by Pastor Stephen Benton - REVISED by Shelley Benton for 2018.
This morning, Lord willing, I will continue with the series
on fighting God’s battles. In the 11th
chapter of Hebrews Paul is moved upon by the Holy Ghost to write the only
chapter in the bible where God takes time to eulogize some great heroes of
faith. My first pastor, Bishop C.R. Lee
called t his chapter, “God’s Hall of Fame.”
It is a list of faith heroes and includes both men and women.
Last Sunday we looked at Gideon. It was noted in the message
that Gideon was fearful but allowed God to use him to defeat the Midianites,
Amalekites, and the children of the East.
With a God selected army of 300 men, Gideon defeated not less than
250,000 enemy troops.
The exploits of these heroes were performed “by faith.”
Faith is much more than mere mental assent, it is used as a verb and hence, an
action word. True faith is always
exhibited with action.
When God selected Gideons’s army, he eliminated those who
were fearful and afraid. Another passage
in Deuteronomy tells us why he did that.
“When
thou goest out to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses, and chariots,
and a people more than thou, be not afraid of them; for the Lord thy God is
with thee, which brought thee out of the
land of Egypt.
And the officers
shall speak further unto the people, and they shall say, what man is there that
is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go and return unto his house, lest his
brethren’s heart faint as well as his heart.” Deut.20:1,8.
Fearfulness and faintheartedness are contagious. Faithlessness is another deadly, contagious
disease. Now, in reality, Gideon was also afraid. The only difference between
Gideon and the 22,000 who were eliminated from his army by God is that Gideon
had just enough courage to do what God demanded. After Paul mentions the names of Gideon,
Barak, et.al., he writes about some of the deeds done by those individuals and
inserts the following words:
“out
of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the
armies of the aliens.” Heb 11:3-4
That scripture is what I wish to focus on in this
message. Gideon certainly qualified as a
weakling or to use the term we used in the message last Sunday, he was a “fraidy-cat.”
We noted in the message last Sunday that Gideon was found threshing wheat by
the wine press. There were no grapes to
smash so one would not look in the area of the wine presses so they made an
excellent hiding place for Gideon to process his daily bread.
(Let me
insert a special note here. God promised that he would feed us and told us not
to take thought for what we shall eat. Nevertheless,
that does not mean that we will always have the luxury of obtaining our bread
in the open. What I see in this scene is
a situation where the basic needs of life such as eating may have to be done
covertly. It gives us a possible
scenario of the hazards that may confront us when our enemy comes down and for that
reason alone we are praying that God delays their arrival.)
Further evidence of Gideon’s weakness showed him carrying
out God’s orders under the cover of darkness accompanied by ten men. Additionally, he asked God for a total of
three signs just to make sure that God had given him his orders and that God
would keep his promise to deliver the enemy into his hands. Finally when God told Gideon to go into the
camp of the enemy, he was instructed to take his servant with him if he was afraid
to go alone. Gideon took his servant.
Now let’s recap all of his actions. Even though this man was weak, he never
reneged on acting on what God commanded. That’s all God needs is someone who is
willing to go into the war and once he finds that individual He, then,
will strengthen that person.
It is human nature to avoid the battle until we feel that we
are fully able to give the enemy a worthy fight. But this is spiritual warfare and the
qualifying standards are different. We
enter this conflict knowing that we are most likely to be defeated on the basis
of our own strength and ability but when we enter the fracas, a transformation
takes place and we are metamorphosed from weak to strong during the event.
Paul lets us know that some additional steps unfold after we
are made strong. Where initially we did
not even want to entertain the prospect of fighting the enemy, after we have
been strengthened by God, he enables us to “wax
valiant in fight.” The word waxed means
to be empowered, to become (while in the
process of.) Don’t worry about your
might before the conflict, God will continually empower you while you are actually fighting. The valiancy, the process of becoming bold
and fearless, will not occur until you are actually engaging the enemy.
The final phrase is that we “turned to flight the armies of
the aliens.” Look at how the tide turns.
We go from being weak and afraid to a state of being strong; from mere contenders
to empowered adversaries; from merely meeting the enemy to actually chasing
them.
Full victory is realized when we actually have the enemy on
the run and once that phase of the battle commences, we are to pursue them and
unmercifully take them out. Not only the
enemy, but we must also eliminate anyone who indicates that they are not with
us, even though they are not the primary enemy.
Read Judges 8:1-9 and notice how Gideon promised to return to t hose who
did not give his army bread when they were faint and chasing the enemy. Jesus told his disciples “he that is not with me is against
me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.” Mt
12:30. We aren’t taking any
prisoners.
While writing this bulletin I was reflecting on the night I
first delivered the message of the rapture at the Apostolic Faith Home
Assembly. Early in the day I was full of
anxiety, jitters and apprehension. I was
also fearful. But I had been given a
message from the Lord that I was instructed to deliver. I could have cancelled out but that was not
really an option. I remembered the
hostility I faced earlier that week when I went there to merely announce the
subject. But it was not until I actually
stood in the pulpit that the strength came.
As the message progressed and the faces became angrier, I felt a
boldness and conviction overpower me and to my surprised I was able to stand
flat-footed and meet the eyes of unbelief as the battle between God’s Word and
the forces of unbelief clashed. I have had many such occasions during my years
of preaching and teaching God’s word.
I no longer defend the message of the rapture, I condemn
those who don’t believe it. When those
faithless, scripturally bankrupt so-called believers
ask what we are going to do on September 30th 2017* if the
rapture does not happen, we will respond with, “what are you going to do when
it does?” I quit trying to explain to those who don’t believe it because they
won’t comprehend it if I did. We are not
on the defensive. We are an offensive
force. We don’t run or defend, we are a:
seek, chase and destroy unit!
I once thought that God gave the advance notice of the Rapture in order
to increase the numbers of those who would go. Now I understand that the advance notice gave
God sufficient time and excuse to screen out those who did not really believe
it. He had to allow enough time for
those who once accepted the message to make an about face and proclaim the
message to be Satan’s and I, Satan’s prophet.
We cannot fight our enemy and
feel sorry for them at the same time! God
grant us the stamina and fortitude to see the enemy for who they are and chase
them to hell where they belong.
reprint from the Bulletin: "The Weekly Word of The House of Good News"
*revised for 2016
*NEW Revision in 2018 by Shelley Benton
This missive was written by Pastor Stephen Benton in his weekly bulletin to his church, The House of Good News. Around 2010 0r 2011. However, as with all of the messages written by Pastor Steve, it still speaks today because the Holy Ghost's revelations to him were alive and given by the living Jesus from Heaven. The Lord saw fit to delay his coming once more scheduled for the Day of Atonement in 2017. As revealed to the prophet, the dead were to rise on the last day of the sacred year, ten days before that event. The Church still would not hear and did not believe the voice of the prophet and therefore the promise was removed, just as it was from the children of Israel in the wilderness, because of their unbelief. Their "carcasses" fell before they were taken into the promised land. (Hebrews 3:17) This Laodicean Church has now had the promise of a rapture taken away from it and the Lord will come upon it as a Thief as promised in Revelation 3:3. In case you believe this means the rapture will take it by surprise--think again! The scriptures declare that " a thief cometh not but for to steal, kill and destroy..." John 10:10. That doesn't sound like a promise of a rapture to me. Because the Church has not done its first works and repented the next event on its agenda is to be "spued out of my mouth." says the Lord in Revelation 3:16.
The rapture will no longer happen on a known Jewish feast day, the Lord has the option now that the Church has breached its promise, to breach His. (Numbers 14:34) God took the time to prove that the date of the rapture could be known and he told us in a book written by Stephen Benton, "1997, the Last Trump" that the Church refused to read or believe. He gave detailed scriptural proof of the day out of the book of Leviticus, and the Church hierarchy hardened their hearts and refused to receive it. The Holy Ghost also showed that the rapture will be a two stage event: the dead will rise first and ten days later, those who are alive and remain will be caught up to meet him in the air. The strong delusion will be the so-called "aliens" (actually Satan's kingdom) showing up and declaring to be our creators and then they will tell the LIE and claim that the dead that are raised were raised by them. And many will believe them!! In Luke 21:8, Jesus warns, " go ye not therefore after them." If you want to be caught with the Lord and escape all these things, I admonish you not to go with them.
To
read more current revelations from Pastor Steve, check out his book published
September of 2017 on Amazon.com
https://smile.amazon.com/Gods-Final-Secret-Stephen-Benton/dp/1976338476/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1509271792&sr=1-1&keywords=god%27s+final+secret+by+stephen+benton
