“THESE STONES SHALL SPEAK AGAIN”

 “THESE STONES SHALL SPEAK AGAIN.”

Text: Joshua 4:1-7, 19-24

Vision casting is critical for the Body of Christ.  Understanding the future is imperative for the people of God.  The Bible says, “Without a vision, the people perish.”  “Without a vision, the people cast off restraint.”

Meaning:  “Let’s do this, no no no, let’s do this; no, let’s wait.” “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint and unity.”

Without restraint, there is no synergy with our spiritual energy; in other words, those who are unrestrained have their own ideas about what is God’s will.

For a local church to succeed and accomplish God’s will, a strong vision must be adopted and imprinted on the heart of the people from the local body of believers.

When there is no vision, the people cast off restraint: There are multiple ideas, multiple platforms, and multiple feelings about what is God’s will. Everyone has an idea, but the problem with many ideas is that nothing gets accomplished.

When this takes place, the kingdom is not advanced, and the church is not advanced.

-You can see this in the Israelites when they wandered for 40 years. Some say, let’s go, some say “Let’s go right.” We should do everything in our power to advance the kingdom of God. To build His church.

John 2:17

Vision compels our heart to take the energies of our mind and push them towards the proper outcome. God’s will is not an outlier, it is definite and very determined.

Robert Pen William: “History cannot give us a program for the future, but it can give us a fuller understanding of ourselves and our common humanity so we can face the future.”

Understanding our spiritual anthropology is important to understanding the future.  Knowing where we came from gives us a vision to where we are going.

Joseph Benzinger said, “We should know the difference between cherishing the lessons of the past, and not living in the past.”

Young people: You need to cherish the lessons of the past. There is a lot of wisdom in the past. (I was mentored by a number of older people, and they would often tell me. Do you know why this won’t work? I’ve tried it.)

My mature people: Let’s not live in the past, because that isn’t where God is, and it’s not where we are going.”

POINT: “We want to learn from the past, live in the present, and press into the future.” Likewise, the difference between being prepared for the future and being worried about the future emanates or originates from the lessons of the past.  The older we get -The less stupid things we should do.

Why? We learned- that doesn’t work.

We will do a little memory lane today:

1. The STONE OF EXPERIENCE.

-Your experiences form the basis of your overall decision-making and values as an individual and as a family.

-There are encounters and experiences in my life that have formed who I am. It is important that we universally take the Godly, blessed, and anointed experiences and use them as Foundational STones for who we are as a believer and as a church body in Tipton County.

-In the Old Testament they would build a 5’ x 5’ altar out of stones, that would be used in worship.

-Jesus is called the chief cornerstone.

-God wrote the original 10 commandments on 2 tablets of stone.

-The priest in the OT wore memorial stones on his shoulders with the names of the sons of Israel engraved on the stones. 6 on 1 shoulder, and 6 on the other shoulder.

-Stones have always been used as a memorial. Things are etched in stones; stones are laid in certain patterns; certain colors of stones are chosen to represent the past and lay claim to future vision.

-We want to celebrate how we got there. We want to use the past to contribute to our STRENGTH IN THE PRESENT.  

-One of the challenges today with the explosion of knowledge and information is to place relationships in a higher place than knowledge.

ILLUS.: Brick from the Old Sanctuary – It would tell us about the history of ROL.

The beginnings of ROL – Raymond Wiseman, while hospitalized with the last stages of Tuberculosis, prayed for God to spare his life.  He asked God to give him enough life to see a church built and his family saved before he passed away. In 1929, he brought a tent to Glen Springs, a local health resort in Tipton County, TN. 

For a number of years, I have felt the urgency to revisit our roots and learn from the past as it relates to our future. It is interesting that the “LOCAL CYPRESS MAGAZINE” carried an article about the GREAT GLEN SPRINGS REVIVAL in August while we were voting on the very land where the Tent was placed in Crosstown.

When people have the vision to accomplish things for God, they are known as dreamers, visionaries, castle-builders; some would even call them: “Pie in the sky thinkers.” They said that about Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Daniel, Jeremiah just to name a few.

God told us is Acts 2:17-19 which is a reprint of Joel 2:

Seeded in this Church body are seeds of Revival, the seeds of anointing, the seeds of awakening, the seeds of a MOVEMENT.  The seeds of an end-time harvest……

Many of you feel that…….many of you sense that……in fact IF I TOOK A POLL, I WOULD SAY THAT at least 75% of you would agree to God’s will for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

A. Individuals need stones of remembrance.

We remember what got us to where we are. We remember the lessons of hard work, praying, and seeking God. I vividly remember my salvation experience. That is a STONE.

-I recall the many moments when my back was against the wall, and I had nowhere to turn, I didn’t know what to do:

Genesis 35:3; II Sam. 22:7;  Psalm 18:6; Psalm 120:1

-I have some stones in my life.  I have learned to use them.

-I remind myself about the faithfulness of God before, and I am reminded again.

-These stones have become a pathway for me. They have become something that I am very aware up.

B. Churches need stones of remembrance.

-Bro. Wiseman, assisted by William A. Bridges, (Tess Bridges husband, Jr. Bridge who passed away was the grandson to William Bridges) Jr. Would often tell me about his grandfather’s stones in His life. Jr. Had an old Bible from his grandpa from the 1930s. It was a stone of sorts to him.

-Bro. Bridges preached every night with only a handful in attendance. The Wisemans & Bridges lived on blackberries and bread that summer. After three weeks of uneventful meetings, a young man, so weak he had to be turned with a sheet, was carried to the tent on a stretcher after they floated him over the Mississippi River.

       After Bro. Wiseman prayed, the Lord healed the young man.

That Healing became a STONE.

The miraculous healing triggered a tremendous revival that continued four months.   The tent was moved to Crosstown (The area on 51 Hwy that includes Munford and Atoka) where thousands gathered for the services.

Those 4 months of services became a STONE.

The tent was erected on 51 Hwy, the property just North of Margaritas and where they are building Wendy’s.

A large area was roped off to keep spectators from crowding into the altars where people were saved and filled with the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues. This was a new experience, and there were as many spectators as there were seekers.

A dance hall was erected across the street from the tent on 51 Hwy. and night after night a band played outside. The dance hall was trying to put the revival out of business. However, the dance hall went out of business, but the revival continued. 

ILLUS.: Marty, IN -Stood up – Shaking. Never interrupting, never made noise, she had been saved drugs, she didn’t know enough about church politics to draw attention to herself. One day she got a little louder, and ushers quietly escorted her to the prayer room. I told the ushers, if it’s of God, she won’t stop. She didn’t stop. She was still at it 90 minutes later.  

-The veil was beginning to tear a little. God’s curtain was beginning to be pulled back.

-Over the next 12 months, I began to see people having spontaneous individual moves in their lives.

-People starting to have dreams and visions. People started to say, “I think God is up to something.” That is the translation for: “I’ve been spiritually asleep, and I am beginning to sober up and see what God sees.

I remember that young waitress – she was a precursor to what was beginning. It was the early stages of a move of God.  IT WAS A STONE.

-“Are we foolish to believe for something that we haven’t seen?”

“Are we stupid enough to think that God can transform South Tipton County?”

-In a day when many say the church is no longer relevant to society,

-I have placed my hope and faith in the stone that says,

“Jesus is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.”

I believe that this is one of the most important days for the church to hear What God is saying to the church.

2. THE STONE OF VISION.

What a church values, systemically is what a church is known for.

What a family values, naturally is what a family is known for.

What Christians value becomes what they are known for.

Our daily schedules and our checkbook will easily demonstrate what we value. Ideas are only ideas unless they are implemented, prayed through, and started.

The roots of River of Life Church were born in prayer, intercession, divine healing, and being a strong witness to the community.

ROL has adopted these same values today. PRAYER, INTERCESSION, HEALING, AND COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT ARE STONES IN OUR FOUNDATION.

The 4th TN District Council of the state of TN convened in a tent at Crosstown with Rev. E.S. Williams, who was General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God as the council speaker. 

Following the council, church services were conducted in different homes until a church was built. The congregation raised cotton to help pay for the building. On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1929, the women and children pulled cotton stalks as the men dug the foundation for the very first building.

THAT’S A STONE-Pulling cotton up on and digging footers on Christmas eve. That tells me that passion and vision weren’t just external, but it was internal. There was a need, there was an urgency and there was a timing. How many would dig footers with me on Christmas Eve?

Many people in today’s economy would say? “What’s the rush.”

However, I extrapolate that these forefathers of ours were worried about taking the easy way, they were using their passion.

ILLUS.: I talked with a man in our church this week who told me, “I went to the property on 51 Hwy., and I walked all of it, and I got in the middle of it, and I got down on my knees, and I asked God for his help, I ask God for His guidance, I ask God for His direction. In the Spirit, you see things way before the natural man sees things.

In 1929, there was opposition to a Spirit-filled church being built in Munford. It was well known that people were opposed to the church being built.

History is again repeating itself in this area. Some would say, “We don’t need land on 51 Hwy; the church can get land anywhere.. BUT our roots started there.

So these faithful men dug the footers, the men laid the stones, many people in those days didn’t worry about codes, they just built the thing. In the old Sanctuary, which is now the youth hall, Pentecost was poured out, the gospel was preached, lives were changed. I love the fact that our young people gather each week in a place where Pentecost was poured out in Munford.

A. Vision starts within. Habakkuk 2:3

This verse tells me a couple of things, VISION always precedes reality. The time between Vision Casting and Vision Fulfillment is always much longer.

You can’t buy, beg or borrow a vision. No one can give it to you. It must come from God and the Holy Spirit….

A church can’t adopt the vision of another church, but they must adopt their God-ordained, God-spoken vision. Vision isn’t some mystical quality that comes out of a vacuum. Spiritual vision grows from the Holy Spirit depositing something on the inside of a man.

Jeremiah said, “It was fire shut up in his bones.” As he felt the vision for a re-established nation and a word from God.

True Vision is far-reaching. It goes beyond what one individual can accomplish. If it has real value, it does more than just add value to a few.

Vision includes others; it adds value to them. If a Godly vision doesn’t serve others, then it isn’t of God.

God’s vision is always about people. Spiritual gifts are always about the lost being saved. When a spirit-filled church has the gifts and fruit of the Holy Spirit listed in I Cor. 12, and it has the vision to reach the lost. That church is unstoppable.

B. Vision is challenging.

Vision fulfillment always looks different than Vision acceptance. Vision will attract, challenge, unite and give discomfort to people. It rallies finances and resources. The greater the vision the more winners it has to attract.

The anti-thesis of this is also true. The greater the vision the more doubters. 20% of the people immediately believe it can be done, and 20% of the people immediately believe that it will never be done.

The more challenging the vision, the harder the participants fight to achieve it. I imagine that’s why the men of the church were digging footers on Christmas eve in 1929. That’s not easy.

-Everybody wants a check to pay their house off. Everyone wants a magical check to pay everything off.

-Everyone wants a check to fund the church building from the start, but over the years that rarely happens. When I say rarely, I mean like 1/ 10,000.

ILLUS.: A pastor addressed his church on Sunday about a building program. (Right now we are in a land acquisition program)  The pastor announced to the church all the monies had been received for the building, then the pastor said, the monies were in the pockets of the church members.

God’s vision is always bigger than ourselves. If we accomplish a vision without God, then we really don’t need a big vision, just a small one to get by.

EDWIN LAND: “The first thing you learn about vision is how impossible it is. This draws out the winners.”

JOHN HAGGEE: “Attempt something for God so impossible, that it would never happen unless God was in it.”

Most churches have figured out that when there are 2 visions in the church, that it causes Di-Vision because there is no restraint. Everybody has a word, and everybody has an idea.

When this is promulgated, there is no continuity. There is no foundation, and things get off-track in a hurry.  

Over the years, I have watched the comfort level of congregations become challenged when God’s movement and vision begin. Most of us would immediately agree that “We want what God wants?” Once our comfort level gets stretched, once our ideas are pushed,  we struggle with adopting a vision that doesn’t quite look like what we thought it would.

Acts 5:1-12 –(Early church business meeting) This scripture tells me that it is important to be in alignment with the Holy Spirit and be obedient to what God is doing.

MESSAGE NUGGET: If God has told you to do something; then you better be honest with God.

Vision attainment is never easy. The time from start to finish is a lot longer.

Q-How many have ever gone by a Road Construction site and said, “I wonder when that dumb Atoka Round-About will be finished.” “I wonder when that Wendy’s will be finished, it sure is taking forever.”

River of Life suffered 2 major setbacks regarding the church building in the past. It was destroyed once by arson (remember the Spirit that did not want a Spirit-filled church in Munford?)

-It also burned down another time. The devil always fights what God wants. That is just the way it is.

-In the process of Vision, it’s always important to remember, it takes longer…that is why we need faith.

-You pray about getting over things, and you leave it with the Lord, and you get up from your place of prayer.

3. THE STONE OF FAITH.

We often miss our promised land because of a lack of faith. Hebrews 3:19

Faith is everything in your ability to attain things from God.

When the Israelites looked at the promised land; they gave 4 reasons why they couldn’t do the revealed will of God. This wasn’t something that had just come up, this was something that was well known. All the Israelites left Egypt because they understood and believed they believed a new land of God’s blessings was before them.

However, after careful inspection of the land, there was great doubt about their ability. The work looked too great, too arduous, too difficult.

-How many recognize that what you think, and what you talk about determines where you are going?

The Israelites determined that 4 things would stop them from entering the promised land:

• The People are strong.
• They have super strong people who are stronger than the strong people. (Sons of giants-super warriors-ANAK)
• Walled cities
• The land consumes people.

We need to be reminded, refreshed and renewed about what God has said, rather than what our eyes behold.

Deut. 6:23, “I brought you out, to take you in.”

God brought you out, to take you into a land flowing with milk and honey. God did not bring you out, to wander in the wilderness. God did not bring you out to become stagnant, to become intimidated, to become frustrated, to become without direction.

God brought you out to bring you in. If God saved you, and brought you out of sin, then He has something that He wants to bring you into.

QUESTION: What is keeping you away from your blessing?

-There are a lot of people who examine the walls, they examine the opposition of the people, they look at the giants. The territory is too difficult, the land is too difficult. The more you look at the walls, the bigger they will get,  the more you look at the giants, they will get bigger.

God says, “You have heard about man’s appraisal, how they blame it on the terrain, they blame it on the opposition, God says, here is my appraisal: “They could not enter in because of their unbelief.” (Heb. 3)

God says, “You’re giving excuses, it isn’t about the walls, it isn’t about the giants, it isn’t about the land.  We all give excuses, we all give lame reasons why we are not serving God to the best of our ability. If we are not experiencing the blessings of God, if we are not enjoying God’s promised land, God said: It will because you do not believe what I told you.

The blessings of God are YES, YEAH AND AMEN.

BUT when you go and PICK UP YOUR STONE OF FAITH.

POINT: Your determination to believe God, forge ahead during tough times determines your level of faith and trust in God.