Reward of Intimacy with God.

The speaker welcomes everyone to the Wheatfield Apostolic Ministries and emphasizes the importance of technology in spreading the gospel. They believe that as they fulfill their commission, God will reveal Himself in miraculous ways. The speaker then prays for God's word to be revealed and discusses the importance of intimacy with God and the power it brings. They then focus on a passage from 1 Chronicles 21, where David's pride leads him to conduct a census of Israel, against the advice of Joab. The speaker warns against pride and encourages humility in order to stay close to God. They end with a prayer and announce a prayer session for the next broadcast. Lord, praise the Lord. People of God, praise the Lord. Hallelujah. A very warm welcome to everyone joining us this evening at the Wheatfield Apostolic Ministries, also known as the Wheatfield International Network. This is the place of intimacy with God. We truly believe that in this season, in this dispensation, God has purpose to take over the entire earth through the medium of technology for the purpose of propagating the gospel of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and as a vehicle to shine the true light of God throughout all the earth. And so we are grateful that God would entrust us with this great and enviable commission, the task of bringing the light of His Word to the nations, to God be all the glory. For in this ministry, God has promised by divine covenant, God has entered into a covenant with us here in this ministry that as we connect to the work that He has called us to, He, God, will reveal Himself in unusual ways. God will manifest the reality of His existence in indisputable ways to the end that men may believe that God is alive and still in the business of doing the miraculous. So brothers and sisters, please believe God with us and together so that as God has spoken, we will see the mighty move of God in this ministry to the glory of God and God alone. And so today as we listen, please, let's open up our hearts and our minds to hear from the Lord as we prayerfully expect a great visitation from the Lord today. So let's pray. Father, we thank You, we worship You, we honor You, we reverence You, we respect You, we thank You for Your Word, we thank You that You would speak to us tonight. Lord, let Your Word come forth with power, let the speaker speak even as the oracles of God manifest Yourself. Teach us, let the Word of God come down and tabernacle over Your people tonight through Your Word and let Jesus be glorified. In Jesus' name, Amen. So today, the Holy Spirit will be speaking to us from the subject, the reward of intimacy. You know the Bible says in Psalms 91 verse 1, He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. And you know, many things happen under the shadow of the Almighty. One of them is intimacy. Intimacy with God takes place under the shadow of the Almighty God. And the place of intimacy with God is the place of power. That is the dimension where impossibility becomes possible. And so as believers, as Christians, as children of God, our assignment is to actively pursue closeness to God, to actively, daily, prayerfully seek access to the secret place of the Most High God so that we can live powerful and victorious lives. You know, there is a place in God which is a dimension where from the natural realm we can influence the spiritual realm in God, in Christ. Because you know the Bible says that Jesus Christ is the fullness of Godhead. And that we as believers, we are complete in Christ who is the head of all principalities and powers. Jesus said, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, then you are my disciples indeed and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. In another part of scripture he says, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, you shall act what you will and it shall be done for you. So that tells me right away that the place of power is the place of abiding in Christ. If I want anything to be done by Christ and to be done quickly, the best place to be for this kind of intimacy, this kind of power, this kind of access is in Christ. Again we are going back to intimacy. So today our text for consideration comes from the book of 1 Chronicles chapter 21 verses 1 to 9. The entire message is from the entire chapter, save one verse. Because there's 30 verses in this chapter but we're going to deal with 29 verses. So that's really the entire chapter. But this is a multi-part message. On today's study we're going to deal with only the first four verses of this chapter. And we won't obviously be able to cover the entire chapter but we'll start with this first part. And you know the word of God, because this is a word ministry, we are fully committed to the word of God having free reign. Everything we do here is based on the word of God. And the word of God is already empowered to manifest God. The power of God follows his word. We can't see God with our natural eyes but we see his word. And God has exalted his word above his own name. And so if you see the word of God and you believe God at his word, God manifests himself to confirm that word. And that's why again our ministry here, this ministry is a word based ministry. Everything we do by the grace of God to his glory is through the ministry of the word of God by the help of the Holy Spirit. And so we're going into the word of God. I start at verse 1. Again 1 Chronicles chapter 21 starting at verse 1. The Bible says, Now Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel. Verse 2, So David said to Joab, And to the leaders of the people, Go, number Israel from Beersheba to Dan, and bring the number of them to me, that I may know it. And Joab answered, May the Lord make his people a hundred times more than they are. But my Lord the King, are they not all my Lord's servants? Why then does my Lord require this thing? Why should he be a cause of guilt in Israel? Verse 4, Nevertheless the Bible says, The King's word prevailed against Joab. Therefore Joab departed and went through all Israel and came to Jerusalem. So for today's consideration we're going to deal with verses 1 to 4. And here we see King David conducting a census of Israel. Why? The Bible says, Because Satan moved him to number Israel. So now under the influence of Satan, David is commanding Joab, the commander of his army, to go count the people from Beersheba to Dan. This is verse 2. And why? He wants Joab to count the number of the people and bring the number of the people to me. For what purpose? That I may know it. This is what the King said to Joab. So right away we see that this exercise, the count, the census, it had no particular purpose. It had no greater purpose than self-aggrandizement. The only real reason behind this count was pride. King David said, Go number the people. Bring the number to me. That I may bless them? No. That I may instruct them? No. That I may admire them and encourage them? No. That I may know it? Just so that I can know the number of the people. Obviously, David as a king had become so impressed with the might of his kingdom, and by extension his military, that he wanted to confirm to himself how formidable Israel had become. At this point, obviously, his mind was on the strength of man, the strength of the people, the might of his military, and not on God who guarantees victory. David was trying to showcase human strength and human ability, thereby robbing God of his glory. But the Bible says, the word of the king was abominable to Joab. The word of the king was abominable to Joab. That's further down in the scripture. Joab wasn't happy. He didn't like what David was saying. He knew right away David was going to bring trouble to the people of God. And the Bible says, the word of the king was abominable to his commander. Joab wasn't moved by Satan's devices. David was. He had enough discernment to know that Israel was heading for disaster with this census. And he tried to talk David out of it, because the Bible tells us that Joab answered in verse 3, My Lord the king, may the Lord make his people a hundred times more than they are. But my Lord the king, are they not all my Lord's servants? Why then does my Lord require this thing? Why should he be a cause of guilt in Israel? So obviously, Joab could see through the devices of Satan. Joab could see through the wiles of the enemy. That this census will bring guilt on the people. Satan is trying to set you up, O king. But the Bible says in verse 4, Nevertheless, the king's word prevailed against Joab. Joab had enough spiritual discernment and presence of mind to see through what David was doing. But he wasn't king. He had a boss. He had a boss. He was under authority and he had to obey. This is why sometimes we need to be very careful about the people we have above us. The people we report to. The people who have authority over us. Especially in ministry, because sometimes the decisions of those who are above us, they have sometimes the tendency to affect our destinies. We have to have enough discernment to know and to judge correctly the actions of the people who are above us, who are over us. Especially spiritually. Because the Bible says we should judge, test all spirits. Even though the Bible adjoins us to be obedient to authority, but there are times when as Christians, we must be careful what we submit ourselves to. We must be careful to the authority under which we submit ourselves to. We must check out the spirit of the person under whom we are submitted. When they do things, we must be strong enough ourselves, spiritually, in the word, to judge their actions by the word of God. Anything, anything that anyone does that affects your life as a Christian, must fall into the word of God. It must fall squarely into the word of God. For example, if you are a woman, a female, you are a married woman, and you have a pastor who is also married, and he, for example, wants to have a relationship with you, and he is saying to you that this is something God wants you to do. As a believer, you must be strong enough spiritually to judge the action of this man who has authority over you spiritually, but he is asking you to do something obviously ungodly, which will bring you under sin and condemnation. You can't agree to do something like that because he is your pastor, and because he has authority over you. You must have enough discernment and enough strength and confidence and knowledge to say, Sir, I'm sorry, I can't do that, and then get away from such a ministry. Because if a pastor is saying something like that to you, he is probably doing other things with other members, or in other places that are against the spirit of God, against the word of God, which will bring guilt and condemnation upon his ministry under which you have submitted yourself. And so we must be careful with the authority under which we submit ourselves. So now we see, back to the story, back to the word, we see that David has grown so big and so successful that he no longer listens to counsel. The devil has a trap set, and Israel is heading full on into this trap, led by their king. Success has made David almost deaf to counsel. Divine success, because obviously the success of David as a king, as a human being, and the success of Israel under the leadership of David is divine, is the hand of God, if you know the story of Israel and how God helped David and helped Israel after Saul died and all of that, how God raised Israel up under David, it was the hand of God, it was divine success. So now, divine success, which is ordinarily an occasion for God's glory, was about to become a cause of divine judgment, because David was moved by Satan and he didn't have enough strength to defeat the wiles of the enemy. This is another reason why we must be very careful when God is lifting us up in business, in ministry, in any area of our lives, lifting up our children, we must be very careful of the attempts by Satan to stand up against us and use pride to bring us down. Because pride is the fastest way to fall from success to failure. Lucifer, Satan, he himself, he fell from glory, he fell from heaven because of pride. And he still uses pride as a weapon of warfare against the children of God because he knows that God hates pride. God hates pride. The Bible says God resists the proud and he gives grace to the humble. If God resists you, who can help you? If man resists you, you run to God and God can help you. But if God resists you, who can help you? God hates pride. We must always be careful because it pleases God to lift us up and to glorify us because when God is lifting us up and we give the glory to God, God is lifted up and all men see God through what he is doing in our lives. So lifting us up is a pleasurable thing for God. If we give God the glory, it's to his benefit and to his advantage to lift us higher from glory to glory to glory because we are giving him the glory. We are directing all the glory to him so it's beneficial for God to lift us up. But the moment we become proudful and begin to see the lifting of God as our own ability, things that we have done by ourselves, we cross over from divine success heading to judgment. You know, each time you hear yourself, when God begins to do awesome things by your hand, you begin to hear in your language, I, me, my, all these personal pronouns are creeping into your language. It's time to step back and evaluate yourself. Satan is at work trying to move against you, trying to move against me, trying to move against the people of God because it's easy for him. He is full of pride and we as human beings, we have tendencies. Tendencies if unchecked. We have tendencies to be proudful. If it didn't work as a tool, Satan wouldn't be using pride. It works well. That's why he keeps using it. So we have to be very mindful. As anointed and beloved of God as David was, he was unable to withstand Satan's devices. He failed. The Bible says Satan moved against Israel. So Satan didn't move against David alone. He moved against Israel. Joab was from Israel. Joab wasn't moved, but David was. Joab was a commander, also successful. If David was proudful of his military, Joab had even more cause to be proudful because he was commander of the military. Joab was not moved by the devices of Satan. David was. So that's to tell you that we are all vulnerable. There is no one who is immune to pride. We must all take heed like the Bible says, lest we fall. We must continually check ourselves, check our minds of pride because pride will prevent us from intimacy with God. When God says he hates pride and God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble, right then you can tell that pride is a barrier between the proud and God. Pride will keep you out of the place of intimacy with God. Now confidence is great. We need confidence as human beings to excel in life because without confidence, you know, no one is going to come to us for anything. We can't make too much progress because we will have very low self-esteem. We will not be able to show forth the glory of God if we are so lacking in confidence. But you know there is a very, very thin line between pride and confidence. And sometimes when we cross that line we don't even know. We can get so carried away with success that we fail to realize that we are slowly but surely taking God out of the equation. And we are beginning to move towards me, I, my, like David was. We must be alert. We must be mindful of the devil's devices so that we don't fall into his trap. We must watch. We must pray. We must watch ourselves in the things that we do, in our thought patterns. Because you know, before pride manifests externally, it blooms in the mind. It blooms in the mind. Before you begin to speak proudly, you are thinking proudly. So we must always be mindful of our thought patterns, especially when big things are happening in our lives, great things are taking place in our lives. We must be very, very careful of our thought patterns. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Before you become proudful in your speech, before you become proudful in your conduct, in your carriage, there is pride first in your mind before it comes out in the things that you do, before it comes out in your speech. We must be alert. The devil is on the prowl, looking for who to pull down. You see, God is looking for partners. God is looking for people to elevate. God is looking for people who are tuned into his frequency so that the things that he has done in his time, because the Bible says God makes all things beautiful in his time. So in his time, God has done many, many great things. But they are in his time. They are in the dimension of the invisible. And God needs human agents to translate those things, those beautiful, wonderful, miraculous things he has done in his time, to translate them to our time. That's the dimension of man, the visible realm. So God will be glad to use anyone who is tuned in to his frequency and whose heart is submitted to him. Now, if God uses you to do awesome things, for you, can he trust you to be humble? Can he trust you to resist the devil? Because God will use you if you are available. God will use you if you are keyed into his frequency. God will use you if you promise to be humble. And you work at humility, because humility is actually, it's a fruit of the spirit, you know, meekness. It's a fruit of the spirit to be cultivated every day. Because as human beings, in our own ability, we are prideful, we have tendencies. It will take the spirit of God to help us to be humble and to stay humble. But the enemy doesn't want God to use us. The enemy can use our own thoughts to make us prideful, or the enemy can use other people to celebrate us so much, so inordinately, that we begin to feel puffed up, so puffed up that we begin to think it's about us. That's why we need to be careful also about the people we surround ourselves with. It's nice to be celebrated. It's nice to be appreciated. But when you detect that in your circle, you're almost now being worshipped, and the glory is no longer going to God, through no fault of yours, you need to take strategic action to make correction. Correct them, or eliminate them. Why? Because they will put you in trouble with God. We need to stay humble. In order to be close to God, we need to stay humble, so that when God looks at us, He doesn't see pride. He sees humility. He sees humility which is attractive to Him, and attractive to man too. Okay? So, we're out of time. Our Bible study is usually 30 minutes. We're a little bit over time, but we give glory to God for this Word, and I feel very blessed to be used of God to bring this Word, and it's always an honor and a privilege to bring God's Word. To His people, an honor which we don't take lightly at all, and we give all the glory to God. So, we thank you for joining us in this study tonight, and I just want to say a little short prayer, and I pray tonight that the Word which we have heard will grow. We'll find fertile ground in our hearts and grow and bring transformation, so that as we travel together in this journey with the Word of God, with the Spirit of God, we believe, God, that the miracle that He has promised us in this ministry, to breathe upon the remnant that we will give to Him, and magnify, multiply by a miracle into storehouses of supply, harvest of souls, harvest of ministries, harvest. We see harvest, and we decree harvest in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. It is so, and we thank God for His Word. So, I would just like to encourage us on our next broadcast, which will be 6 p.m. next week. We will be having a prayer, which we want to do is after the Word goes forth, we want to have short prayer sessions, so that the Word of God will run swiftly and work on our behalf regarding any request that we may have. We know that God is a prayer answering God. We have seen God move in miraculous ways, and here in this ministry, we want to key in to the miracle working power of Almighty God. So, next week, I encourage everyone, anyone joining us, everyone joining us, expect us to come, expect and I will come prepared to meet with God at the door of the Tabernacle of Meeting, and be expectant of answer prayer. So, thank you again, and see you next week. God bless you. Bye.