God Had Captured His Soul

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

SALVATION THROUGH GRACE.

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Over the years, David worked hard to maintain a “proper religious life.” He wanted to do the right thing, but he really didn’t understand salvation by grace alone. Instead, he worked diligently to be “good enough,” reading the Scriptures, memorizing sermons, and separating himself from “youthful foolishness.”  “I proceeded on a self-righteous foundation,” he admitted later, “and should have been entirely lost and undone had not the mere mercy of God prevented it!”

“God Swallowed Me”

Deep in his soul, David Brainerd longed to know the power and presence of God. He poured out his heart in prayer on long walks through the Connecticut countryside. Speaking to an

“unseen audience,” he wrestled with the demons within his own soul, struggling to find the way to salvation. In the spring of 1739, as David approached his twenty-first birthday, the Holy Spirit began to convict him of the sin of trying to earn his way to God.

“Sometime in February 1739, I set apart a day for fasting and prayer, and spent the day in almost incessant cries to God for mercy to see...the way of life by Jesus Christ.”

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His struggle was with God’s grace; he wanted God to accept all of his hard-earned works as a way to earn salvation. “All this time,” David wrote, “the Spirit of God was powerfully at work within me; and I was inwardly pressed to relinquish all self-confidence, all hopes of ever helping myself by any means whatsoever.”

David Brainerd was surrendering his heart and will to God.  While walking briskly through the fields near Haddam that July, the heavens appeared to open, and the Holy Spirit fell upon Brainerd with His revelatory power!

As I was walking in a dark, thick grove, unspeakable glory seemed to open to the view and apprehension of my soul...a new view that I had of God...I stood still, wondered and admired!

My soul rejoiced with joy unspeakable, to see such a God, such a glorious Divine Being; and I was inwardly pleased and satisfied that He should be God over all forever and ever. My soul was so captivated and delighted with the excellency, loveliness, greatness and other perfections of God, that I was swallowed up in Him!”

God had captured his soul!

The Holy Spirit enveloped David Brainerd with both the majesty and the mercy of God, and he accepted his salvation in Christ based on grace alone. “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9 nasb). 

Brainerd had turned to the living God with his whole heart, and God had answered his prayer with His glorious salvation. David was exited to begin studying tor the ministry.

- God’s Generals ( The Revivalists ) 

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William James Roop

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Brother Roop teaches the Bible

Smith Wigglesworth Spirit Baptism

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

AFTER SMITH WIGGLESWORTH WAS BAPTIZED IN THE HOLY GHOST ….

My wife said to me, “So you’ve been speaking with tongues, have you?” I replied, “Yes.” “Well,” she said, “I want you to understand that I am as much baptized as you are and I don’t speak in tongues.” I saw that the contest was beginning right at home. “I have been preaching for twenty years,” she continued, “and you have sat beside me on the platform, but on Sunday you will preach yourself, and I’ll see what there is in it.”

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She kept her word. On Sunday she took a seat at the back of the building. We had always sat together on the platform until that day. So the contest had begun right in the church.

There were three steps up to the platform, and as I went up those three steps the Lord gave me Isaiah 61:1, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.” 

I was no preacher, but hearing the voice of my Lord speaking those words to me, I began. I cannot now remember what I said, but my wife was terribly disturbed. The bench on which she sat would seat nine people and she moved about on it until she had sat on every part of it. Then she said in a voice that all around her could hear, “That’s not my Smith, Lord, that’s not my Smith!”

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I was giving out the last hymn when the secretary of the mission stood up and said, “I want what our leader has received.” The strange thing was that when he was about to sit down he missed his seat and went right down on the floor. Then my oldest son arose and said he wanted what his father had, and he, too, took his seat right down on the floor. In a short while there were eleven people right on the floor of that mission. The strangest thing was that they were all laughing in the Spirit and laughing at one another. The Lord had really turned again the captivity of Zion and the mouth of His children was being filled with laughter according to the word of the Lord in Psalm 126:1, 2.

That was the beginning of a great outpouring of the Spirit where hundreds received the baptism in the Holy Ghost and everyone of them spoke in tongues as the Spirit of God gave utterance.

God knew that I should have to go all over the world and proclaim this glorious truth, that all could receive the baptism in the Holy Ghost in exactly the same way as they received on the Day of Pentecost with the speaking on other tongues as the Spirit of God gives utterance.

- Smith Wigglesworth ( Apostle of Faith )

William James Roop

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Brother Roop teaches the Bible

The Love Of God

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

PUT GOD’S LOVE TO WORK.

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Believers who are mature in God's love know how to let the love of God dominate them. They know how to let the love of God work for them.

I remember when Dub  ( Kenneth Hagin’s senior brother) was still a baby Christian, he went into town one day to take care of some business for Mamma. When he was in town, he had some problems with some relatives and almost got into a fight with them, so I had to go attend to the business myself.

Dub said, "You'd better not go there. They'll fight you."  I just said, "No, they won't. You just don't know how to exercise the love of God and put it to work for you."  Think about it a minute. How do you put God to work? The Bible said, "God is love." So if you put God's love to work, you're putting God to work in the situation.

The Bible says, "greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world" (1 John 4:4). Well, who is in you?  The Holy Ghost is in you if you've been born again. The Holy Ghost has shed the love of God abroad in your heart. That love in you is bigger than the devil that is in someone who is unsaved and walking in darkness.

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So I went to see one of the relatives who had given Dub such a problem, and she just started ranting and raving. I never said a word. I just looked at her, and I felt so sorry for her. I thought to myself, She can't help but act that way because she's got the nature of the devil in her. She cant help but be selfish.  But on the inside of me, I just kept saying, "Thank God, the love of God is in me. The love of God in me is bigger than the hatred that is in her. Greater is He who is in me than he that is in her." I just stood there and looked at her in love.

Suddenly she looked at me. Her mouth moved in anger, but nothing came out! She couldn't say one word to me.  She must have seen the expression of love on my face, because all of a sudden, she knelt down on the ground, grabbed my hand and kissed it, and laid it on her head, and said, "Ken, pray for me. You know we all need prayer." So I started praying for her.

Then she called her husband. He said to me, "Some of the relatives are going to try to take everything away from your poor ole Mamma. What are you going to do about it?" I knew he was the one trying to do it!

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So I just stepped closer to him, and said, "I want you to know something. I'm ready for any situation. In fact," and I stepped a little closer and dropped my voice and said, "I've got some inside information. And I want you to know that I am ready for them."  His countenance changed entirely. He said, "I'll tell you one thing. I'm going to make sure your Mamma gets her share and is provided for." And he did too.

The inside information I had was information inside the Bible. The inside information was "Greater is He that is in me, than he that is in them. Greater is the love of God that is in me than the hatred that is in the world." Love always wins, because the God- kind of love is the way of the New Covenant, and it never fails.

Get inside this Book, the Bible, and get the Bible inside you, and you're ready for anything. You don't have to get ready; you are ready. God's love never fails!

- Kenneth E Hagin ( Love The Way To Victory ) 

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William James Roop

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Brother Roop teaches the Bible

William Carey

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

God of All Peoples - WILLIAM CAREY 

When God issues a call on a man or woman’s heart, it might come in the roar of a thunderstorm or in the quiet of the night, but he or she hears His voice distinctly.

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William had a growing conviction that God wanted to send Christian missionaries into a hopeless world. As he walked the English countryside in prayer, God brought Isaiah 54 to your remembrance: “Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations....thy Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called. For the LORD has called thee...” (Isaiah 54:2, 5–6 KJV).

The Redeemer was not just the God of England or the God of Europe! He was “the God of the whole earth,” and Carey was determined to proclaim this missionary truth! Because of Zinzendorf’s earlier missionary success, at a meeting with a small group of Baptist pastors in Kettering, England, William Carey threw down copies of the Moravian newsletter Periodical Accounts before the men and declared, “See what the Moravians have done! Can’t we Baptists at least attempt something in fealty to the same Lord?”

Yet, every time he broached the subject with Christian leaders, the reaction was always the same. “You are a miserable enthusiast,” he was rebuked. “If God wanted the heathen of the world to be saved, He would take care of it Himself. There are enough unsaved people in our own midst.”

Carey responded, “Surely God means what He says. Surely He means for us who know Him to carry the message of redemption to all men everywhere!”

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In spite of the church’s objections, William sat down to write out his missionary vision. His writings grew into a booklet that he entitled, "An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens." It became known simply as "The Enquiry." In it, William asserted, “If it be the duty of all men, when the gospel comes, to believe unto salvation, then it is the duty of those who are entrusted with the gospel to endeavor to make it known among all nations for the obedience of faith!”

Carey skillfully presented his argument for world missions in five powerful sections. It was an astounding proclamation of God’s call to reach the lost.

Section One of The Enquiry focused on Jesus’ Great Commission: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them...” (Matthew 28:19 KJV). Carey insisted Jesus’ command to evangelize could not be restricted to the early apostles, or else baptizing believers should be restricted as well. “No!” Carey declared. As long as the majority of the world was covered in “heathen darkness,” Christians had an obligation to bring them the message of Christ’s salvation.

“If the English have been blessed to know and live in the grace of God’s salvation for a long while,” he argued, “how could they withhold such a great salvation from those in foreign lands who died without the knowledge of God’s saving grace?”

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Section Two of The Enquiry retold the powerful move of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts, as thousands of Christians were added to the church daily. (See Acts 2:47.) Carey reminded his readers that it was the missionaries of the first and second centuries who had spread Christianity to England, Germany, Spain, France, Egypt, and Libya.

Section Three, entitled “A Survey of the Present State of the World,” was a comprehensive account of the populations, religious beliefs, and locations of all the people of the known world, based on Carey’s eight years of study. British scholars were astounded at its detail; nothing like it had been written before!

Most importantly, Carey pointed out that most countries had “no written language and consequently no Bible, and were only led by the most childish customs and traditions.” With his gift for languages, Carey’s heart burned to provide written Bibles to the lost. Even the most cynical opponents of foreign missions were convicted by the fervor of Carey’s call.

Sections Four and Five of The Enquiry were practical applications of missionary work: the transportation of missionaries to their destinations, survival in foreign lands, and financial provision. He challenged his Christian brothers, “I question whether we are justified in staying here, while so many are perishing without means of grace in other lands!”

William Carey (Google Commons)

In describing the role of the missionary, Carey actually described himself:

The missionary must take every opportunity of doing them [the lost] good, and laboring, and travelling, night and day, they must instruct, exhort, and rebuke, with all longsuffering and anxious desire for them, and above all, must be instant in prayer for the effusion of the Holy Spirit upon the people of their charge.

Carey ended the booklet with a stirring challenge: “Surely it is worthwhile to lay ourselves out with all our might, in promoting the cause and kingdom of Christ!”

- God’s Generals' ( The Missionaries ) 

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William James Roop

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Brother Roop teaches the Bible

Tribulation In The Will Of God

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

BEING IN THE WILL OF GOD DOESN’T GUARANTEE EASY CIRCUMSTANCES.

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Remember, Paul and Silas weren’t in Philippi on a vacation. They were there to do the Lord’s work. They weren’t out of the will of God. Sometimes when things don’t go right, people think, Well, I must be out of the will of God!

I’ve had people say to me, “What awful sin have I committed to cause God to put this on me?” I tell them that God didn’t send the test or trial they are facing; the devil sent it: “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy . . .” (John 10:10). It wasn’t God who whipped Paul and Silas. It was ungodly men who did it. God didn’t stir up these ungodly fellows. It was the devil who stirred them up. Some say, “Well, God permitted it. What awful sin have I committed to cause God to permit this to happen to me?”

But if you think you’re going to determine whether you are in the will of God by whether or not everything runs smoothly in your life, then you are mistaken. A life of ease, with no rough or difficult places to endure and no sacrifices to make, does not indicate whether or not a person is in God’s will. If it did, then Paul never did get in the will of God in his entire ministry! He missed it from beginning to end. No, you can’t judge being in the will of God by whether or not you have tests and trials in life and obstacles to overcome.

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I was on the field as an evangelist for many years, and I would sometimes get amused at pastors. I have had them tell me, “I tell you one thing! If I can just get my Sunday school attendance back up where it was at its highest point, I am leaving!” Some pastors were upset because the Sunday school was down and things weren’t going right. Well, you don’t judge whether or not you’re in the will of God just because the Sunday school isn’t what you think it should be. That kind of thinking would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

I have also had pastors say to me, “If I can just get the finances of this church to the place they were when I came here, then I’m going to resign and leave.” They felt that because the finances had fallen off it indicated they weren’t in the will of God. But a church is made up of individual people, and just as individual people go through phases in their lives, so do churches. A pastor can’t determine that he is out of the will of God just because his church is experiencing some difficult circumstances.

When I pastored, I never did try to ascertain whether I was in the will of God by whether or not things ran smoothly. I would determine the will of God by listening to my own spirit, and by doing just what they did in Acts 13:2. I would wait upon the Lord and minister to Him until I knew in my spirit what God wanted me to do. 

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I only missed it one time, as far as pastoring the right church was concerned. I missed God concerning this particular church because I put out a fleece. You see, I hadn’t been in Pentecostal circles very long. It had only been about three years since I’d received the baptism of the Holy Ghost and had become Pentecostal.

I never had heard anything about fleeces before then. I had never heard anyone in my former church say anything about putting out a fleece. But I began to hear certain preachers and others talk about putting out a fleece, so I decided to put out a fleece too. I decided

maybe I’d like to change churches and pastor another church. So I put out a fleece about whether or not I should take another church.

A certain church opened up, and I was invited to preach, so I went. Before I left, I put out a fleece. I told the Lord if a certain “sign” occurred, I would accept it as His confirmation that I should accept this new pastorate. And according to my fleece or “sign” I had asked for, I was to change churches. I did, and I got fleeced! 

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When I was finally able to leave that church, I was never so glad to get away from a place in all my life as I was that place! I should have left that church a long time before I did, but sometimes when you miss it, it’s hard to get back on the right track again. And yet, I went back there afterwards to hold a revival meeting and had one of the greatest meetings they had ever had in the history of the church. But I went that time in the will of God, when God said, “Go.” I missed it

previously even when I followed the fleece instead of following God, waiting on God, and ministering to Him, until I knew what to do.

However, as I said, just because I was in the will of God pastoring those other churches doesn’t mean everything always ran smoothly. It doesn’t mean we broke the Sunday school record every Sunday. And it doesn’t mean the finances topped out every Sunday above anything that we had ever received before.Yet in pastoring those churches, I knew in my spirit, in my heart, that it was the right thing to do because I had taken time to minister to the Lord and to wait upon Him.

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I knew that was where He wanted me to be. At different times I’d say to the Lord, “Lord, things are not running just right, but I’m not going to worry about it. I’m going to trust You to work it out.” The devil will just try to aggravate you to death with circumstances, if you’ll listen to him. But if you’ll learn how to deal with the devil, you’ll be alright. And if you don’t, then the circumstances of life will overwhelm you.

Because if Satan can get the least edge on you, he’ll just hound you and try to worry you to death. But believers don’t need to be easy prey for the devil. Rather, we need to spend our time ministering to the Lord.

Kenneth E. Hagin

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William James Roop

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Brother Roop teaches the Bible

The Life Of Prayer

THE LIFE OF PRAYER

I decided years ago that we could not take the revival we are now experiencing in Korea for granted. Having studied church history, I realize that revivals must not only be prayed for to begin, but they must also be prayed for so that they may be maintained. 

Throughout the revivals the Western world has experienced, after several years, people begin to take the revival for granted. The way this happens is that they forget about the very thing that birthed the revival: prayer. Once continuous and fervent prayer is forgotten, the impetus of the revival is lost, and all that is left is the momentum of the past.

What do I mean by the impetus and momentum of a revival? Driving an automobile is a perfect example of how these two principles work. Impetus is the force that is generated in a car when you step on the gas pedal. By applying this force, the car will stay in motion. However, if you take your foot off the gas pedal, the impetus, or the force, will no longer operate; yet, the car still keeps moving. What causes the movement of the auto without the force? The movement is generated by momentum. The movement of a car under momentum is different than under impetus. The momentum of the car does not maintain movement, so eventually the car will come to a halt.

When the Holy Spirit brings revival as an answer to prayer, the impetus of the revival must be maintained for there to be a continuation of that revival. If prayer is ever forgotten, the revival will move from impetus to momentum. Eventually, the special visitation of God will end up as a monument to the past.

- Dr David Yonggi Cho ( Prayer That Brings Revival)

William James Roop

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Brother Roop teaches the Bible

Love Never Fails

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

IF YOU WALK IN LOVE YOU WILL NOT FAIL. 

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Love never fails!

We are interested in spiritual gifts and we ought to be. But we ought to be interested in Love first. Prophecies will fail. Tongues shall cease. Knowledge shall vanish away. But, thank God, Love never fails.

Oh yes, I believe in prophecy and prophesying.

I believe in tongues. Thank God for it. But you can exercise these things outside of Love and they become as sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. The thing about it is: Let's have prophecy. Let's have tongues. Let's have faith. Let's have knowledge. But let's have Love with it. Let's put Love first because we are in the family of Love and have become acquainted with our Heavenly Father who is a God of Love.

We ought to want to learn. We ought to want to grow. We ought to want to grow in Love until we are made perfect in Love. I haven't been made perfect in love yet, have you? But did you know the Bible says we can? Not in the next world, but in this world. I believe some of us are going to make it. I'm not going to quit just because I haven't made it yet. I'm going to keep after it. Thank God for His Word! Thank God for His Love!

- Kenneth E. Hagin

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William James Roop

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Brother Roop teaches the Bible