Living Hope Fellowship Church

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. Living Hope Fellowship Church....Sermons by the Pastor

MAKING UP THE HEDGE

by Pastor Kevin Badgley,

11/09/05 p.m.

It seems that everybody gets sick at one time or another. All sickness is the work of the devil. Don’t be fretful and worrisome. There is no fifth season such as a flu season when everyone decides they are going to get sick. A Christian does not have to go around being sick like the rest of the world. You will find in Deuteronomy that the sign to all the nations that God’s people are set apart for the Lord is that they will be well when everybody else is sick! If you are sick, there is a hole in your hedge where the devil is allowed to come in and out! The Bible says that the devil walks about seeking whom he may devour!

3 John 1:2 says, “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” Your health is conditional to your soul. The Bible says as your soul prospers your health can come forth, therefore it is an act of your will to stay healthy.

Some people say, Well, I couldn’t help it that I got sick. As a Holy Ghost filled child of God, that should not be. We can choose blessing or cursing, life or death. God placed an immune system in us even though we are in a fallen state, and as we walk in the Spirit and power of Almighty God, we have power to refuse sickness and insanity. With a mental problem or insanity is the presence of devil power. Confusion is of the devil. (See 1 Corinthians 14:33.) According to Matthew 17:20-21, some kinds of deliverance require prayer AND fasting! (See Isaiah, Chapter 58!)

In John 10:10 Jesus said, “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” When you deal with sickness, infirmities, and torment of any kind against your mind, you are dealing with devil power! Ninety percent of sickness is by the presence of the devil. There has to be a deliverance! You need the baptism of the Holy Ghost so that you will be endued with power like Jesus promised in Luke 10:19.

You probably know people who are saved and filled with the Holy Ghost who get sick, but it is because the breaks and the gaps have not been closed. You belong to God when you get saved. He will redeem your mind as you read His Word and obey Him, and He will set apart your body so that you can walk in the fullness of salvation.

Smith Wigglesworth said in his latter years, I don’t know that I have a body. Our body leads us around by the nose! We need to get rid of the holes in the hedge. Wouldn’t it be a great witness if everybody in the church was healthy! If anybody got sick, they would say, Oops, you need to pray through. I will help you pray through. There is a hole in the hedge somewhere, and there has to be a change!

God spoke in Ezekiel 22:30, “And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.”

When they put city water in Grand Chain, Illinois, the new water tower pressure was about 90 pounds, so they said we had to have regulators. Some old timers never had but 30 or 40 pounds of pressure, so they thought they could take a fine shower with 90 pounds. However, the old lines started springing leaks! Everything was fine until the pressure increased! When the devil gets through, God makes us aware that there is a leak. It is not the will of God for Christians to be sick, but Jesus says there is a repair!

Many times people are not set free because the CHURCH hasn’t made up the gaps and gone the extra mile for our brethren nor for the sinner. Something has got to stop the flow of wickedness. Somebody has got to make up the hedge.

I want you to understand that the enemy has his own hedges! He will set up his fortifications against you, but when we are filled with the Spirit of God, then greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world! You can make a gap in the devil’s hedge, after you close the gap in yours! The devil knows if have sinned. That is why people who don’t live a godly life can command the devil, but the devil just laughs at them.

2 Corinthians 10:4 says, “(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)”

Ephesians 6:12 says that we wrestle against, “. . . spiritual wickedness in high places.” Satan has been in people’s lives so long, he has built him a palace with a wall around them. However, Jesus said in 2 Corinthians 10:5, “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;” We need to break down the strong holds of Satan!

For three weeks Daniel prayed, and fasted, and sought God for his nation. Daniel knew something had to break, and God sent the answer. The prince of this world is Satan, but if we get in Christ the devil has nothing in us! See John 14:30.

There is a reason people get sick. Ephesians 4:27 says, “Neither give place to the devil.” Ask God how the devil is able to get in and where the strongholds of the devil are in your life. You can’t repair the break in the hedge until the devil is out, so run him out and fix the lock on the door so he can’t come back. Let’s get the victory!

livinghope@hughes.net