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Peggy Joyce Ruth, aka "the Psalm 91 Lady" is author of a variety of Psalm 91 book titles with over six million copies in print. She taught a weekly Adult Bible Study for more than 35 years in her church in Central Texas as she shared how to make God’s Word your final authority. Known for her easy-to-understand style of communicating the Word of God and warm storytelling, Peggy Joyce's heart is that her books and teachings will bring you into the same freedom from fear she experienced and help you put God's Word to work in your life.
Well, I call this bible study, no relative has to go to hell. Now no matter how much joy and how much peace and sweet fellowship we're enjoying with the Lord, you know, we can lose our peace and we can lose our joy in a hurry when we think about some close relative who's headed for an eternal destiny in hell. It we we just can hardly handle that. Now God knew that that was gonna rob us of all of our joy. And that's why he didn't leave us without an answer.
Speaker 1:I I just praise God. He he has an answer for whatever we need. And he didn't leave us without an answer for this dilemma. Now most people don't know about this answer. I I really don't hear many people talk about it.
Speaker 1:But God knew all the crying and all the wailing and all the walking around with a long sad face was gonna do absolutely no good. He knew that. But he always makes a way. And this is such good news. I I just I get excited when I think about this.
Speaker 1:Now I've said this before, but I've been amazed when I watch men and women hold down maybe 2 jobs, they work overtime, they deprive themselves a lot of times of even necessities, and they deprive themselves of so many things because they wanna get a nice vacation for their family, or a new car, or education, and all these temporal things. They save their money for, and they're gonna get old and wear out, you know. And yet very few Christians either don't know how, or they're not willing to make the effort to do what it takes to give that loved one an insurance against a destiny in hell. And so I want that to change today. That that's what I'm believing for.
Speaker 1:But there are some things you can do that are spelled out in the word of God to ensure now their salvation. Now it does take a little bit of effort, but there's nothing that you can give a relative or that even remotely compares to this gift. Now in first John 5 14 and 15, it says, and this is the confidence. That's our key word. God is giving us a confidence right here, which we have before Him.
Speaker 1:That if we ask anything according to His will, we know that He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in anything that we ask, we know that we have the request which we've asked for him. What a promise. I mean, I I get so excited when I see this promise. I'm gonna read it one more time because it's so important.
Speaker 1:I don't want anyone to miss it. This is the confidence. God says we're gonna need a confidence. And this is the confidence which we have before him. That if we ask anything according to his will, we know that he hears us.
Speaker 1:And if we know that he hears us in whatever it is we're asking, we know that we have the request which we've asked for. Wow. Thank you, Lord. Okay. I want you to listen to what God's saying here.
Speaker 1:If we ask anything according to his will, then we know that he's going to grant that request. That's a promise. Okay. We know that it's not his will that anyone perish. It's not his will that anyone go to hell.
Speaker 1:We will never be able to pray an effective prayer if we don't have some confidence in what we're praying. And thank goodness this first John 5 14 and 15 is our confidence. This this is, just a gift from God. Now we know it's not his will for anyone to go to hell. We know that.
Speaker 1:And God is telling us here so that we can pray for the salvation for our relatives in faith if we won't give up. So many people don't know this, so they're not using it. They're not praying it. But we can have it if we'll just grab hold of it and realize this is a promise from God. It's a done deal.
Speaker 1:Now there's examples all through the scripture where relatives stood in the gap, for their loved ones. We've talked about Noah. It says he alone was found righteous and yet he evidently stood in the gap, and his sons and and and wives were saved. Rahab brought all of her relatives in. Abraham stood for Lot and, Cornelius, on and on, we could name.
Speaker 1:Now the word is full of examples, so we're going to continue on this week in the same vein, building up our confidence now to begin now to do something between us and God to tangibly express our faith for our relatives to come into God. That's all it takes, and God's made it so easy for us. So we just need to do that. Okay. Let me give you an example.
Speaker 1:Now this example doesn't have anything to do with a a lost relative, but I want you to hear the dynamic so so that you can use it or at least use the same principle. When we were in the Pepsi business, Jack and I owed a great deal of money at one point, and he wrote out checks in faith to every single creditor that he owed. Now don't miss my next statement. He did not send out those hot checks, You know? So I don't want anyone to miss that.
Speaker 1:But he wrote out a check to every person to whom he owed money. He wrote out a check to the glass company for the bottles, and he wrote out a check to the carton company for our cartons, and the Crown company for our bottle caps. And he wrote those checks as an act of faith, and he put them in a drawer, and then he started believing God and confessing that there was going to be sufficient funds to pay for all all these debts. And 1 by 1, he started being able to mail out every one of those checks until the total debt was finally paid. I can't even begin to tell you how excited we were when that happened.
Speaker 1:He did that as an act of faith. Now you may wanna use the same principle, and maybe buy some birthday cards, or maybe some, birth announcements with the name of every unsafe relative signifying their spiritual birthday, and just let it be between you and God, but put those birth announcements in a drawer and don't give up until every one of them has manifested in the natural. And what it does, it'll keep your faith. Now if you don't wanna do that, at least think of something where you can keep that desire alive on the inside of you. Now Deuteronomy 30 19 says, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I've set before you life and death.
Speaker 1:I've set before you the blessing and the cursing. And then he goes on to tell us which one to choose. So he says, I want you to choose life in order that you may live, but he doesn't stop there. In order that you will live, you and your descendants may live. So God's made a way for us.
Speaker 1:I mean, he's just spelled it out in so many different ways. And then he tells us how to do it. He says, you do this by loving the Lord your God. You do it by obeying his voice, and then by holding fast to Him or holding fast to the promises that He's made to you. Now this is our foundational scripture that's giving us an unbelievable promise.
Speaker 1:It's giving you a promise now that not only for you, but for every one of your descendants. Now you've been given this promise here that gives you the right to choose life and choose blessing for yourself and your descendants. And so, don't ignore this promise. You know, don't take it lightly. I mean, this is a powerful from god.
Speaker 1:Now god's not offering to give you a choice of 4 different things. He's not saying you can have life, death, blessing, cursing. He's not doing that. After the fall, man already had death and he had death only. That's all he had.
Speaker 1:He had the curse and the curse only. But God now is saying in place of the death and the curse, I I'm gonna give you a gift. He he's saying because of my love and because of my mercy, I'm now making it available to you to choose life instead of the death, and and to choose blessing instead of the curse. So we now have a choice. You know, why would we not pick one of these when God is offering it so beautifully?
Speaker 1:But we have to choose for ourself and we can also choose for our children, of course, and our descendants. Okay. Now what God is saying, he's saying, I've placed the all of this in front of you, and the host of heaven are witnessing today what you're gonna choose. You know, so many parents, they don't know that. So many times we don't realize that we have a choice for our relatives.
Speaker 1:And I've heard people say, well, I don't have the right to choose for my child. I'm gonna wait till he gets older, and I'm gonna let him choose for himself. Well, that can sound pretty logical, and it can sound pretty reasonable. And a lot of Christians have bought that idea, but that's an abomination to God. When when we don't even take the gift that he's offering.
Speaker 1:It's as though man has reasoned up something on his own that contradicts the word of God. God has given us as parents not only right, but also the commandment to choose for our children. That's a commandment to every parent. Deuteronomy 18/19 tells us that the reason God chose Abraham was because he would command his family in the ways of the Lord. I thought that was interesting.
Speaker 1:That's why God chose him. Because God knew he would choose rightly for his family. Now the fallacy of thinking that you can wait and let your child choose for himself, is that when you don't choose life and blessing for your child, you've automatically chosen death and the curse by default. When we don't choose what God tells us to do, we've already made a choice for them. I really hope you're hearing what I'm saying today, because I want you to look again at Deuteronomy 30 19.
Speaker 1:God says, I'm calling heaven and earth to witness the choice that you make. Okay. Why is he calling heaven and earth to to witness? There's a reason behind that. Because the host of hell are looking to see what our choice is going to be for our descendants.
Speaker 1:The host of hell are watching. And if we know our rights and by faith that we choose life for them, then Satan has just been issued limitations and boundaries. We've just put a boundary up. We've put limitations up. We're saying, Satan, I've made a choice and so you can't touch my relatives.
Speaker 1:You know, where my relatives are concerned, you're bound. But if a negative choice is made, or if we don't even make a choice, if we just don't even pay any attention to it, by the same token then, Satan has just been given permission and his opportunity is obvious. You know, I mean, this is making it so clear. Your choice is witnessed by the angels of God also. And the purpose for the angels of God, seeing the choice we've made, is Hebrews 114.
Speaker 1:Because the the angels are ministering spirits, they're sent out to render service to those who will inherit salvation. So after we've chosen life for our descendants, if we really mean business, then even before they actually come to the place of making that choice for themselves, they have to eventually make that choice for themselves. But when we make the choice for them, then God sees to them, they come to the place where they make that choice. And these angels are ministering spirits, and so they'll start rendering service to those who, at some point in time, are going to inherit salvation. I mean, look, God is so faithful.
Speaker 1:We can't even imagine how god good God is and how much he wants our families to come in. Now it's gonna just gonna be like the angels who rescued Lot. They were told you're gonna have to leave because destruction can't come until you're in a safe place. Well, why could destruction not come to Sodom until they had Lot and his family out in a safe place? Well, it was because Abraham was praying.
Speaker 1:And Abraham was saying, lord, I believe in you. My my nephew is going to be saved. So the destruction couldn't come till they got Lot and his family out of the way. So appropriate that to your own family. If you mean business when you choose for them to go with God, you can also choose now that destruction absolutely can't come to them until they're in a safe place.
Speaker 1:We have that same promise that God gave to Abraham. You know, when Bill was still living at home, we put him on a plane to Germany for a month. He wanted to buy a car in in Germany. And I started thinking about his flying across the ocean. I thought about him being in a foreign country by himself, trying to catch trains to go everywhere he needed to go, and, we didn't have cell phones back then.
Speaker 1:And he couldn't speak the language, and the enemy started trying to really put some fear on me, you know, when I started thinking about what all he was gonna be facing. Then suddenly, faith started rising on the inside and I thought, lord, we have chosen life and blessing for him since before he was born. We've made that choice for him. So if destruction did come, the angels would have to absolutely pull him out of the way. Just exactly like you did for for Lot when Abraham stood in in the, in the gap.
Speaker 1:So all of a sudden, I realized, god, you're the one that's gonna be protecting Bill over there because I have a promise. Okay. That's a gift to us from the father, but it's not automatic. And that's where so many people lose because they don't many times they don't receive that gift. It's not auto automatic.
Speaker 1:We have to believe it and we have to receive it. But it's true because it's the word of God and it's a promise. Now you may be thinking, well, I don't have faith to believe that. Hey. Don't tell Satan you don't have faith to believe it.
Speaker 1:Don't tell him. It is God's word, so confess it anyway. And if you keep confessing it, your faith will grow as you hear yourself confessing this promise. And you say, okay. Then how do I make the choice?
Speaker 1:Because I I want to be obedient. Well, verse 20 goes on to tell us, you do it by loving the lord, by obeying his voice, and holding fast to him, holding fast to those promises. So there's 3 things we're told to do. Now by believing and appropriating what the word says, you simply confess out loud and you choose to believe exactly what the word says. The word's just given us promise after promise.
Speaker 1:All we have to do is believe it and grab hold of it. Okay. Now what does the world say? The world says, you can never what know how you're gonna kids are gonna turn out. You just can't know that.
Speaker 1:You do the best you can and whatever will be will be. You just might as well sit back and expect it. It's their choice. Kids are gonna be a big disappointment to you at times. You might as well expect it.
Speaker 1:Look around and see how many kids have disappointed their parents. And we've bought that garbage, and we say, well, that's true. You can't ever tell what a kid's gonna do. And we start believing what we're seeing with our eyes. We start believing those thoughts in our head.
Speaker 1:But that is not what the word of God says. We can destine them to good. God has given us that privilege. Now too often, kids go astray because we as parents many times, we don't know our rights. We don't know that we have the right to stand in there and believe till they walk in the path they need to walk in.
Speaker 1:And so we get into fear. And when we do, Satan calls our bluff and too many times parents believe the lie. And if we don't claim God's promise concerning our our children and their relatives, that promise is just sitting there. It's not doing a bit of good. Proverbs 226 tells us, train up the child in the way he should go, and when he's old, he will not depart from it.
Speaker 1:That's a powerful promise. We need to grab that promise and confess it every day. And you say, well, I've seen kids who were taught right, and they still departed from it. Okay. What happens is too many parents negate the promise by confessing what they see in the natural.
Speaker 1:I see so many parents and and they're talking to people and they're saying, oh, my kids are doing this or my kids doing that, and they're confessing what they see. But the things we see, the Bible tells us, are temporal and and they're subject to change if we just believe the word. You know, that's a quite a promise. When God says the things you see are temporal and they're subject to change. That means they can change, but we have to believe that.
Speaker 1:So start confessing the word and you will literally call good things into being. God gives us that privilege. It's kind of like it says in Romans 4 verse 17, we can call things that do not yet exist. We can call it into existence. Now, when you have a child and it looks like they're going into the captivity of the enemy, confess what God says about your child.
Speaker 1:No matter what it looks like, start confessing and don't stop confessing until you see it come to pass. If you won't turn loose and you won't quit, you can see things completely turn around. The word has to be our final authority. The word has to become more real to us now than what the world is saying and what we're seeing with our eyes. You know, I can remember thinking, well, golly, I don't know if I can believe that.
Speaker 1:When I first started hearing this and reading this years ago, I thought, oh, god. That's a lot to believe for. It sounds so contradictory to everyone and everything that I know. And I so I was just going before God just saying, god, I I I need you to help me. But God supernaturally took me to Romans 3, and it was supernaturally.
Speaker 1:I remember, that day when I I came to Romans 33. I'd never read it before. And it says, if some do not believe, will their unbelief nullify the faithfulness of God? You know, in in other words, is it going to make God's word not true? And I looked at that and it was like God was saying, if others don't believe my word, it are is it gonna nullify my promises to you, page Joyce?
Speaker 1:And so he was asking me that question, and then he went on and he answered it. The next verse says, may it never be. And he went on to say, you'll let me be found true even though everyone else in the world is found to be a liar. What a promise. Woah.
Speaker 1:But then he said, next, but you'll be justified by your words. In other words, what you believe and what you say is what's going to be the final outcome. But he's made a promise that's almost beyond our, our our comprehension that he would make this kind of a promise. And suddenly, I knew that it didn't matter whether anyone else believed or not. I knew it was true.
Speaker 1:It's God's word. And what happened to me and to my descendants and my relatives would be determined with whether or not I believed it. It's there. It's the promise. The one who holds the key, the one who holds the destiny is in our hand is whether or not we believe it.
Speaker 1:Now, be determined to believe the word even if no one else in the world is following suit. You know, later I found that there were many, many people who believed the word, you know, but the enemy was trying to make me feel like I was totally alone. And how could I reach out and believe for my child to be protected when all the rest of the world was not believing? And the Lord showed me that there were many, many people who were believing the promises. I just needed to get on the bandwagon.
Speaker 1:And he showed me that the same thing happened to Elijah in 1st Kings 1914. Elijah had just killed 100 of Baal's prophets. But when Jezebel came after him, he got into fear and he ran. And in 1st Kings 1914, he said, I'm the only one left, Lord, who's believing you. Well, that's what Satan wants us to believe, and that's what the enemy says to the parent.
Speaker 1:Look what your kid's doing, you know. There's nothing you can do about that. There there's no way. You're serving God, but you you can't destine what your child's gonna do. But in verse 18, God said, there's 7,000 who follow and trust me.
Speaker 1:And that's what we've got to remember. God gives these promises, and we're not the only one that's having to believe it and stand for our children. There are 1,000 in our world that are taking those promises, and they're saving the lives of their children for all eternity. So we can't believe that witchcraft spirit. We can't believe that Jezebel spirit.
Speaker 1:We have to come to a place where we say, lord, I'm believing what your word tells me. Now the enemy tries to make us feel that we're all alone, and no one else is following god. But I want you to look what god tells us to say in Psalm 112 verse 7. I will not fear evil tidings because my heart is steadfast trusting in you, Lord. That's what we need to be saying all the time.
Speaker 1:Lord, I'm not gonna fear these evil tidings. Even if I see it going wrong for other parents, I don't know what's going on there. I I don't know whether they're standing or whether they're believing, but because my heart is steadfast trusting in you, I don't have to fear the evil tidings. You know, when I was a a young Christian, I had to quote verses when I was in the Baptist church and I had these verses that I quoted. And I had to get rid of the fear of evil tidings.
Speaker 1:Because back then, when the phone would ring in the middle of the night, or when I would hear a siren, and my kids were out, my heart would try to skip a beat. But God said, I want you to start confessing, I'm trusting in you, Lord. Therefore, I will not fear. And so I had that written out, and every time something like that happened, I'd say, Lord, I'm trusting in you. I'm not I'm not gonna fear.
Speaker 1:And when I did that, I noticed that that fear began to leave. That's all it's so easy to do if we just do what God tells us to do. We'll just take those promises and start confessing those promises. Even if we don't believe them, write it first. The more we confess them finally, it'll start coming alive on the inside of us.
Speaker 1:In Isaiah 4923 to 25 in the amplified, those who faithfully wait for me, god said, will not be disappointed. Those who trust will not be disappointed. And he said, I will give safety to your children. We need to memorize that promise, and we just say it often. I'm giving you so many promises, but memorize all of them.
Speaker 1:Because, you know, if he gave us 1 or 2, that would be wonderful. That would be enough. But he didn't just give us 1 or 2. He gave us many, many scripture promises. Now you're familiar with the blessings and the curses, but I want you to look at Deuteronomy 28 2 through 4.
Speaker 1:It says, and all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you if you obey the Lord your God. Now this is in the old testament he's even promising. Blessed shall you be in the city. Blessed shall you be in the country. Blessed shall be the offspring of your body.
Speaker 1:We didn't have to wait, for the new testament. He he gave us these promises even under the old covenant. But how many times have we stopped to realize that these promises that these are are literally promises for the offspring of our body to be blessed. This is something that God says, I I'm doing something for you. See that every scripture I'm giving you gives you a a promise to to back up the last one.
Speaker 1:Now so many Christians are still living under the curse, and they they don't know what to do about it. Now the curse in Deuteronomy 2832 and 41 says your sons and daughters will be given to another people, while your eyes shall look on and yearn for them continually, but there's nothing you can do. It's old testament. Verse 41. You shall have sons and daughters, but they're not gonna be yours.
Speaker 1:They're gonna go into the captivity of the enemy. And so many times, I hear Christians reading that, and they're saying, there's nothing we can do for our kids. The Bible tells us right here, you know, they're our sons and daughters. They're not gonna be ours. They'll go into the captivity of the enemy.
Speaker 1:But we're under another covenant now. We need to realize that we we can supersede that because God has given us a promise under the new covenant. In Galatians 313, because it tells us that Christ has redeemed us now from the curses in the old testament. We've been redeemed. Literally, he it's become a curse for us, for it's written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.
Speaker 1:When Christ took the curse for us and went to the cross, that has wiped everything of the old testament out if we just believe it. And if we want to believe it, and we want to take his promises, I mean, there's nothing that God hasn't made available to us if we just believe him and grab a hold of these promises. Now under our new covenant, we've been set free from having to live under the curse. So now we can turn that curse around. When you read one of those curses in the old testament, you can say, I'm living under a new testament curse, and the opposite now is true.
Speaker 1:Now my children will not go into the captivity of the enemy. My children will not go into drugs and alcohol and illicit sex and rebellion and on and on. Because I've been redeemed from the curse according to Galatians 313. And some people will say, well, one of my kids, they're already there. It's just too late.
Speaker 1:They they've already gone under the curse. Then begin confessing that you're redeemed and God will begin to show how to bring them out. Yes. A lot of times, children have gone under it. But if we'll stand on the word of God and we won't turn it loose, God will show us how to pull them out with his promises.
Speaker 1:Now it may look like it's not working right now, but what you see is temporal and subject to change. So claim that for your children. Claim that for your grandchildren. Claim that for your descendants. This is not just promises for our children, but it's also promises for our descendants.
Speaker 1:It's also promises for our relatives. Now it's so important to stay in contact with your lost relatives. That's so important. It's really easy to fall away from staying close to them because you don't have that much in common. You know?
Speaker 1:They're going a whole different lifestyle, and it's easy to think, lord, I don't have anything in common. I really can't stay in contact with them. But force yourself to make phone calls. Force yourself to put notes in the mail. Keep in contact.
Speaker 1:That will keep you faithfully claiming them for the kingdom, and it'll be so worth it. Jack, I can't even tell you how many times he would drive to Kansas just because he wanted to stay in contact with his relatives. And he wants wanted to see that they made it to heaven and it paid off. He was able to lead different ones of them to the Lord. And one in particular he led to the Lord.
Speaker 1:It it was one who had married into the family and he was not going with God at all. And Jack was there, and Jack would pull him aside and just talk to him about different things. And then he had talked to him how wonderful it was to serve God. And I'm gonna tell you what, that young man now, he's on fire for God. He is just on fire.
Speaker 1:He's constantly calling. What can I do to help? And he was headed straight for hell. So you can turn these things around, and God wants us to see that. You have the right to claim your relatives for the kingdom.
Speaker 1:But now Deuteronomy 30 19 tells us that that we've got to choose it. It's not automatic. So start confessing, I choose life for me and my descendants. I choose life for my children. I choose life for my relatives.
Speaker 1:And none of them are going to go into the captivity of the enemy. Confess they're going to live and not die, and they're do going to declare the wonderful works of God. I tell you devil, hell will never have my relatives. He will never have my children. He'll never have them.
Speaker 1:Satan and all of his demons are not big enough to take one of my kids, not one of my relatives, and I'm not gonna give up my rights. And we need to get that determined and stand that strong. And sometimes it's a little hard to do that when you see them doing things they shouldn't be doing, and it looks like they're headed straight for hell. But God says, I want you to stand on that word, and you confess what my word says no matter what you see. Now Joshua said, for as for me and my house, we will serve God.
Speaker 1:You know, he didn't just stand up and say, God, I'm gonna serve you. I don't know what my relatives are gonna do, but I'm gonna serve you. No. As for me and my house, we will serve God. So we have the right to make the choice for our children and even for our relatives.
Speaker 1:Now that's, kind of shocking. A lot of people say, no. We don't have that right. Yes, we do. The word of God says that we do.
Speaker 1:So we need to confess right along with Joshua. As for me and my house, and boy, start naming them. We are gonna serve you, Lord. Psalm 91, you're my God and my source. Therefore, no evil will befall me, neither will plague or calamity even come near my household.
Speaker 1:We need to say it until we believe it. Isaiah 5413, My children are disciples. They're taught of the Lord, and they're obedient to his will. And great will be their peace and undisturbed composure. You know?
Speaker 1:So just continually confess that. Now I'm gonna give you 4 scriptures to apply to relatives or descendants now that you're believing for, your extended family. Okay. Number 1. 2nd Timothy 112.
Speaker 1:For I know the one in whom I've believed, and I'm persuaded or I'm convinced that he is able to keep or to guard that which I've entrusted to him. Okay. Now, he will keep and he will guard your children if you claim that promise, if you keep claiming it. That's a promise from God. You know, when I was growing up, I memorized that scripture, but it was nothing but words to me.
Speaker 1:I was young, and I had no idea what it meant. But one day, God said, listen to what you're saying. Listen to what this is saying. We are confessing here that we can know him intimately. I know the one in whom I have believed.
Speaker 1:Okay. God's saying, you can know me. You can know me intimately. And we can be absolutely convinced that he will guard that which we've trusted to him, because the scripture tells us that. So trust your child to God.
Speaker 1:Trust that relative and confess it out loud. And then know that the God of the universe is going to be responsible to bring it about. God's working for us. We don't have to go out and make it happen. He's working for us.
Speaker 1:Now he may tell us something to do. If he tells us something to do, we better do it. But he will guard and keep them until the day that they come to him, even if it's sometime on their deathbed. I've known the time where it was on their deathbed. And, but this is good news that God's given us.
Speaker 1:Now you may be saying, well, how on earth do I commit them to God? Well, a good type and shadow of that's in the old testament. I love this type and shadow. It's in Exodus 2937. They spent 7 days consecrating the altar.
Speaker 1:And, they did it with blood. And after 7 days, then the bible said that the altar was holy. And then the Bible says that anything that touched that altar became holy. Okay. That's old testament.
Speaker 1:Okay. Now, I'm gonna give you an example in the natural. My dad had a workshop and he had a metal cabinet in that workshop. And I don't know how it happened, maybe he knew, but somehow that metal cabinet got magnetized. I don't and boy, you could even get close if you had something, a tool or something that was metal.
Speaker 1:I mean, it immediately, went to that metal cabinet and it was stuck. Okay. Now if the blood of goats and bulls could make that altar holy, so that whatever touched that altar became holy, truly the altar today with the blood of Jesus is holy. And if we believe this, this is a type and shadow, and we can know that anytime we commit that child or that relative to God, the minute that child touches the altar, and you turn him loose into the hands of God, that child becomes most holy, becomes set apart for God. That altar, it's like that altar is magnetized just like that cabinet.
Speaker 1:And it's magnetized and it literally draws the children. It holds that child. Okay. Step 2 is Isaiah 1 19. If you're willing and obedient, you can eat the good of the land.
Speaker 1:Okay. Now, we talked earlier in this Bible study about points of obedience. And God will give you points of obedience, things that you're to do. We don't always just believe and then forget it. I mean, we're saying, God, what do you want me to do?
Speaker 1:What do I need to do? And many times, he'll give us things to do. So don't look at it, though, that it's gonna be some big, horrible, bad something. God's ways are so simple. When we say, God, I wanna be obedient to do whatever you tell me to do.
Speaker 1:It's amazing some of the tiny little things that he tells us to do, but they all count. It counts when God tells you to do it. But all he's wanting from us is to be willing to be obedient. So don't miss out, you know. Now the only point of obedience that I'm going to mention because it's so important, there's so many things that God, points of obedience that God could tell us to do, but this one is so important I'm going to mention it.
Speaker 1:Consistent discipline of your children is always God's way. And I I wanna mention that because it's so important. God disciplines his children in their heart, and he expects us to do the same. He expects us to discipline those children. When we have a child and we just let them run loose and do whatever they wanna do, that's not God.
Speaker 1:Practically every serious need for deliverance that we've ever encountered in a person's life stem from some area of lack of discipline. I wanna say that again because we've seen this so many times, practically every serious need for deliverance. You know, when we're taking a person through deliverance, you we'll ask them, okay. Tell me about your background and everything. We found out that it came from a lack of discipline.
Speaker 1:They were not made to do their their parents just didn't discipline like they should. Practically everything. Okay. Step 3 is the fact that we have all made mistakes. And our step 3 is thank God.
Speaker 1:He loved us enough that we can repent, and we can put those mistakes under the blood, and God will take our mistakes and use them for good. So we can pray for a child's forgiveness when they they're out doing the wrong thing, but we can also pray for our forgiveness. And sometimes, in order to be able to stand in the gap for those children, we need to put our life on the line and say, god, I've done this and this and this. I I I put it under the blood, and I ask for your forgiveness. And god is more than willing if we truly, truly repent.
Speaker 1:And, says that he will return the years the cankerworm has eaten. Tells us that in Joel's 2/25. Okay. Believe God that he is the God of the impossible and that nothing is too difficult, that it's not too late. Now I love that in the New Testament.
Speaker 1:I found that in the New Testament. Boy, I use it all the time. Lord, I thank you. You're the God of the impossible and nothing is too difficult. But I didn't realize that he said it at least 2 2 other things in the Old Testament.
Speaker 1:He said it in Genesis 18 14. God is the God of the impossible. Nothing's too difficult. And he said it again in Jeremiah 32 verse 27. He wanted us to hear that.
Speaker 1:So if we think it's too late, we're not gonna believe for those, descendants. So we need to remind ourself. Now step number 4, Joshua 2424. We're gonna end with that. The people said to God, we will serve the Lord our God and we will obey his voice.
Speaker 1:So Joshua made a covenant with his people. So this number 4, I think is really important. We have a covenant with God, and, he knows what our covenant rights are, but sometimes we don't know. Sometimes we're just not familiar with what our covenant even says. So we need something tangible in our hand many times.
Speaker 1:And I found that if we will write a covenant based on all of God's promises and read it like a prayer, a prayer of thanksgiving to God, and do it for our relatives, do it for the children we're believing for, and say it until we believe it. That covenant can really move your faith, exercise your faith. David and Saul, they were both covenant men. But Saul, he didn't understand his covenant and didn't do him any good. David understood his covenant, and and it it became life to him.
Speaker 1:So we have these covenants, but we've gotta take them and and make them come alive. We don't wanna be a Saul. We wanna be a David. So write out that covenant. It's a prayer based on his promise, and just remind God of that promise every day.
Speaker 1:Lord, I have this covenant with you, and I thank you for it, Lord. I receive it. And you can come into covenant with God on anything that lines up with his word. If you wanna write a covenant, anything that lines up with his word, you have the right to write a covenant and go before God and say, Lord, this is a promise you've made, and I grab a hold of it. I come into covenant with you.
Speaker 1:And make copies of that covenant. Put it different places, you know. If you'll make that covenant and pray it to God, it will be one of the most valuable things that you have. Every time you get into fear, just get out your covenant and read it out loud and release your faith. You know, Jack had a folder full of his covenants.
Speaker 1:Maybe some of them were prophecies that he had received, but our covenants that he had made with God. And I can't tell you how many times I would see him go into that drawer and pull out that folder and start reading his covenants. Sometimes he would spend hours just reading through his covenants. Because what it did, it built his faith. It it kept him believing God.
Speaker 1:If you see something that's blocking, your children coming to God, then start doing warfare, and speak to that mountain, you know, and, speak to it until you move it out of the lives of your children. Confess it until you see it happen. Now you may need a follow-up program for your family. After our family all started going into a deeper walk with God, my brother came up with the idea that we should have a family prayer gathering once a month. And you cannot imagine some of the things that were accomplished through that prayer meeting.
Speaker 1:It it got to the point where, boy, we looked forward to that time. And we'd all get together and we would pray our our prayer promises from God. And everybody would pray a different prayer promise and we'd grab hold of them. I'm gonna end with this example because it's easy to negate our faith in this area. You know, when we start confessing what we see rather than what God's word says.
Speaker 1:So I'm gonna end with this. I I read this and it says that it was a true story, but it was a woman during World War 2 and she was confessing the word over her child. And she said that he would be safe in war and she stood on those promises and she kept believing that. Well, she received a telegram saying that the son had been killed in action and she said she went numb for a little while and she couldn't say or do anything. And finally, she said she put that telegram out on the bed and she put the open bible next to it.
Speaker 1:And she said, lord, I can't believe both of these at the same time. If I continue to believe your word, then I'm going to, then I'm gonna say that this telegram is a lie. But she said, if I believe the telegram, then I'd be saying that your word's a lie. And she said, I can't do that. So she made a choice to believe the word and she called that telegram a lie.
Speaker 1:She wrote a telegram back then saying that they had made some mistake, that she had a covenant of protection over her son, and she knew that he wasn't dead. Well, whether we believe this story or not, it was quite a bit later, but she received a telegram saying that there had been a mistake and the dog tags had mixed up and her son was alive. Now I believed that story and I confessed it for years. But I think God was honoring my faith because he did something so special for me. Because the exact same thing happened to some dear friends of ours who belonged to and served in our church.
Speaker 1:That they they'd been there forever. In fact, they had 2 little boys that grew up in our living word church. And when those boys were grown, the younger one joined the army and he was sent to Iraq, to the battle in Iraq. Well, my friend and, his mother, Crystal, wrote out a covenant and she covered that son every day. And knowing Crystal, she did.
Speaker 1:She prayed that over him every day. Faithfully read it, thanking God for the protection that her son had. Well, she was a prayer warrior and she loved and served God. But one day to her horror, she received a letter saying that her son had been killed in action. And she said the first thing she did, she said she wadded up that letter and threw it on the floor.
Speaker 1:And then she said finally, she came to her senses. She has smoothed out the letter, did really exactly the same thing this lady in World War 2 did. She laid it out on a table, she put the Bible beside it, and she said, god, I can't believe both of them, but I am going to believe your word. And she started crying out, my son is not dead. Devil, the truth's not in you, and I refuse to believe your lie.
Speaker 1:And she began to do spiritual warfare. She said she was loudly. She said, no one was in the house, but she said I was loud enough that if anybody had been in the yard, they could have heard her. And she was walking the floor declaring over and over that her son was not dead. He was alive.
Speaker 1:Well, finally, she said after several hours of doing that, she called the number on the letter and she said, you've made a mistake. My son's alive. Well, they thought she had heard from him. And so they said, well, we'll make some calls, you know, and we'll get right back with you. Well, it was another 2 hours of her having to declare into the heavenlies that her son was alive before they finally called back, and they were apologizing and apologizing, saying that her son was indeed alive.
Speaker 1:And they were so sorry for the horrible mistake. Well, now this was a family I knew, so it wasn't even like the World War 2, story. But interestingly, she and her husband had decided not to tell anyone about what had happened until the son came home. She they had just decided that. Well, when he did get home, she had prepared this huge welcome home dinner for him, his brother, and both of their wives.
Speaker 1:And when the meal was over, they had really celebrated and they'd had such a good time. She brought the letter in saying that he had died, and she put the letter right out on the table in front of him. You can imagine, she said they read the letter and it was such a shock. She said no one had said anything. They just sat there staring at the letter.
Speaker 1:I can imagine, you know. Then she said when it finally dawned on them, she said then the victory celebration really started. She said it was unbelievable what what they had then. And she was glad that she and her husband had waited and didn't just spread it everywhere before he came home. Well, after that, I had no trouble believing that World War 2 story because I thought, woah, lord, you're you're faithful to do it to anyone who's gonna trust you and believe you.
Speaker 1:God's word is true. And if we'll refuse our doubts and believe the word of God, it is amazing, what we'll see happen. Because look, God is looking for those of his children who will believe his word enough to stake their life on it. Literally stake their life on it. So don't believe what you see if it doesn't line up with the word of God.
Speaker 1:Don't be guilty of confessing what comes, before your eye because Satan's gonna send a lot of things before your eyes. But in second Corinthians 4 18, it tells us that what we see is temporal. That means it's subject to change. It can change. And, just like those boys, being supposedly dead, that was subject to change.
Speaker 1:That was temporal. But we've gotta come and believe God's word because it's not subject to change. Now we can call into being those things that line up with God's will that don't yet exist if we'll confess God's word from our heart and absolutely not give up. Just I don't care what the enemy sins, what he says, not give up until the manifestation comes. Now I'm gonna end this series by just saying not one of your descendants, not one of your relatives has to go to hell.
Speaker 1:That's a part of your inheritance if we'll stand on that promise and just absolutely determine. I I'm I'm standing on this till I see the results. And the Bible's full of promises that you can claim to ensure, your child's salvation and to ensure your relative's salvation. So don't overlook and fail to receive these promises because their whole eternity many times depends on it. Their whole eternity depends on it.
Speaker 1:Father, in Jesus name, I thank you for these promises. Father, I'm not seeing many people that are standing on these promises, to determine that no matter what their kids are doing now, no matter what their relatives are doing now, I'm not seeing many that are standing there and saying, I don't care. I'm not turning this loose because you've made some promises to me, and I'm not gonna give it up, lord. But, father, just because I haven't seen many people do it, it's still the truth. It's your word.
Speaker 1:And so, father, I'm believing that more and more parents and, family members are going to start standing on these promises. They're gonna say, woah. If this is a promise to me, I'm not going to take a chance on losing my child or or or losing my fam family member. So father, we claim them, and we say thank you, lord, that you loved us enough, that you didn't want us to have to go through life being fearful, wondering will they come in, will they not come in. You didn't want us to have to go through that.
Speaker 1:You wanted us to have the assurance to be able to stand up and say, lord, your word says so. Testimony after testimony in your word has proved it. And, lord, I thank you. I believe your word, and I'm not turning it loose. Lord, we love you, and we praise you, and we thank you for that.
Speaker 1:In Jesus name, amen.