Our Future Hope

Our Future Hope Josh 4:1-24

Thursday, July 23, 2015

2:31 PM

It seems that perpetuation of God's way was important to Him. He always made provision for His word, His command, His desires to be recorded for future generations.

If it wasn't erecting altars and memorials, it was writing or engraving.

He didn't want any of us to go on this journey on our own.

The Monarch butterfly is one of the most beautiful of butterflies. It has a distinct black and orange design. What is amazing about these butterflies is the their migration.

Every autumn, millions of monarchs from all over the eastern United States and Canada migrate thousands of miles to a small handful of sites in Mexico where they rest for the winter. Then in the Spring, they begin their return trip up to the North. The amazing thing is that no individual monarch ever makes the trip to Mexico and back.

A butterfly that leave the Mountains of New York will fly all the way to Mexico and spend the winter. In March, it begins the trip northward, but after laying eggs in the milkweed of Texas and Florida, it will die. Those butterflies will continue northward, laying eggs along the way until some of them, maybe three or four generations removed from the original, make it back to the mountains of New York. But when August comes, they will head south, aiming for the exact place their great grandparents visited, a place they have never been.

While they seem to migrate in groups, it is amazing how from one generation to the next the message is passed on. They know how to follow in the path of their ancestors.

I think the church could learn a lot from this.

While our passage tonight isn't the only scripture on this - I think there are even some principles we can gain that will help us perpetuate the great message. John E. Harnish, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com

Our Hope is for:

A God who speaks and works among His people. Verse: 1; 23-24I truly believe unless each generation gets a glimpse of God has their encounter with Jesus they will miss the message. They may hear what we say but it has to go deeper. We need a God who works and speaks to His people.I'm thankful that my children have been in services where the Glory of God has come down. I pray for more of those. I want them to be familiar and used to the presence of God. Some Joshua's – who listen to the voice of the Lord 4 & are anointed of the Lord 14

The church was crowded on that first Sunday. Interest was awakened at once. That manifestation of miracle working power had advertised the meeting sufficiently. You may believe it or not, but we give God all the glory. (1941, pp. 24-25)

Some Priests who bare the ark & stand in the midst of the Jordan 10If there had not been unity, a cohesive working together by these people it would have been chaos everyone doing their own thing – but they had a unity working for the same purpose and even if they had to stand, if they had to carry a load they did it, not for them but for the future generations. Some Jordan's to be crossed – There has to be miracles - In her book, "Miracles in White" By Arletta Maude Martin the wife of Rev. E.E. Martin a Nazarene Pastor from years ago tells an amazing story: "In the cold winters of Canada, as the spring comes on, the frost goes down into the ground. If one has outside faucets and they have frozen during the winter, the condition will grow worse in the spring, and there will be little hope of thawing the pipes out before June or July. When we lived in Claresholm, Alberta, Canada, we had an outside faucet between our house and the next building. The sun never touched it and it had been frozen all winter. In April, when we moved into the house, we were told that we must buy water out of the barrel from the water carrier who supplied the community.

That arrangement did not appeal to Mr. Martin. He began to tinker with the faucet but, although he tried salt and other simple methods of which he had heard, his efforts were of no avail. Finally, during family worship, he prayed definitely, asking the Lord to give us water out of that faucet. When we rose from our knees, like Sarah of old, I said, "It sounded a bit foolish to hear you praying for that faucet when you know that we can't get water from it before summer. Now ff you had an electric wire to run down the pipe, it would seem to me more reasonable to ask the Lord to use it."

That was not the right spiritual attitude for me to take, and ff I had only taken time to think, I am sure that I never would have said what I did. But I spoke hastily because we had been told that it would be impossible to get water at that season of the year. Mr. Martin did not say one word in reply. We lived in an upstairs flat. He walked down the stairs, but he soon came hurrying up, two steps at a time. As soon as I heard his hurrying footsteps, my heart smote me. I knew that God had answered his prayer and sent the water. I exclaimed:

"You do not need to tell me what has happened! God has sent the water!"

"Yes," he replied, "I just went down the stairs, turned that faucet, and the water gushed out."

The news of that miracle spread all over that country village. We conducted our first meeting on the following Sunday. People came from every direction to see our "Hallelujah faucet." Since they had heard Nazarene people shout "Hallelujah,"

they associated the word with the Nazarenes, and they named our faucet the

"Hallelujah faucet."

Some Stones to Gather – To gather the stones there has to be a parting of the waters. Has God ever parted the water for you? I know he has for us. While coming to the river and not knowing what to do, and when you receive the command to just keep walking it seems strange – but when the waters part and you cross clean over you see what God has done. Some men to gather some stones Some children to ask what the stones mean – not just biological children, but there needs to be some stones to help assimilate new comers .

I believe in perpetuating the Gospel and Holiness message here is one strategy we find in the Old Testament. God help us .

If God is able to get generations of butterflies from Mexico to New York – surely he can get some children from this sinful world safely to heaven's gate.