Sleeping in Ruins?

1 Thessalonians 4:16-18
16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.


1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

5:1 But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. 2 For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. 3 For when they say, "Peace and safety!" then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. 4 But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. 5 You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. 6 Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. 7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. 8 But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. 9 For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. 11 Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing. NKJV

Let us watch: greygoreuo....1127......is to awake...NT 1453 is to waken (from sleep) from inactivity, as in sleeping in ruins and from nonexistence.

Now that is a little scary if you ask me. That we are told to not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be sober. 

That sleep is that which people do without knowing it. They are those who have no discernment of the time and the season.  We are to take a stand.

Putting on our breastplate of "belief" in the feast of love! For God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Drawn into that word of watch.......1127..........and that people are to awaken from inactivity. Well what inactivity, and what is that sleeping in ruins? Do people have an actual place of which they operate as the non-existent one?

Isaiah 41:11-13

11 "Behold, all those who were incensed against you 

Shall be ashamed and disgraced;

They shall be as nothing,

And those who strive with you shall perish. 

12 You shall seek them and not find them--

Those who contended with you.

Those who war against you 

Shall be as nothing,

As a nonexistent thing. 

13 For I, the LORD your God, will hold your right hand,

Saying to you, 'Fear not, I will help you.'   NKJV

Now I really love the book of Isaiah and sometimes really have to have a quiet place to read it. And during my days of working outside the home, the Lord gave me this passage of scripture.  Those incensed against you shall be ashamed and disgraced. They shall be as nothing and those who would choose to strive with me would perish. YIKES! 

Then I was told: YOU shall seek them and not find them----those who contended with you...those who war against you shall be as nothing, as a nonexistent thing. FOR THE LORD YOUR GOD WILL HOLD YOUR RIGHT HAND....SAYING, 'FEAR NOT, I WILL HELP YOU.'

ON rising this morning, I thought on this area of discernment. My husband and I spent much time reading on it last night. And the scriptures we were given on it, especially for prayer surely made a lot of sense. And it was like we were being awakened to something new.  For in this teaching, we saw the prayer warrior given a message from the Holy Spirit to pray for a brother overseas who was fighting in the Vietnam War in the 1960's. AND the specific prayer given to prayer person was so surprised what the Lord had given him in this vision/dream who then mailed it to brother in Vietnam. He wrote to brother: This is how it will happen and you must be on your guard!

It was mailed and received.  And the "message" given came to pass some 4 weeks later on an actual battle field. The brother survived the attack and did what the prayer warrior had sent him to do by the Spirit of God. Hallelujah!

As this prayer warrior grew more in that awareness of God and His speaking, this prayer person continued to give another example of how the Lord showed him how his brother was to die this one day around the 3 p.m. hour and He, God desired prayer person to pray. Well quickly, he, the prayer warrior called one other person and together they prayed from their different locations. They asked for God to intervene on the older brother's behalf and reminded God of the brother's commitment in his early teen years to God. They also spoke how they knew he had walked away from God, but that still believed and had faith that said brother in harm's way would be delivered from the harm.  They prayed the Word and the prayed in Tongues. The brother( in harm's way) just knew he needed to pull off the road and talk with a man within this business, but when he stopped and went inside he could not remember what he needed to ask the business owner. Well, in that four minutes.........another vehicle had went on by and that vehicle crashed into the vehicle coming from opposite direction and in that head-on crash, the couple inside died exactly what had been given for prayer warrior's brother to be killed. BUT someone prayed and  not only prayed but kept praying for another full two hours after the event was to take place. The thing taken from this was..........was anyone praying for the couple who died that day?

And then I was astounded to know what people could be given about circumstances. 

The prayer warrior had many examples of God's love for those who love Him. And I thought of those that are or become the nonexistent thing.

While meditating on what we had read, we awakened to another important part of why we are to pray. We also came away with what God cannot do when NO ONE PRAYS for someone. For surely lives were saved on that eventful afternoon at 3 pm. and others were lost.

We know how to pray for a loved one who has not received Jesus, right? That is to remind God of how they might have gone to church as a child, how they took others to church and how regularly they tuned in Kathryn Kulman to see God move through people in the attitude of complete quiet. We can remind Him of how a parent might have taken us week after week to church, yet in their last days on earth, they choose to lie in bed in a death state that is one of sleeping in ruins and being the nonexistent thing. But God in His love has shown us how we are to put on that love and walk by faith, not only for ourselves but for others as well.

We got this message to pray for loved ones last night.  With a conditioner in my hair and a mixture of water and creme running into my eyes, I got this vision. I saw a driver out of control on state route 14 headed from the Stevenson area to Vancouver.  I was telling my husband we must text our family and tell them to stop where they are at and not go any further. And we continued to pray. Again, I saw the out of control person, and it appeared as a woman trying to reach for a ringing cell phone drives into the opposite lane on a sharp curve. So we prayed more thoroughly. They had stopped and waited a full hour and instruction came. So they went the long way around to get home. Was there something that would have cost a life? Not sure yet, but we will know. We confess we will always know every form of information God desires for us to know that will bring glory to Him. We will have that piece of information to make decisions that involve our lives and others and in that we require and put God's wisdom on it, in it and through it in how ever many hours of prayer it takes.

When the call came in they had arrived home in safety, then we rested in God and His love.

1 Thessalonians 5:9-11

9 For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. 11 Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.

For God has not appointed us to wrath. In our salvation through Jesus Christ, we live unto Him. And we know many others have gone who now sleep in Him. But those who sleep today, who sleep in ruins and the decay, those who sleep as the nonexistent thing are those who are far from God.

The Amplified Bible states this: for verse 9 For God has not appointed us to [incur His] wrath. [He did not select us to condemn us], but [that we might] obtain [His] salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah). 10 Who died for us so that whether we are still alive or are dead [at Christ's appearing], we might live together with Him and share His life. 11 Therefore encourage (admonish, exhort) one another and edify (strengthen and build up) one another, just as you are doing.

For the Lord is returning for His people. And we are not the "condemned" but the saved.

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. (Rom. 8:1) 

 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him. (John 6:63-65)

There are those appointed to wrath, but we are not those. Our world is to be framed by the Word of God.  It is in that trust that where we live and reside is not in the that place of the "ruins" but in the safe place of His boundary, and it is in His Word. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.  For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.  By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. (Hebrews 11:1-3)

Our praying, not only for our loved ones, but also those who come across our path, are those who now have a boundary, a fence if you will, around their lives. The Word of God spoken and prayed over them will keep them in the safe place.

As an example I have put a prayer here that is that boundary of God's Word around our grandchild. It is prayed and placed as a "hedge" of protection around her. And when or if something arises........we remind the Lord that she was placed in His hands the moment we heard of her conception.

Father, in the name of Jesus we pray for our granddaughter. May she obey her parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord. WE pray that she would not be provoked by her father so that she not become discouraged according to Colossians 3:21.

 We pray that she will honor her father and her mother. She will be a wise son who hears her father’s instructions,  she will not consent to going with sinners. We pray she not walk on the path with them but she keep her feet from their path for their feet run to evil and they make haste to shed blood.

 According to James 1:19-23, our grandchild will be "the" swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; knowing that the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. We pray she will continually lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with  meekness,  the implanted word, which is able to save her soul. We say that she will be a doer of the word and not a hearer only, deceiving herself.

It is According to Prov. 22:24-25 that she will make no friendships with angry men and she will not go with the furious.  She will refuse them and their ways.  We pray that she will know that God loved us so much, that He gave His only begotten Son Jesus , so that we would have everlasting life by believing on HIM. We pray that she confesses with her mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in her heart that God has raised HIM from the dead, and be saved. We believe her to walk all her days of life with Him.  Her heart, we pray, will believe unto righteousness, and her mouth brings her to salvation of her soul.We pray that the LORD is her Shepherd and she shall not be in want of any good thing.  The Lord restores her soul so that she walks the paths of righteousness for His names sake. She will have no fear of evil for she will know that God is with her to protect her. His rod and His staff will comfort our grand-daughter . She will be anointed with fresh oil till her cup is running over. We will see the goodness and mercy of God follow her all the days of her life and she will dwell in the house of the LORD FOREVER. AMEN AND AMEN

Truly we can make a difference in praying and speaking God's Word over another person. Truly He is on our side when we choose Him 1st. May we awaken from that sleep that leads or tends toward poverty of the soul. May we make the decision to not only attend church..........but attend to that which God has placed in our hands. The Lord is returning for His church "His body of believers" and will He find faith on the earth?(Luke 18:8)

In closing:

Proverbs 24:30-34

30 I went past the field of the sluggard,

past the vineyard of the man who lacks judgment; 

31 thorns had come up everywhere,

the ground was covered with weeds,

and the stone wall was in ruins. 

32 I applied my heart to what I observed 

and learned a lesson from what I saw: 

33 A little sleep, a little slumber,

a little folding of the hands to rest-- 

34 and poverty will come on you like a bandit 

and scarcity like an armed man.   NIV

When we consider everyplace we have traveled, everyplace we have walked and seen, how many places can you remember that seemed to be that which was the overgrown, the overwhelmed with weeds and briars?  How many places do you remember seeing that was the broken down, needing paint and the wall or fence around was in "ruins"? Well that is one's heart. And when we apply God's Word it changes. For if we continue to neglect to speak His Word and pray for others that God has given us, then a little sleep, a little slumber, ah yes the folding of hands to rest.........and you will find yourself in poverty. In those moments before the disaster, before the earthquake, before the report of a grave illness, what wall will keep the enemy away or will it come in like a flood?

Arm yourself with His Word and declare His truths. 

Forever who would love life and see good days, must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. He must turn from evil and do good. He must seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their prayer. But His face is against those who do evil. (1 Peter 3:10-12)

Amen.

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