Living Hope Fellowship Church

MY TESTIMONY

Training Material

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

MY TESTIMONY

Preface

(I got saved and filled with the Holy Ghost.)

          My testimony is that we can overcome the devil by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony!   

          By God’s intervention, I was able to be born!  I grew up in church and got saved at age 11, but I backslid in a dead church!  I came back to God at age 30, shortly before I was filled with the Holy Ghost!

          God called me to preach, and I obeyed that call.  Have I ever been tempted to turn around?  Yes.  The way is straight and narrow, and the burden is heavy, but I believe God cannot lie.  Therefore, I will continue till I see the face of Jesus.  I want to hear God tell me the same words He told the servant in Matthew 25:21, “. . . Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”

MY TESTIMONY

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

My testimony is that we can overcome the devil by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony!  God has called each of us for this purpose. 

          Hallelujah!  I’m not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!   I’m not ashamed of the blood of Jesus that makes me redeemed!  I thank God for the anointing of the Holy Ghost.  I’m not ashamed that I talk in tongues daily!  If God says something, I believe it!

          Revelation 12:10-11 says, “And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.  And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.”

          1 Peter 5:8 says, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:”

          God is looking to see who understands and will call upon the name of the Lord.  You are serving God, or you are serving the devil.  Satan hates Jesus, he hates the Holy Ghost, and he hates you and me.  He hates anything to do with God, the blood of the Lamb, and the word of our testimony.

          The Devil was defeated 2,000 years ago!  If you aren’t serving Jesus Christ, you are defeated with the devil!  God never changes.  His Word is just as true today as it was yesterday, and it will be true forever! 

          Some think they will get saved at their last breath before they die so that they can go to heaven without having to do anything for the Lord!  However, God is looking for people who will say “yes” to His call to do something for Him.

          When you get saved, you get a testimony.  I was a born to a woman who could not have children.  She was made sterile by a pituitary tumor.  I’m not even supposed to be here.  My Dad was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge.  An artillery shell landed right beside him.  He should have been vaporized.  It covered him up, but some man dug him out.  My Dad doesn’t know who he was, where he came from, or where he went.  He dragged him to the medics who took him to the field hospital.  That was long before I was born. 

          Time and time again God made a way to where I could come about.  Time and time again God made a way where you could come about.  You were born into this time and generation for a reason.  Many times we could have lost our lives, or our parents could have been killed before we existed.  Therefore, we understand that God has a plan for our lives. 

          Nothing is happenstance; everything has a reason.  A leaf falling off of a tree in autumn has a reason, a life span, a history.  Even if we don’t notice it, God does. 

          The Bible says in Matthew 10:29, “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.  But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.”  God knows our next thought!

 I WAS BORN

           I was born into a farm family that still says ain’t.  We were simple folk, and I was an only child.  Therefore, I had to do all of the work, because I didn’t have any brothers or sisters to share it with!  I also had to take all the blame when something happened, because I didn’t have anyone to blame it on!

I GREW UP IN CHURCH

          I have gone to church all of my life.  At 11 years old I felt the conviction of God in my heart, but I didn’t know what it was.  The preacher gave us a little message on it one time, and I felt it in my heart.  Some people believe in “coming forward” to “join” a church.  Folks, you can’t join Living Hope Fellowship.  To become a part of this church you just get saved; then you are a part of the body of Christ!  We welcome all who are saved or not saved to come in and see what the body of Christ can do through the blood of the covenant and the power of the Holy Ghost! 

          The church that I was raised in was DEAD!  I came “forward” to receive Christ, but it didn’t deliver, and it didn’t satisfy.  My Grandma was a good woman.  She read a lot in the Bible, and she read different articles from different evangelists, but she didn’t believe in the fullness of God as we preach and live today. 

          The church I grew up in didn’t satisfy me, so at 14 years old I confronted my Grandma.  I had scores of cousins that wouldn’t talk to her the way I did.  I guess I was kind of like an irritant.  However, people who provoke you to answer make good preachers.  If you really provoke someone, they will give you the real answer instead of what they want you to hear. 

          I told Grandma, “I’m not sure that there is a God!”  She shook her head.  I said, “They have scientists now that have figured out the mathematical equations that there isn’t any God.”  She just shook her head, and didn’t say anything.  I disturbed her.

NOT SATISFIED

          Not satisfied, I went off into the world.  There wasn’t anything that I wasn’t in or couldn’t do.  I just went and went, but it didn’t deliver me.  It didn’t satisfy.  God put a desire for Him in man that nothing else will satisfy but God!

          You can race, you can fly, you can do drugs and party, but it doesn’t satisfy!  Don’t you say, “Don’t talk to me preacher!  You don’t know what it is like out there!”  I do know about that stuff!  Sure, things change from generation to generation, but it is still the devil working devices!  I have never been afraid to see what it would take to satisfy, but there is still nothing that satisfies but one thing, and that is salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ! 

          Many people are undecided about God, because they see people calling themselves Christians who go to a dead church, live a dead life, have a dead job, have a dead marriage, and they have a DEAD TESTIMONY!  They don’t rejoice in the Lord their God!  The Bible says to rejoice!   1 Thessalonians 5:16 says, “Rejoice evermore.”  The church has lost its shout.  They are afraid of offending somebody.  Now, I don’t want to willingly offend anybody, but I’m sure not going to stand complacent!           

          At age nine I asked my mother, “Mom, why doesn’t God do miracles anymore?  I hear about them, and I read about them.  I hear a preacher preach on them every once in a while, but. . . .”

          You can hear about it and sing about it, but if you don’t get it for yourself, it is nothing more than just a story to you! 

          We aren’t going to have revival until somebody gets so hungry for the things of God that they will wait on Him for the answers.  Some people wait on the doctor for hours, but they can’t listen to a preacher for thirty minutes about something that is going to last forever! 

          I don’t worry about what somebody else thinks.  If I feel good, I’ll shout hallelujah!  If I don’t feel good, I’m going to say, “Lord, I want the devil off of me, and I want the joy of the Lord, because it is my strength.”

          I choose not to walk in melancholy or defeat.  I choose life and life more abundantly, because Jesus said I can have it!  Dead “religion” doesn’t satisfy.  I want Jesus Christ!

          I worked as a prison guard for eight years.  You can’t tell me stories I haven’t heard.  You can go to hell for being a good person or for being a bad person.  You can be a president, but if you aren’t bought with the blood of Jesus you will go to hell! 

          When Jesus redeems you, then all of your sins are washed away!  No matter what you have done or what other people have done to you, it is washed away by the blood of the Lamb!  It is gone!  Whom the Son sets free is free indeed! 

DEAD RELIGION

          Dead “Religion” doesn’t deliver.  I know, because I grew up in dead religion.  Religion has the outward appearance of God, but God isn’t in it.  Most of what you see in the church world is just “religion”, and it is a waste of time.  In John 6:44 Jesus says, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.”

          If God isn’t meeting with you in your services, then you need to go somewhere where the Spirit of God is.  Forget your loyalty and ties to a dead church.  We had five generations of our family in the church that I grew up in.  There was my great-grandmother, my grandmother, my mother, me, and my children, but religion doesn’t deliver.  I had to get out to where I could have God, because you can’t have dead religion AND a living God!

          I was 29 years old.  My wife and I had two little girls, but my marriage was shot.  You can sure get into a hellish divide.

 ASK ME TO FORGIVE YOU

          I was working nights in a prison house, in Unit Four.  I was watching a preacher on T.V., and then I turned it off.  I was thinking about God, and He spoke to me out of heaven and said, “Ask me to forgive you.”  I said, “Well, I have been going to church all my life.”  It was like He didn’t know, right?  I said, “I’m alright; I do good works.  I get along with people, and I pay my taxes.” 

          I had been seeking God for six years, because I didn’t know where He was.  Then, like an idiot, when He started talking to me, I started arguing with Him.

          The biggest miracle I ever saw was the day that I got saved.  The day that I got filled with the Holy Ghost as a guard at a prison was the next biggest miracle I’ve ever seen.  Don’t you tell me that the air is too thick or the conditions are too bad for God to get a hold of a man! 

          God talked to me and said, “You need to ask me to forgive you of your sins.”  I said, “I did that!  I grew up in church!”  He said, “Pray, and ask me to forgive you of your sins.”  I said, “Lord, forgive me of my sins,” and I almost meant it.  The devil said, “Hey, what are you talking about?”  Then I said, “Lord, forgive me of my sins,” and something got a hold of me.  Something broke!  Hallelujah! 

          I remember the night!  It was in March of 1984 in the Day Room, as a Correctional Officer of a prison.  I got set free in a prison!  I had been a prisoner of SIN.  Chains broke off of my chest and heart that had continually made me not believe.  I had thought I was fine!  Something happened to me when I lined up with the Bible, and said, “God, forgive me of my sins, and set me free!”  Something went “pop”, and the devil went one way, and I went the other way!  Hallelujah! 

          Then I started getting hungry for more of God!  I read the Word of God, and I started seeking the Lord.  I told Him that I didn’t see things happening like they needed to be.  Strange things happened after I got saved.  Things looked bad.  They were bad before the Lord turned on the light, but in the dark you don’t see just how bad they are. 

MORE OF GOD

          I was looking for more of God, and on July 24^th, five minutes till midnight in a prison Day Room, God filled me with the Holy Ghost when an inmate laid his hands on me!  His name is Lloyd Albeck.  I didn’t know him before, and I haven’t heard from him since, but he was zealous for the Lord.  He had been into everything, and suddenly the Lord started dealing with him.  He told me that one night the devil appeared to him in his cell.  He said, “I have seen things before, but when I saw that, I knew I was looking at Satan!”  It scared him very much, and then he started getting real! 

          When you see the devil, or judgment, or when you have the fear of God grip you, then all of a sudden you are done playing!  He said, “God, I’m not going to sleep until you do something to me!”  God then filled Mr. Albeck with the Holy Ghost, and he started moving in the Spirit of the Lord. 

          I got acquainted with him, and we talked about believing God, revival, the Rapture, and things like that.  He gave me books about devils which I did not want to read, but I read them.  Since that time the Lord has put me into deliverance ministry!

           On a Saturday night I was sitting in the Day Room after the count was made.  Lloyd came in and said, “The Lord spoke to me tonight before you even came on duty.  Tonight you are going to get the gift of tongues.”  That is the way he put it.  Strange things had been happening to me.  For two weeks previous to that very night I had been hearing things in my soul.  The Bible says that when you seek God you will find Him, and I was hungry for God.  I knew a little about this baptism of the Holy Ghost mentally, but as far as earnestly desiring it, I didn’t know.  God knows what is next if you seek God.

          In March of 1984 I had come back to God, and this was July of 1984.  I said, “God, I have to have more.”  Lloyd came in there and said, “Tonight you are going to get the gift of tongues.”  Well, I began to praise the Lord and thank God.  I was sitting in a chair, and he stood over me not quite touching my head.  He just started praying, and I wanted all that God had for me. 

          All of a sudden something started coming out of me way down from the pit of my stomach.  I started praising the Lord, and a language came out that I had never learned!  Then, I remembered that I had been hearing that in my soul for about two weeks.  It was just a jot, or a word or a syllable, or a sound, so I was praising the Lord, and just tried one of those sounds.  I didn’t know what sound; you can’t duplicate the Holy Ghost.  You can’t write it down!  There aren’t any syllables like it, but I picked it up in my heart, and I started praising the Lord.  I said, “I do believe it is God!”  I stopped and said, “Was that me talking?”  Lloyd didn’t say anything to me, because he was still praying.  Then I started praising the Lord again, and I started talking again in another language.  Then it got funny, and I started laughing!! 

          Now, can you imagine an officer coming around that night seeing me on the floor!  The devil was probably pushing anybody he could to come that way, but I believe there was a big angel standing out there saying, “No, no!  Tonight is his night!  You aren’t bothering him, so get out of here!” 

          A lot of people at church are afraid that God is going to do something to embarrass them!  I was in the middle of a prison Day Room with an inmate standing over me praying in the Holy Ghost, and I’m down there going crazy with laughter on the floor!  Can you imagine what an officer would have said about that in a report? 

          Tears were rolling down my face!  It only took fifteen minutes by the clock, and as soon as I took off in tongues Lloyd said, “Well, praise the Lord, I will see you later, brother,” and he went back to his cell.  There I was, all by myself walking around and making all kinds of sounds and syllables and praising the Lord!  That is how I got the Holy Ghost in a Correctional Center! 

          I finally went back to my desk and said, “Something has done happened to me, and I can’t wait to tell everybody about it!”  God Almighty, the Creator of the universe, had just seen fit to fill me with the Holy Ghost, and I got the evidence of speaking in an unknown tongue!

          Jesus said in Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”  I was hungry for God, and I got full that night! 

          When somebody says something to discourage you, just kick it out!  The devil was trying.  I could hear him from a distance, but it never got to my head.  I heard, “You had better quit!  You are going to loose your job!”  I mean, he was hyperventilating!  I said, “I think that I have lost my mind, and I love it!”  It does something to you.  It turns your priorities around.  I would rather be a fool for Christ than a fool for the devil any day.  You are going to serve God, or you are going to serve the devil!

          I sat back down at my desk, and I said, “Will it stay?”  I didn’t know.  Lloyd said, “You tell me.”  I said, “What do you mean?”  He said, “Well, try to talk in tongues.”  I said, “You mean, right now?”  He said, “Yes.”  I said to him, “Do you mean . . . just do it?  I mean, nobody has got to start me?  Nobody is going to lay hands on me again?” 

          Then I told the Lord, “I’ve got you now, and I’m not letting you go for anything!”  I got a hold of Jesus!  I got the same Holy Ghost that He got!  I asked Lloyd, “Can I do it anytime I want to?”  Lloyd said, “Sure!”  I said, “Can you?”  He said, “Yeah!”  I said, “Let me hear you!”  So, he started praying in the Holy Ghost right there!  I said, “You mean, you don’t have to be in church to do that?”  He said, “Were we in church out there?”  Well, I was ignorant and unlearned!  I didn’t know.

          Lloyd said, “Go ahead!”  I said, “Ok.”  I was sitting at my desk, and it was funny that there were no inmates moving in the hall at that moment.  It was just me and Lloyd standing there.  It was a few minutes after 12:00 P.M. when I said, “Ok.”  I was scared that it might run out.  I didn’t know! 

          The devil will tell you, “You got saved last night, but He’s not there now!”  That is why it is so earnestly needful that children of God get filled with the Holy Ghost so the next time the devil tries to hit you, you can start praying in tongues right in his face!  I started praying, and then I started praying in an unknown language!  I was praying in the Holy Ghost!  I thought that was hilarious, and fifteen more minutes passed as I laughed uncontrollably!  The joy of the Lord was on me!           

          Twenty-four inmates could have come and reported that insane officer, but for some reason they didn’t.  Lloyd was standing there, and he said, “You got it!”  Well, he had the Holy Ghost for a while, so it wasn’t new to him.  I said, “Wow, did you hear that?”  He said, “Yeah, I heard that, and it sounds just like you did in the other room.”  I said, “Can I do that all the time?”  He said, “Well, you can do it anytime you want to.”  I said, “Any time?  It’s not sin to do it too much?” 

          It seems like when we do something in excess we get in trouble, even when it usually isn’t sin, but you can’t pray too much in the Holy Ghost of God!  It’s a blessing from Almighty God!  There was something different about me.  I love what Jesus said in John 14:17 about the Holy Ghost.  “Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”  That night I was changed forever. 

          We had supper at midnight, just like any other shift, but I didn’t go in.  I stayed there, and Lloyd went on to bed, because by then it was about 1:00 A.M.  An officer came in and asked if I wanted to be relieved.  I said, “No, I got relief.” 

          What about all those things that God said that I could do now that I had the power?  I was looking that officer up and down; I was sizing this man up!  I thought, “I hear that cursing and swearing, so I will just cast the devil out of you,” but I didn’t.  I knew that I had power that I didn’t have before I went to work that night.  About an hour into my shift I had power!  I’m talking about POWER!  I’m talking about the same power that Jesus walked in on the earth!  I’m talking about the same power that created the universe!  I’m talking about the same power that raised Jesus from the dead!  He is alive, and He’s living right here in my heart! 

          I came out of there so excited.  You just feel so good!  Something happens when you get filled with the Holy Ghost!  Your mind is not even on yourself at the moment, because God is working in you.  It was a rat race before, but now it is a Holy Ghost race.

          I was like a child with more than a new toy.  It was a brand new life.  It was the life of Christ, and it was ready to grow.  I don’t know what I said, but I talked to God all the way home.  I had read in the Bible in Romans that He gives us utterances by the Spirit of God that are too wonderful to be uttered by mortal man.  The Holy Ghost can utter it, and he makes intercession.  Jude 20 says, “But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost.”  That was what I was doing! 

WHEN I GOT HOME

          I recounted to you my first day with the Holy Ghost.  It was the most beautiful morning that this planet ever produced!  My wife left for work 20 minutes before I got home, and I didn’t have anybody to tell!  While it was fresh I prayed some more at home, and the more I prayed the hotter it got.  Something was going on, and I forgot to ask Lloyd, but he didn’t blow up from the Holy Ghost! 

          When you are young in the Lord and the Spirit is on you, you believe God for anything, because faith is there.  You are quickened.  However, the devil said, “Oh, you just got emotional!  You didn’t get anything!  That guy was out of a cult!  Didn’t you hear what all he was in?”  I told the devil, “Well, I’m in something now!  Do you want to hear what I’m in?”  Then I started praying in tongues! 

          Finally, my Dad drove up that morning.  I was new in the Holy Ghost, and he was new in the Lord, and he wasn’t sure that his son wasn’t getting just a little weird, but I had to tell somebody.  Then, I thought that maybe I shouldn’t tell him.  And then God said, “You had better tell him.”  I said, “God!”  Then, I checked it again to see if I could really pray and speak in tongues, and I could!  Well, I didn’t want to tell him that I had it, and not be able to do it!  You check stuff like that, right?  When you pull up to the gas station, and before you start pumping your gas, don’t you check to see that you still have money in your pocket?

          Well, I decided to tell my Dad.  I said, “Ok.  Ok, I think that he can take it.”  I’m not exaggerating, and I’m not trying to be funny.  I said, “I think he can stand it.  He is not too old.  His heart is strong, but what is he going to think of me?”  Now, that bothered me.  We were standing by the tree that was next to the carport, and I said, “Dad, I have something that I want to tell you.”  It took me a long time to tell him, and he was standing there waiting for me to say something.  He probably wanted to go ahead and get on to farming.

          I said, “Dad, do you know what we have been talking about lately, about the gifts of the Spirit, and miracles, and the things of the Lord, and what we are believing the Lord to do?”  He said, “Yeah.”  Then it struck me!  I couldn’t say that it happened at the prison!  He would think that I had some kind of bug or something!  Then, I thought, “No, I had to, because it was the truth!”  God does things for a purpose. 

          I said, “Ok.  Ok.  Lord, I’m going to tell him.”  Finally, I said, “Dad, I got the Holy Ghost last night.”  My Dad said, “You did!”  Now, to you that would be nothing, but to me that was everything!  I said, “Yeah, Dad, just like in the Bible.  I talked in tongues!”  Then he said, “No kidding?”  He didn’t ask to hear them, but I kept waiting for him to ask.  I didn’t want to quit any longer than five minutes, because I didn’t want to loose it!  Then I said, “Yep, it is just like the Bible says, and I can do it anytime I want to.”  He said, “Well, good.”  Well, what could he say? 

          Some of you won’t get that blessed answer.  They might respond with, “You got WHAT?” or “You did WHAT?”   It doesn’t matter.  Get the real thing, and get plum full, and stay full!  You can keep the joy, and you can keep the blessing! 

          I went home that day with a fear that I would lose what God had given me.  Regrettably, the longer we stay in God, the less fear we have that we could lose what God has given us, and we will do things to grieve the sweet Spirit of God.  Because of His grace, He watches to see if we might ask forgiveness so that He can stay. 

          Before I went to bed, I got down by the side of the bed and prayed in the Spirit (the Holy Ghost) for forty-five solid minutes!  I timed it to make sure it stuck! 

          I received the Holy Ghost in the wee hours of the morning, but that isn’t why the Lord let the Holy Ghost stay with me.  Neither was it because I prayed so much before I went to bed.  He let me keep the Holy Ghost because I had the fear of the Lord, and I WANTED GOD!  Everything else was dim by comparison.  We have to get back to that. 

          I remember when I woke up that evening I thought, “Well, was it a dream?”  Have you ever woke up in the middle of the day and wondered where you were?  Then I said, “Lord, I praise you,” and very timidly started praying in the Holy Ghost again.  It was still there!  I can feel Him now, as I give this testimony.  Something got a hold of me many years ago, and He hasn’t let go since.  It is not that I was totally worthy to keep Him, but because He was faithful and just to forgive me of my sins.  I have fallen short of the glory of God many times, but I’ve always asked forgiveness.

          We have to get back to our first love.  Some who have been filled with the Holy Ghost are now cold, unbelieving, and fearful.  Some don’t really care because of the struggles that they have.  We need to hunger and thirst after God.  Fasting is hungering and thirsting after God more than meat!  Praying in the Spirit lifts you up, by the power of God, rather than conversing in our own foolish words. 

          Get the fire rekindled.  Seek God and study the Word of God instead of a newspaper or a magazine!  Some have lost their first love and grown cold.  It is really scary when you quit caring that you’ve grown cold.  It is digressive.  One day you just don’t pray.  You get busy, or something happens.  The voice of the Lord says, “Go pray.  Go shut yourself away and pray.  Take a walk and let’s commune with each other.  Talk to me!”  You don’t do it.  You say, “I will, Lord.  I will; just wait a minute.”  Then it happens again, and maybe you catch up.  You aren’t supposed to be playing catch up.  You are supposed to be building up!

          If you are hungry for God, you don’t care what other people say or do around you!  They don’t get you down when you’re in the Spirit.  However, when you get cold, you start getting cranky!  It is because you have the power that created the universe living in you, yet you are lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut.  It is for no reason except that you didn’t yield over to the Lord.  You didn’t pray when you should have!  We have all been guilty, but we can change it right now!

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?

          What are you going to do when God starts talking to you?  It took a very high price, paid by Jesus, to get you the promise of the Father, the baptism of the Holy Ghost.  It was paid for with blood.  Now He owns you. 

          I Corinthians 6:19-20 says, “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?  For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.”  

          Call out to God.  If you want to be saved, say “God, save me.”  If you are cold, say, “God, fire me up.”   You must admit where you are.  If you don’t care, tell Him.  If you are depressed, tell Him.  If you are backslid, tell Him.  Be honest with God, and get back to Him.

HUNGRY FOR GOD?

          When I got hungry for God, I continued to seek him for six years till I found Him.  After diligent search, I found Him, and I repented!

          In Psalms 77:1-10 David said, “I cried unto God with my voice, even unto God with my voice; and he gave ear unto me.  In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord: my sore ran in the night, and ceased not: my soul refused to be comforted.  I remembered God, and was troubled: I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah.  Thou holdest mine eyes waking: I am so troubled that I cannot speak.  I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times.  I call to remembrance my song in the night: I commune with mine own heart: and my spirit made diligent search.  Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more?  Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore?  Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah.  And I said, This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High.”

          David made diligent search and then came up with some questions.  This is a woeful sounding group of scriptures.  Often I have referred to them, because I have asked some of the same questions David did. 

          Sometimes we wonder where God is and if He has forgotten to be merciful.  We wonder if He’s so angry that, perhaps, He won’t do another miracle, or if we have made Him so angry that He has shut up His tender mercies and not another soul will be saved.  We wonder if the line has been drawn and maybe somebody in the family has crossed over that line, and God won’t have anything to do with them.

          David said in Verse 3, “I remembered God, and was troubled. . . .”  This scripture works on me when I think about the Lord Jesus’ ministry and commandment that He gave in John 14:12 which says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.”

          I don’t see great works being done.  I see the puny condition of the church.  She is all dressed up, but she isn’t going anywhere.  I think about all of the mistakes made and the vows broken.  I think about the brutish pastors and the scattered sheep.  I think about the wrestlings that the devil hounds me with.  He says, “Just take up another occupation.  You know how to work with your hands, so go do it, and give up this latest venture of yours.  You know it is just a fling.”  I’ve been at it a long time.  It is not a fling!

          I remembered God and was troubled.  Peter and John walked up to the gate Beautiful and said to a man in Acts 3:6, “. . . Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.” 

          When Peter got a hold of that man, faith got a hold of that man, and his ankle bones received strength, and he leaped up the Bible says!  When you see things like that happening on a regular basis your joy will be full!  Jesus said in John 16:24, “Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.” 

HUNGRY FOR REVIVAL?

          Do you ever get hungry for revival?  Do you get tired of decreeing a thing, and it is established, but you would like to see the thing done NOW?  Someone told me, “I’m believing God, but I’m getting tired of it!”  I know what they meant.  He was tired of just believing and not receiving yet.  If you are thinking the same thing, say so.  It isn’t sin; it is a trial of your faith.  David said he communed with his own heart, and he remembered the way he used to be in the beginning, his first love, the zeal he had, the joy and the expectation! 

          Do you remember that expectation?  You couldn’t wait to get to church, because it could be that you would see something marvelous!  When the people don’t come expecting anymore, you get a house full of oppression.

          A whole city had so much unbelief that Jesus took a blind man outside of town and healed him. People were standing around full of unbelief, and He wasn’t going to reward their unbelief.  Afterward, He came back and tried to deal with the people again on faith.  God is still on the throne, the Bible is still true, and what He says He will do, He is still going to do!

          David said in Psalm 77:10, “. . . This is my infirmity. . . .”  When you say infirmity, the first thing I think about is sickness, but it also means weakness.  David called unbelief infirmity.  He called fearfulness, doubt, his wrestlings, and the war that was going on in his soul an infirmity.  He was sick of unbelief and fear, so he said in Psalm 77:11, “I will remember the works of the LORD. . . .”

          Do you remember what God has done for you?  Verse 12-14 says, “I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings.  Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary: who is so great a God as our God?  Thou art the God that doest wonders. . . .”  Where is the sanctuary of God in the earth today?  Jesus said the Kingdom of God is within you as a child of God, so it is in the believers!    

          We need to stir up the coals and kindle the fire! Throw on some bigger logs, and let it burn and wax hot until it burns up all the chaff of our thinking, all the unbelief and the fear, and the things that easily beset us.     God is still God, and He is still on the throne.  He will bring us through to victory.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

PASTOR KEVIN BADGLEY

LIVING HOPE FELLOWSHIP, P. O. BOX 111, GRAND CHAIN, IL  62941

CHURCH / FAX (618) 634-2541

E-mail  livinghope@hughes.net

www.livinghopefellowshipchurch.org

These condensed Bible studies have been published to help new Christians in their new walk with the Lord.  Kevin Badgley, the author, is the pastor of Living Hope Fellowship Church.

This is a Living Hope Fellowship publication.