Romancing The Stone - Part Eight
Writer Author Jerry Lee Kay Sr.
Christian Article
:
Christian Living
- Fiction No
A sheep rancher in the remote mountains of Idaho found that his violin was out of tune, and, try as he would, he was unable to make the instrument sound the way it should. He was a frequent listener to a radio station in California, he wrote the station concerning his problem, asking these good people at a certain hour and minute on a certain day to strike the right note for him. This they did: stopping everything else, silencing all other sounds for a moment, they struck that note. In his shepherd's hut in the distant mountains, the shepherd heard that sound, and from that single note he put his instrument into tune again. This is the way, a special time of being in touch with God. A very special time, a time when we set all things aside, and count them to be unworthy to come between us and our Love. A time to spend listening for the signal-tone he strikes for our lives, for the pitch he gives by which our hearts may be put back in tune. A time we give and reserve for "Romancing the Stone".
Poppa was having an adventure, down in a stopped up water well and needing relief after 3 hours of dipping nasty water. However when I called out there was only silence. Dear friend when I think about it, I believe that may have been the longest period of silence in my life. The silence in itself was almost deafening. There the Messenger of the Lord, the Holy Spirit preached a lifetime of the word of God to me.
Reading the Old Testament with a spiritual approach and not just as a history book we will see those people a type of the Church and full of lessons for the Church of this hour. It is my opinion that the church of that time was a great failure and disappointment to God. Otherwise the Father would never have had to see His only Begotten Son nailed to a cross and offered up as a sacrificial Lamb. Can somebody say Amen?It is a "What to do and what not to do Book for the New Testament Church". It is full of spiritual lessons in everything recorded there. Otherwise we wouldn't need a printed bible. We could just read Josephus.
There was a time in the history of Gods people when they were not hearing His voice. Heaven was quite. It was during the time of rebuilding after the return from exile, it was a time of great discouragement. Israel lived and worshipped among ruins. It seemed as though nothing was going right! Isaiah 62:8 indicates foreign overlords seized the harvest of the fields and the fruit of the vineyards, while the people went hungry. Enemies continually interrupted the rebuilding process. Israel felt desolate and forsaken, lost in darkness Isaiah 59:9-10. Yes indeed, Israel was feeling the silence of God. If I was a preacher I could preach a camp meeting on just that one statement. Come on and say Amen! Some of our churches in this hour are feeling the same silence. Let me remind you dear friend, you and I are the church!...Poppa gotta be careful here, or I will get off my subject. I will digress for a moment and say, America! O' America! Look at what you've done!
Even though there is no obvious wailing in this scripture, they are hidden in the terms used for Israel in its low state, "forsaken" and "desolate". You can imagine the empty feeling they were experiencing The issue here is silence, the silence of God. They had drifted away from Yahweh. Most had become comfortable with their situation and lifestyle. They found solace in other things. The Lord said to them: I was ready to be sought out by those who did not ask, to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, "Here I am, here I am," to a nation that did not call on my name. I held out my hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices ...The biggest problem was that the people themselves remained silent. ..They were a people that had forgotten how to fellowship with God a people that had ceased to Romance the one that loved them. They still had their forms and traditions, and went through all the motions, but lacked a personal relationship with Almighty God. Someone asked me, what do you think hell will be like Poppa?, My answer was, I can imagine it being the worst thing that could ever happen to someone, becoming eternally separated from the love of God with no hope of reunion. However, the next thing to it in my opinion is being separated from the fellowship of His presence now, much less for eternity. This would be a hell in itself, I live and breathe and have my being in Him. I have tasted of the Lord and felt the joy of His Love. In short, I would rather be dead than not have Him walking and talking with me. Can you say Amen? The results of not seeking Him are reflected in Isaiah 64:11-12: Our holy and beautiful house, where our ancestors praised you, has been burned by fire, and all our pleasant places have become ruins. After all this, will you restrain yourself, O Lord? Will you keep silent, and punish us so severely?...
Suddenly someone turned on the light bulb and the people began to cry out...They finally decided to get in the bucket!...Can you say Amen!..To be sure, it was done in the form of lament, but at least it was a reaction, a reaching out to God, the beginning of communication. No longer was Israel living numbly under a false rule, feeling nothing. Israel remembered the special covenant relationship it had with Yahweh and began to lament: "How long, O Lord? Will you be angry forever?" "O God, do not keep silence; do not hold your peace or be still, O God!" Crying out is a sign of spiritual health, it means that we are once again engaging God in a dialogue. It is sad to see some of the sweetest people of God let THINGS get between them and God. They always wind up getting in the same place Israel was. Thank God, Isaiah became even more positive, Isaiah 62, "For Zion's sake I will not keep silent." Whatever I gotta do to get these people back on track, that's what I will do! ( Poppa's version)
I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the LORD, keep not silence...And give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. The LORD hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength, Surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for thine enemies; and the sons of the stranger shall not drink thy wine, for the which thou hast laboured: But they that have gathered it shall eat it, and praise the LORD; and they that have brought it together shall drink it in the courts of my holiness. Go through, go through the gates; prepare ye the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones; lift up a standard for the people. Behold, the LORD hath proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. And they shall call them, The holy people, The redeemed of the LORD: and thou shalt be called, Sought out, A city not forsaken.
All the blessings were always there for them, God never let down on His end of the deal. They just quit seeking Him and keeping the well cleaned out, they let sand creep in unaware until the enemy overran them and stole their blessing...Can you say Amen?
Finally the three musketeers managed to bring me topside, (I called them "Hog Boys") Poppa got a biscuit, a cup of coffee and about 30 minutes rest and felt like I could go Bear Huntin with a switch. So they lowered me back into the well. I started digging, sending sand to the topside bucket after bucket full, then suddenly I heard a little gurgling sound,,,my heart skipped a beat and I shouted Hallelujah...I think I knew how Elijah felt in 1st Kings 18:44...And it came to pass at the seventh time, that he said, Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand. And he said, Go up, say unto Ahab, Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not...A cloud no larger than a man's hand, that's what that gurgle was to me.
I shouted to the top, send me down three or four more buckets so I can send water up along with sand, that way I could keep digging and get deep enough I wouldn't have to go back down in a few months...I dug and dipped, dug and dipped, my back was killing me, and my arms and legs were screaming for relief. This had been going on now for about nine hours! All of a sudden, POW! I hit the mainstream and water came gushing in so fast it frightened me. Those oldtimers at the top started laughing and pulling the sand buckets up..but not Poppa. Water was already to my knees and I was hollerin loud enough they heard me in El Paso...I thought to myself if I didn't love those three old coots as I do, I'd give all three of them a good whuppin when I float to the top....Come on and say Amen!
Just about the time we got finished up, Ms.Lily called us to supper and said Monte Daniels was coming by in a little while. Monte was the professional water well man in the area, and Papa Orb didn't like him in the least. The reason being, Monte told Him a more "excellent way" to do that well in the beginning..but Papa Orb argued that this is the way he and his forefathers had always done it and he had no intentions of doing it any different. Oops! that sounds like some church members... Can you say Amen!..We finished supper, Monte showed up and said, "Orb I told you when you dug that well you needed to sink some casing pipe down deep enough to get past that sand, You will have to do this again and again and again. You'll get a little flow and thank God for it each time, but all your doing is putting a patch on it. But if you'll give me thirty dollars for material I will go down deep enough to get you into that river flowing with "Living Water" and you will never have to do this again"...My!My!, Talk about preaching a sermon! John Wolf, Uncle Roscoe, and myself started praising God instantly!.. When I heard that, I said, Don't ever ask me to do this again. Between the four of us we came up with 30 dollars. The man was finished in a few days and that well is still producing sweet water today after fifty years! For fifty cents more you can go first class. Amen?..Sometimes we must be willing to go a step further, dig a little deeper. If the way we've always done it isn't working, then try listening to the Messenger, the Angel of the Holy Spirit. Can you say Amen? When the Israelite's woke up and realized it wasn't God that shut the blessing off they began to get serious and do whatever it took to get the flow back. I am still talking about "Romancing the Stone" beloved!...Will somebody give me a witness ?
Broken hearts, visions, and goals not realized, health problems, family problems, marriage problems, are often discouraging and leave a child of God thirsting for reality and something that will bring relief. Not superficial hype and junk or cheap advice..Can you say Amen?
Even though we are redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb, we are still folks, and we are not exempt from these kind of things. There are times we may all face such a time as this. It has nothing to do with our standing with God, it doesn't mean we have backslid. If I had a magic word I could speak and make all these problems disappear for everyone, I would speak it in a heartbeat. Poppa doesn't have a magic word. Jesus takes the universal need of quenching thirst, and lifts it to the spiritual realm, saying that he can quench our thirst. "If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink." (John 7:37) As I read the scriptures, Jesus says that as we come to him, as he controls our lives, the thirsts that work upon us are quenched! Christ is our Lord. Christ is our Master. Christ is our Friend. Christ is our Teacher. Christ is our Savior. Christ is our Healer. Christ is our Peace Maker. Christ is our Memory Fixer. With Christ in control of our life then our thirsts are satisfied!...He is our All in All. He is our Everything!...Can You say Amen? " If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself." 2Timothy 2:13.
The story is told of a country boy who learned that a circus was coming to town. For many weeks he saved what coins he could, until he had the required fifty cents to pay for admission. On the appointed day he mounted the family mule and rode into town. As he arrived, the parade was just getting under way from the railway station to the circus grounds. The boy stood at the curbside and watched it all go by - the clowns, the animals, and all the rest. As the last of it passed, he suddenly realized that he still had his half-dollar clutched in his hand. He dashed out to a dancing clown and said, "Who do I pay?" The clown said, "I'll take your money." So the boy gave his money to the clown, remounted the mule and rode back home, believing he had seen the circus when all he had seen was just the parade.
Why do I tell this story? Because some folks, sadly, suppose they have gotten all there is from God simply because they have been to church. I love being with Gods folks. Growing up and even today when I meet a Christian somewhere even though it be other than at the church building, a warm feeling comes over me. The writer of Hebrews said for us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves, that goes a lot deeper than a command. It is more like a medicine. However dear friend, there is more to worship than just physical presence. There is another stream of happening which moves beneath it all. There is a deeper level, a deeper current moving. At the same time our beautiful Holy Spirit anointed songs are being sung, and prayers are being prayed by the redeemed of God, and sermons are being preached, there is a river flowing from the throne of the Father touching the hearts of those reaching out to God and God by His Holy Spirit is moving into life. It is on this personal and deeper level that the experience of worship really takes place. The good news is, we don't have to be at church to have that experience. We can sing, "Here's my cup Lord, I lift it up Lord, Come and quench this Thirsting in my Soul" no matter where we may be. The writer of Jude said, " But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, Keep your - selves in the Love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life."...
When I was a young man God blessed me with the loveliest woman on earth for my wife. She was my lover, my friend, and my soul mate.
Poppa was a grateful man for all the things she did for me, it seemed as though there was no end to her taking care of me. She blessed me by just her presence, she could just walk into a room wherever I might be and I felt as if the sunshine finally showed up. As men often do I got so busy with my business, my ministry, associates, family, and friends, I began to neglect her, and didn't realize it. I wound up in the hospital two times from what the doctors called exhaustion, they told me if I didn't slow down I would kill myself. For ten years I never allowed myself over four hours sleep a day. On one of those occasions she was at the hospital with me but wasn't talking, she just sat there in silence holding my hand. I glanced over at her but she just sat there with her eyes closed in prayer. I said, whatcha praying about baby? She said you don't want to know Poppa, I said, but I do. After a long wait she said, I am praying that we will go bankrupt and lose everything we have, and I am asking God to take away all these meetings you are called to preach. Then she went back into her silence....Needless to say I was stunned!... And that silence was killing me!..... I am talking bout "Romancing the Stone".....Continued...
Can anything be better than the first love of our life?
Especially when we hope that love won't fade
If we should meet someone who's the soul mate in our life
The years will come and go and love won't age.
If that happens to us as humans we will want to tell the world
Of the love that we have found to fill our heart
But if we find that Jesus is the first love of our life
We want to hide in Him and never part.
Do we keep that love a secret and hide Him from the world
When it was the world that Jesus came to save?
Or do we climb up on a roof top so everyone will know
That we've found the greatest love this side of the grave.
Lord You are my first love, and my last love too
My heart is on fire when I think of You
I want to kneel at Your feet; I am blessed that we should meet
Holy Spirit please come down and flow on through.
Flow through me Holy Spirit cleanse me now from every sin
Open up the door of my heart
Let Your love flow through me both without and within
I am Yours oh Lord for ever; we cannot part.
Wyn Barratt
June 2011.
God Bless You
Poppa
Editor's Comment:
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