"THESE ARE THEY!..."

Praise the Lord everybody!! For He is worthy to be praised! I pray that everyone is enjoying Gods blessing. My wife and I are about two weeks away from taking a step in our marriage we should have taken a year ago according to our way of thinking. Of course Gods ways our not our ways, His thoughts not our thoughts.

After over a year of various trials and tribulations we are finally about to bring our family together and take our ministry to another level. Even as the attacks on our bodies by the enemy increase, we continue to hold on to Gods word and his promises. My Pastor gave me the following scripture a few days ago and I have been chewing on it ever since. Revelations 7:9-14 
⁹ After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;
¹⁰ And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.
¹¹ And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God,
¹² Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.
¹³ And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?
¹⁴ And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

As I read verse nine I noted that this was the bride of Christ, the Church, spotless and without blemish praising God for their salvation and the gift of the Lamb. We are not Elders, we are not Angels or beast and we are not of the 144,000.  Verse 14 says "...These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." and that reminder of who I am in Christ brought a smile to my face and put a song on my lips. Their was a joy in knowing that the trials and tribulations I experienced were noted and recorded and credited to me and allowed me to one day stand with my fellow white robed brothers and sisters. 
I was in my place. This was Gods will for my life. Some times as we go through those "stretching" periods we feel unsure of where we are in Christ, did we veer off course? or are we still in the center of his will? The answer for me was "Yes" to the latter. I'm going through and I'm glad about it! But that's not all.

Revelations 7:15-17 states 
¹⁵ Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.
¹⁶ They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.
¹⁷ For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

I haven't felt this good in my spirit in a long time. verses 15,16 and 17 state that I will stand before His throne and serve Him day and night and He will dwell among us, and His very presence shall supply all my needs and all the tears created by all my painful memories God Himself will wipe away from my eyes. Hallelujah! The drugs, the homelessness, the lost opportunities and the pain all wiped away by the hand of God, all being replaced by the joy of the Lord.

One day we can all stand with "these" and be known as "they", to the glory of God.
                                       God bless you all, Brother Darrell, A Watchman
 

  

LORD BLIND ME THAT I MAY SEE!!!

Praise the Lord everybody! Let everything that have breath praise his Holy name!! I pray you all are enjoying Gods blessing. I'm starting to feel better and I started a seven day consecration with my wife yesterday. Please keep us in prayer as we wait on the Lord to guide us on what He wants us to do next and how he wants us to do it. We desire to live right in the center of Gods will for us, finding out what that is, there is the problem. What is Gods will for us on a day to day basis? We know that He loves us and wishes that none of us should perish. Evey day I wake up and pray that Gods will be done in my life and then I wait.

Acts 22:6-10 states
⁶ And it came to pass, that, as I made my journey, and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me.
⁷ And I fell unto the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
⁸ And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest.
⁹ And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me. 
¹⁰ And I said, What shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said unto me, Arise, and go into Damascus; and there it shall be told thee of all things which are appointed for thee to do.

The first step in getting to know Gods will for your life is, you have to have a direction changing encounter with Jesus. You have to stop going in the direction you were going and allow Him to get your attention and turn you into a new person going in a new direction. The right direction. Like Saul many of us feel we are serving God until we find out we were working outside, and against His will. It could be as simple as standing on the wrong corner while handing out tracks, When the Spirit of God first gave you the idea He said "Get up and go pass out tracks on 28th street." but you decide to go to 38th street because you rationalize that there are more "sinners" on 38th street because of the clubs there. Just that quick you have stepped out of the center of Gods will and went off your own way, If God said 28th street you better believe He had a reason. Saul of Tarsus was operating outside of Gods will while persecuting Christians until he was blinded by the light of Christ.
Acts 22 verse 11 states
¹¹ And when I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came into Damascus.

The glory of God should be the light that blinds us from seeing the WORLD with all of it's distractions and keeps us reaching out for the guiding hand of God. Saul was blinded by the light and became Paul a man devoted to letting God see for him. He was blind to who he was, only seeing what he had become and where he had to go. He saw no other way out, often calling himself a "prisoner" of  Christ. A willing prisoner yet a prisoner all the same. Bowing to His will in all things.

In Acts 22:14+15 Paul begins to learn Gods will for him,
¹⁴ And he said, The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know his will, and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth.
¹⁵ For thou shalt be his witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard.

We are chosen to know Gods will just as Paul was chosen and confronted on the road to Damascus. Every morning I pray God would knock me off my horse and blind me to the cares of this world. I reach out my hand to Him for guidance and I trust Him as a blind man must trust his guide." Lord blind my natural eyes that my spiritual eyes may be opened that I may see and know your will."

                   God bless you all, Brother Darrell, A Watchman

AT PEACE IN BABYLON PART 2: "THE ROAD TO BABYLON"

Praise the Lord everybody! Bless His Holy name! For He has done great things! I pray everyone is enjoying Gods blessing. My wife and I want to thank everyone for their prayers these last few weeks. God has given us a Holy ghost MRI and shown us somethings that only He could have seen. Thank God for His tender Mercies that allows us to get right concerning those things before we step off into eternity.
Last week I posted a blog called "AT PEACE IN BABYLON!" In it I wrote about learning to accept it and live with it and even prosper when you find yourself your own "Babylon" I didn't go into how I wound up in Babylon in the first place, mostly because I was well aware of why I was there. It did not occur to me that there are those out there that have found themselves in their own Babylon and have no Idea how they got there. The Lord states in Jeremiah 29:4 states 
⁴ Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, unto all that are carried away captives, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem unto Babylon;

God is letting us know that He is responsible for allowing us to be carried into captivity by our sin. It is that simple. We have unrepentant sins in our lives that we've been covering up and rationalizing so long we don't see them as sin anymore and just like the Prophets of that time we "prophylied" to ourselves and to the people around us. We are our own worst enemies, God warns us, gives us a way of escape, a chance to repent but pride or ignorance causes us to go our own way. Jeremiah 25:3-7 states  
³ From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, even unto this day, that is the three and twentieth year, the word of the Lord hath come unto me, and I have spoken unto you, rising early and speaking; but ye have not hearkened.
⁴ And the Lord hath sent unto you all his servants the prophets, rising early and sending them; but ye have not hearkened, nor inclined your ear to hear.
⁵ They said, Turn ye again now every one from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the Lord hath given unto you and to your fathers for ever and ever:
⁶ And go not after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, and provoke me not to anger with the works of your hands; and I will do you no hurt.
⁷ Yet ye have not hearkened unto me, saith the Lord; that ye might provoke me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt.

The reason why I'm suffering in my body right now is because ten years ago while my issues were only my weight and I could still walk and work pretty good, the word of the Lord came to me saying "Get your weight and your body in order now before you have to suffer." At first I was obedient and God gave me favor concerning my diet and training but after a while I began to stray away from the program God had me on and went my own way. I made many excuses, I was too tired to cook after working, same thing for exercising, "I've got to save my energy for work." I said. I lost sight of what God had for me, maybe I never knew.

So here I am over ten years later with two bad hips, a great nursing career cut short and a life of chronic severe pain. While in my Babylon I have learned to make the best of it. (see AT PEACE IN BABYLON! PART 1) I am still trying to lose weight after all these years, the natural way, no surgery because God told me "no surgery".  With all that being said I have never given up hope. I still believe that God is going to heal me, and the fact that He has given me a wife tells me that time is near, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel Hallelujah!! 

                                  GOD BLESS YOU ALL, BROTHER DARRELL, A WATCHMAN