We are in a WAR

HGC Men’s fellowship + paintball game – 17^TH Sept 2012

PAINTBALL GAME - a war game

For most of us this is the first time we are in a paintball game.

We learned many precious lessons – practical and painful lessons.

Firstly jokingly I told the gang – please don’t shoot me, I am the pastor. They all started laughing and said WE WILL SURELY SHOOT YOU! THE BATTLEFIELD IS NO RESPECTER OF PERSONS. We must realise that we are in a battlefield – we are at war!

The Battlefield was fierce – I got shot many times. At one time I grasped the flag and ran back – and they shot my back – it was painful. At other times I got shot on my head, on my arms, on my face mask, on my leg etc. If it is real bullets I would have died many times. I still have a blue black mark on my arm.

We need to have our whole armour on!

The real bullets can kill.
We need to fight as a team. We’ll be dead in no time if we fight alone.

We must have a clear strategy to win. Every soldier must be clear what they are to do. If he is attacking, he must do his part well. If he is defending, he must cover his attacking team well. Etc.

We must be fit.

2 days after the game I’m feeling the pain in my muscles. We must have regular training to stay fit!

 

PRE-GAME TIME

In the pre-game time we had a time of Praise and worship. It was powerful, liberating, anointed and Christ exalting!  There was indeed a breakthrough as the men praised the Lord loud and free and also danced before the Lord!

 While worshipping I was reminded of Ps 29 – The voice of the Lord

The voice of the LORD is over the waters; The God of glory thunders; The LORD is over many waters.

⁴       The voice of the LORD is powerful; The voice of the LORD is full of majesty.

⁵       The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars, Yes, the LORD splinters the cedars of Lebanon.

⁶       He makes them also skip like a calf, Lebanon and Sirion like a young wild ox.

⁷       The voice of the LORD divides the flames of fire.

⁸       The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness; The LORD shakes the Wilderness of Kadesh.

⁹       The voice of the LORD makes the deer give birth, And strips the forests bare; And in His temple everyone says, "Glory!"

 

Man is made in the image of God – we ought to have a powerful voice like God too.

Man must not be silent.

When the world was void and without form – GOD SPOKE ORDER, DESIGN, PURPOSE  AND BEAUTY into being – Gen 1

God made man first before making woman because God wants man to lead out of a relationship with Him.

 The enemy’s plan to foil God’s plan for man is to silence man.

Adam was right beside Eve when the serpent tempted her – but he said nothing – he was silent. He didn’t say, “STOP it! God said NO! Don’t do it! We must not disobey God etc.”  He should have said something!

Today the devil is trying all out to stop man from speaking God’s will, God’s order, God’s word, counsel, judgment etc.

One area is that he is trying very hard to stop men’s praise and prayer; authoritative, bold, strong prayer.

And it is not just in the area of praise and prayer. Many men today are silent when they ought to speak up.

Many fathers say nothing about their children’s life – they don’t give their approval or objection – they don’t rebuke and neither do they affirm.

Because of that many young people today are insecure, lost and weak or they are simply fed up, frustrated and rebellious just to get attention.

They lack the strong father leader figure over their lives.

 God has a calling for man – to rule!

How are men supposed to rule?

One most vital area is to rule with their authoritative, decisive, strong, wise yet loving VOICE!

 If men say nothing, the devil moves in and speaks lies, deceptions, perversions, unrighteousness, accusations and all his evil schemes.

 Where do men start to move towards being a positive, strong, righteous voice for the Lord?

Let’s start with PRASING GOD for we are called to praise the Lord!

1 Pet 2:9 But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;

 Praising God is powerful!

 Psalms 22:3

But You are holy, Enthroned in the praises of Israel.

 Praising GOD enthrones HIM.

That mean it dethrones everything else.

The enemy always seeks to dethrone God from our hearts.

In fact the WARFARE we are in is the battle of the heart – who is going to be the LORD of man’s heart – THE LORD HIMSELF or any other things. The devil wants us to enthrone self, money, power and lusts and he will tempt us to do that. Anytime we allow these things to be number 1 in our hearts we lose the battle and the devil wins. He subtly deceives us to put self-interest above God and if we fall for it – guess what? He wins and we are defeated.

 So men let us decisively with determination and zeal, in unity and in strength choose to PRAISE THE LORD with all our hearts, souls, mind and strength!

 And I know out of that the LORD will release into our hearts HIS STRENGTH, COURAGE, POWER, LOVE, WISDOM ….AND HEAVEN’S BACKING into our lives and we will be HIS VOICE ON EARTH – THAT WILL BRING HIS ORDER, HIS RULE, HIS BEAUTY TO EARTH!

 

Our special trip to Israel and Europe

Chin Nee and I celebrated this year, our 25th Wedding anniversary by taking this special trip to Israel and then hopping over to Switzerland from there to minister in Ps Daniel and Ruth's church and then as a BTW thing we also hop over to London to visit my sister Maggie and her husband Bill. We left on 7th march and arrived back safely on 2nd April. This was the longest time we were away from home.
When asked how our trip was, my answer was a resounding EXCELLENT!
The Lord was so good and gracious to us. We were very very blessed in everyway.
Israel
It was really awesome visiting the Bible Land. The Bible truly came alive.
I spent quote a lot of time in the night and morning reading the Bible concerning those places we visited or about to visit. The cities, the towns, the Sea of Galilee, the mountains, the rivers, the terrain, the plants, etc all came alive. The weather in that relatively small region is very diverse. It can be very cold in Jerusalem and very hot in the dead sea area at the same time. That's because the dead sea is 1388 feet below sea level. The sea of Galilee is 712 feet below sea level and is the lowest fresh water lake in the world. I had the experience of Baptising some Christians on this trip in the River Jordan, like John the Baptist. Now when I read the Bible these places have special meaning. The ruins in Ceasarea was spectacular. You can't imagine the kind of civilisation 2,000 years ago. Today it is just ruins. BUT THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST IS EVER EXPANDING TODAY!
Jordan
We visited some parts of Jordan too and it is so disctinctly different from Israel. Most of Jordan is wilderness but Israel is a land flowing with milk and honey. Moses led the Israelites through the dry, parched, uninhabited wilderness for 40 years. We can see clearly that the Israelites could never have survived without the PILLAR OF CLOUD BY DAY (They would have been scorched to death by the hot sun) or the PILLAR OF FIRE BY NIGHT (They would died of cold or being attacked by wild animals).

Switzerland
We had a most blessed us time in Switzerland. We had beautiful snow for 2 days and then the other days were all sunny, blue sky and just beautiful. The ministry in Ps Daniel's church, Hope of Glory Switzerland, was wonderful. The members were very hungry for God. The Lord's was present to bless His people there. It is a very good work and the need is great.

London
We flew over to London to visit my sister Maggie and her husband Bill. They are a very godly and loving couple. They showed us wonderful hospitality and it was really a great blessing to get to know them much better. They are in Salisbury, about 2 hours by road from London city. It is a peaceful city with beautiful countryside plains. We enjoyed our 3 nights and 2 full days there.

Germany
After getting back from London to Switzerland we ministered in Ps Daniel's church dedication service. It was a very powerful time as the Lord spoke clearly about His call for this church.
The following week Ps Daniel drove us to Germany to visit a place call the Black Forest. We stayed 2 nights in a lovely hotel in a place called Titisee where there is a beautiful lake.

All in all it was a superb trip for our Silver Wedding Anniversary.
All thanks, praise and glory to our Lord Jesus!
Lord you are so good to us!