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Jan 31, 2016

When the Church Turns

When the Church Turns

Speaker: Dennis Gallaher

Category: Prayer, Sunday Morning

Gideon was challenged by an angel of the Lord to rise up to work for the Lord. We, the church, are also called to be “valiant warriors” for Him. We are called to pray and to tell others about His amazing saving grace.

“When the Church Turns” by Pastor Dennis J. Gallaher- January 31, 2016

This past Sunday we continued our series on prayer and discussed what it will take for a true Spiritual Awakening to rise again in our country.
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America’s greatness has always risen on the shoulders of the true church. When the church becomes great again, then the culture will change and blessing will return.

In order to know that it has taken place, we look at history. This time next year we need to look back and see progress. Did we dedicate our lives to:
- prayer?
- a lifestyle above reproach?
- active evangelism?
- gaining and keeping a good testimony?

Revival is God’s idea, not man’s. Revival looks like…
- people coming to Christ
- conviction of sin and dramatic conversions
- a drawing of hearts to Jesus, the Lover of our souls
- crowds of people seeking freedom
At any given time, God can increase the heat and open blind eyes!
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Opening Scripture

2 Timothy 3:16  All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

“All Scripture” is talking about the Old Testament because the New Testament had not been written yet.

“Inspired” means God breathed, breathed out by God; these are the words, thoughts, stories, and lives were are to learn from.
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Read the story of Gideon in Judges 6

Forty years passed between chapters 5 and 6. Slowly and deliberately the people left God and fell into idolatry, so, God sent the Midianites to bring His people back through tribulations.
In the past forty years, the U.S. has experienced great blessing and the church, has received the greatest blessing of all. But, it has also been brought with disfunction and sin.

Now just like Gideon, we find ourselves under the discipline of God:
- huge national debt
- 58 million abortions
- total breakdown of marriage and family

Read Judges 6:5-6

The Midianites were the rod that God used:
- 7 years of torture, terrorism, and trials
- Children of God living in caves trying to stay alive
- Crops were destroyed, cattle were stolen, and the land was ravaged

Read Judges 6:7-10  I delivered you from the hands of the Egyptians and from the hands of all your oppressors, and dispossessed them before you and gave you their land,  and I said to you, “I am the Lord your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live. But you have not obeyed Me.

This is where Gideon comes into the story and God shows up!

Judges 6:12 12  The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O valiant warrior.”

Here it is for us today:
- “The Lord is with you, O valiant warrior.”
- Things are bad, but God is with us.
- Sin is rampant, but God is with us.
- The terrorists are at the door, but God is with us.
- The heathens have taken over, bankrupted us, destroyed our heritage, and taken our land, but God is with us.
- Promises are made, broken and made again, but God is with us.

What God needs is an army of Gideons who will go forward knowing “God is with us!”

Judges 6:13  Then Gideon said to him, “O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”


It will take 2 things:
The current state of affairs is a true disaster.
- The people still think that they can deliver themselves.
2. God is still for us.
- He is looking for a people He can trust.

It’s time for the church to fall on its knees and fight like a man.

Thus saith the Lord, “Have I not sent you?”