “For I hate divorce!” says the Lord, the God of Israel. “To divorce your wife is to overwhelm her with cruelty,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “So guard your heart; do not be unfaithful to your wife.”

And then God calls out the people and says, “You have wearied me with your words.”

The Lord told the people that they wearied Him by saying that everyone who does evil is good in the Lord’s sight and then they question, “Where is the God of justice?”

This is similar as to what the Psalmist wrote in Psalm 73 (Flip to and read a brief excerpt)

And then God closes out the Old Testament with the following oracle, Malachi 4:5-6,

Malachi 4:5–6 NLT

“Look, I am sending you the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord arrives. His preaching will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

The people had been crying out and wanting to know why God wasn’t hearing their worship and their prayers and then they got an answer! It may not have been the answer they wanted, but how many of you know that when you ask God to intervene, you have to take everything that He brings before you!

If there is an issue in your life and you ask God to step in and help, be prepared, because He will do whatever needs to be done, to get you to where HE wants you to be!

C.S. Lewis said it this way:

I find a good many people have been bothered by…our Lord’s words, “Be ye perfect.” Some people seem to think this means “Unless you are perfect, I will not help you;” and as we cannot be perfect, then, if He meant that, our position is hopeless. But I do not think He did mean that. I think He meant “The only help I will give is help to become perfect. You may want something less: but I will give you nothing less.” Let me explain. When I was a child I often had toothache, and I knew that if I went to my mother she would give me something which would deaden the pain for that night and let me get to sleep. But I did not go to my mother—at least, not till the pain became very bad. And the reason I did not go was this. I did not doubt she would give me the aspirin; but I knew she would also do something else. I knew she would take me to the dentist next morning. I could not get what I wanted out of her without getting something more, which I did not want. I wanted immediate relief from pain: but I could not get it without having my teeth set permanently right. And I knew those dentists: I knew they started fiddling about with all sorts of other teeth which had not yet begun to ache. They would not let sleeping dogs lie, if you gave them an inch they took an ell. Now, if I may put it that way, Our Lord is like the dentists. Dozens of people go to Him to be cured of some one particular sin. Well, He will cure it all right: but He will not stop there. That may be all you asked; but if once you call Him in, He will give you the full treatment!

The main thing that stood out to me from the book of the book Malachi and the closing of the Old Testament and what I wanted to mention to you this morning, ESPECIALLY this morning, on this day, FATHER’S DAY 2020, is that of the situation of the father and the husband!

GOD SAID IN MALACHI, “Didn’t the LORD make you one with your wife? In body and spirit you are his. And what does he want? Godly children from your union!”

Begin to talk about the role of the husband and the father and of how the enemy has had an assault against the family from the beginning!

Read stats on fatherless homes!

CALL FOR THE HUSBANDS TO REPENT IF NECESSARY TO GOD AND TO THEIR WIVES!

ASK FOR THE MEN TO RISE UP AND BECOME GODLY FATHERS TO THE CHILDREN!

CALL FOR THE YOUNG PEOPLE TO COME FORWARD AND HAVE SOME OF THE MEN COME DOWN AND SPEAK BLESSINGS UPON THEM!

CLOSE WITH A PRAYER OF REPENTANCE BEFORE GOD ABOUT THE MARRIAGE COVENANT AND THEN BREAK OFF THE LIES OF THE ENEMY OVER THE CHILDREN AND THE YOUTH!