Whether you scan the page, or read through the message, I want to thank you for stopping by our page. It is an honor for me to host each week that which the Lord puts in my spirit and share my Sunday morning message for April 2nd, presented at Eagle's Rest Ministries, meeting in the auditorium of the Poinciana School on Kennedy Dr, Key West, Fl. Join us each Sunday Morning at 10:30 am, for a time of prayer, praise, worship, and the Word.
My Palm Sunday message this Sunday is "Where Two Paths Meet"... This is what kept ringing in my spirit on Tuesday morning before Palm Sunday, as I was reading the Word... The scripture which I have chosen, For Palm Sunday, is....
Matthew 6:24“No one can serve two masters at the same time. He will hate one of them and love the other. Or he will be faithful to one and not the other. You can’t serve God and this world at the same time”. It has always been and will always be about the choices we make.
Rudyard Kipling wrote the following.... If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings—and not lose the common touch. If neither foe nor loving friend can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much. If you can fill the unforgiving minutes, With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run. Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it......
Today I’m going to go against the conventional consensus and have us take a fresh look at Palm Sunday . It is referred to as the triumphant entry, but under the surface, where all the shouting and accolades are filling the air, something much bigger and deeper is going on. Everything Jesus did, went against the expectations of the crowd. He chose a donkey on which to ride into the city. He was staying under the radar, till his time had come, but the crowd had other plans.
The mentality of the crowd was to start in that street and then march into the center of power and take the throne of Herod, evict the Roman army, and march on to Rome where they would install Jesus as ruler and emperor of the entire region...
So I want us to look at Palm Sunday by taking an honest look at what’s really going on here.... how the joyful waving of palm branches, the garments cast down on the ground for the donkey to walk on, the Cheers and pats on the back quickly turn into fists in the air and a mob shouting for judgment and death of the same person they were so accepting of and wildly celebrating before, as He stood before Pilate a short time later.
The entire Palm Sunday experience was to pressure Jesus and appeal to His humanity, to take another way, other than God’s way.
That theme started much earlier, at the dawn of time, when Satan rebelled and said “I’ll do it my way”.... Then he led a heavenly revolt and was cast down to the earth, where he vented his rage as any spoiled child, throwing a tantrum will do. If God’s highest angel, did this, to the heavenly Father, don’t feel you’re a bad parent when your kid begins to rebel.
But then Satan made an illegal entrance into the garden of Eden and spread his rebellion, into Eve, who then spread it to Adam.... “You can have it your way.... God isn’t always right, you have your own ideas, so, why should you always have to do everything God’s way”! That was the theme of his revolution, and it still is today
Adam and Eve fell for it and mankind has been looking for another way, that is not God’s way every since.
Satan is figuring by this time, “Hey, I think I’ve got something powerful going for me here.” Just appeal to their ego, their pride, their lust for power, and they’ll play right into my hands”. They’ll empower me, and together, through mankind, I can do what I set out to do in the beginning..... I can dethrone God....
So for thousands of years, it worked, with very little resistance. Only a handful of Patriarchs, prophets, and kings, refused to resist his plan. But he was able to convince people that those few who opposed him, were just weirdo’s and misfits, who were out of touch and disillusioned...
Then when it seemed that no one would be able to walk in perfect obedience and expose the devil’s lies and deception, a virgin gave birth to the God child, on Christmas morning. Satan’s lie sowed it’s seed in King Herod’s heart and he sent out a decree that every male child under two years old, would be slain. Satan knew that his plan was on shaky ground. When Joseph was warned of the plan. Mary and Joseph chose God’s way and went to Egypt where they waited until it was safe and they received word that Herod was dead.
As Jesus reached manhood, and His ministry grew in favor with God and man, we next see Satan as he confronts Jesus in the wilderness temptation, and each of the attempts he made to get Jesus to turn stones into bread, to cast himself from the heights of the temple, and to bow down to his evilness and receive the kingdoms of earth.... were all attempts to get Christ to do it another way besides God’s way. But they were all met with “It is written”. And Satan leaves for a season. Sounds like a great plan to me. “it is written”.....That choice will chase the devil off every time.
This brings us to Palm Sunday, and this Palm Sunday event was just another attempt, to use the crowd, to convince Jesus to find another way, instead of the suffering of the cross. He was using the crowd to appeal to Jesus’ ego. To convince the flesh and blood God man, that He could avoid the pain and humiliation that was ahead, and accomplish in the natural what could only be done in the supernatural.
Knowing what Satan was up to, and that he was using the crowd to play to Jesus’ ego, the bible says that Jesus ignored the crowd, went to the temple and drove out the money changers, and those who were selling sacrifices which were required by Jewish law, for tremendous profit. We can do the right thing for the wrong reasons and still get the wrong results.
In the garden where Jesus prayed, the night He was betrayed, Satan tried to use the fear of the horror and agony that lay ahead, to overwhelm Jesus’ heart and mind, until it was so intense, his sweat was mixed with blood as the very capillaries in his skin began to burst under the pressure. As He resisted, He even asked that the cup of suffering pass from Him, but closed the request with “Never the less”... Thy will be done”....Our will can be the enemy of God or the enemy of Satan.
Satan’s pressure didn’t stop there, because even on the cross, Satan spoke once again through the crowd.... As Jesus struggled in His last moments of glorious suffering.... the crowd shouted their cruel taunts “He saved others, but He cannot save himself”....”If you are who you say you are, come down from the cross”....
And Hell partied and demons screamed out victory as God hung on the cross, Satan celebrated in his hellish domain, but a shock wave of redemption power went through hell, as Christ cried out “IT IS FINISHED”....
And He marched into Hell and took the keys of death, hell and the grave, and rose up to heaven to sprinkle His blood on the heavenly altar, before He came back to earth to present the keys to the apostles, and every believer who would call upon Him and follow him. We have the keys, because Jesus didn’t fall for the pressure to settle for another way, and neither should we.
John 11:25 Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies. 26And everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. John 14:6 “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
Satan is always pressuring us to take another way and he wants to keep us from our prayer time, and clutter our lives with many other demands which will keep us off our knees and out of spiritual warfare. I want to tell you about a mom, who wouldn’t let anything keep her from prayer.... Susan Cook, a Christian mom in Sebring, Florida received a letter from her 21-year-old son Dustin, a specialist with the Army National Guard serving in Iraq.
“Dear Mom, I Just want to let you know I’m still O.K. I Wanna tell you this cool story. Two nights ago, I had gone to bed late. I couldn’t sleep as usual. Then about midnight I heard 2 loud booms, which sounded like they were 2 feet away from me… after about 5 minutes of silence we all got up off of the floor and got back to bed. Come to find out, we had 2 rocket propelled grenades (otherwise known a RPG’s) fired at our building from across the river. The Chaplain had gone up on the roof to see the guards up there, and they vouch for this, too, by the way. He said he saw the 2 men fire the RPG’s almost simultaneously, and the small exploding heads were on their way, no turning back. Being a Chaplain, what is the one thing you always carry with you?...a Bible. The Chaplain said he saw the 2 RPG’s coming, looking as though they were headed directly towards him. He heard a loud voice within him, yell "STOP THEM." He said he didn’t know why but he held up his hand with the Bible in it and softly said, "Please Lord." What happened next is gonna blow your mind. The Chaplain said he watched the RPG’s almost instantly do a 90 degree turn away from the building and land harmlessly in a field about 100 feet away from the palace where we are headquartered. Mom, I think that there is a second force here, even stronger than we are. Our guardian angels have taken up their post all around our perimeter. I know it has been because of everyone’s prayers back home, and I have 100% faith that I will be returning home safe and in 1 piece. Though I do not know the time or the day, I do know it will happen soon. Well, Thanks mom, for always having faith, thanks for all of your prayers, thanks for never giving up hope, and most of all, thanks for being a wonderful Mom! I love you. Love, Dustin”......This mom chose prayer and would not be distracted...
When the battle is the hardest, God is doing His greatest work...and so much depends on the choices we make, and that we choose God’s way. Dr. Wilbur Chapman became pastor of a church in Philadelphia when he was a young man. After his first sermon, an old gentleman said to him, "You’re pretty young to be pastor of this church. But you preach the Gospel, and I’m going to help you all I can." The man continued: "I’m going to pray for you every service that you may have the Holy Spirit’s power upon you, and two others have agreed to join with me in prayer for you. The 3 became 10, the 10 became 20, and 20 became 50, the 50 became 200 who met before every service to pray that the Holy Spirit might come upon their pastor. He always went into the pulpit feeling that he would always have the anointing in answer to the prayers of those who had faithfully prayed for him. It was a joy to preach! The result was that they received 1,100 salvations in three years. It was the fruit of the Holy spirit in answer to prayer!" They could have done many other things but they chose prayer!
Satan wants us to choose another way, and it’s the same temptation he’s used for thousands of years.... so he’s pretty good at it...
God’s way is the way of love....Satan wants us to choose another way, instead of love.... DL Moody once said “Show me a church where there is love, and I will show you a church that is a power in the community.” Just having meetings, singing, preaching, praying, but no personal show of love and caring in the services and through the week, will never be enough.
A little boy attended Children’s Church. When his parents moved to another part of the city the little fellow still attended the same Children’s church, even though it meant a long, tiresome walk each way. A friend asked him why he went so far, since there were plenty of other churches just as good near his home. "Well, he said, They may be as good for other folks, but not for me". "Well, Why not?" The friend asked. "Because they really do love a fellow over there," he responded.
If the world truly believed that we really do love them, there would be fewer empty churches, and a lot less folks who never come through a church door.
A Christian man worked with a gay man and witnessed to him every day that he had the opportunity. One day the gay person, said to him.... “You tell me that God loves me, and Jesus loved me so much He died for me, but never once have you invited me to your house to sit at your table....I guess that’s where love draws the line....
1 CORINTHIANS 13:1 “If I were to speak with eloquence in earth’s many languages, and in the heavenly tongues of angels, yet I didn’t express myself with love, my words would be reduced to the hollow sound of nothing more than a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I were to have the gift of prophecy with a profound understanding of God’s hidden secrets, and if I possessed unending supernatural knowledge, and if I had the greatest gift of faith that could move mountains, but have never learned to love, then I am nothing.
3 And if I were to be so generous as to give away everything I owned to feed the poor, and to offer my body to be burned as a martyr, without the pure motive of love, I would gain nothing of value. 13 there are three things that will always remain: faith, hope, and love—yet love surpasses them all. So above all else, let love be the beautiful prize for which you run”.
Satan wants us to choose another way instead of the place where the Christian church began.... in people’s homes. There is an all out attack on the home. Satan wants to indoctrinate our children against God’s way in their choices. (there’s a reason I made other choices, brown on the power point!!)
Acts 5:42 Every day, in the temple courts and from house to house, and they did not stop teaching, proclaiming and demonstrating the good news that Jesus is the Christ.
Our homes should be light houses, Holy Spirit filling stations, and sanctuaries where love and faith are demonstrated daily, not only to our families, but to those who come from broken homes, families in turmoil, and the unloved and forgotten.
I read that Hitler came to America as a young man to attend college. He stayed in a Christian home where he was never once invited to learn about the bible, the Lord’s salvation and His love for every person. He was just another exchange student. But think about how much the world would have changed, if that one young man, had seen the power of Jesus love at work, and had received Christ as His personal savior. The world could have been affected by one Godly home!
God started the church in homes in the book of Acts, because it is the foundation of any culture. It is where we learn responsibility, accountability, honor and loyalty, to love and be loved, kindness, forgiveness, patience, obedience, identity, respect, and it should be where we learn about Christ and the abundant life He offers.
May we be challenged to see our homes as a place where lives can be changed and the world can be changed forever in the Christian atmosphere of our homes.
“And they did not stop teaching, proclaiming and demonstrating house to house, the good news that Jesus is the Christ”....
Satan wants us to choose another way instead of reaching out to strengthen and encourage one another.... We can get so caught up and preoccupied with our own struggle and our own cares of life, that we fail to reach out to those around us.
In 1903, A theater in Chicago was packed full, when a fire broke out and quickly spread. In panic, folks jammed the exit doors so no one could get out, since all the doors swung in, instead of out. 590 people died and when the fire department broke through, only one man emerged who had clawed and scratched his way over all the bodies. For many years he would be heard mumbling over and over “I saved nobody but myself”.....I saved nobody but myself”.... How many will stand one day in heaven, Oh, yes, they made it, but their family didn’t make it, their spouse didn’t make it, folks they called friend, didn’t make it, but they made it in... Oh, yes, there will be tears in heaven, my friend. When we see the angel of judgment, lead our loved ones, who have just heard “depart from me”...and casts them into the lake of fire forever, and we were too embarrassed, afraid, intimidated.... What a wonderful day, when I led my brother to the Lord before he died. My mom had walked away from God, and I had the privilege of leading her back to the savior!
I’ve never had a bridge, a highway, a building, or a boat named after me, but I have had a person named after me and to me that’s a much bigger deal.... But even bigger than that, I have lead many people over my life to receive the name of Jesus and be named “Christian”... Now when buildings, bridges, highways and boats, have all crumbled, those souls will last for eternity.....And will enjoy the glory of heaven, in God’s presence, instead of eternal torment....
1 Thessalonians 2:18 “For we wanted to come to you-- again and again--but Satan stopped us”. Oh, he’s so good at getting folks to miss opportunities to change lives and present Christ to others.
A Professional man who lost his job, took work on a construction job, simply to put bread on the table. He was suddenly plunged into a drastically different world; instead of going to an office each day, he was hauling loads of concrete block and mortar up to the 6th level of a construction site. Profanity filled the air, especially from the foreman, whose leadership consisted of cursing at people and intimidation. "The worker had become the brunt of more than one joke each time his lack of experience caused him to do something foolish. The stories of his mishaps, were retold constantly and he felt more and more like an outsider. Near the end of the third week, the new employee felt he couldn’t take it anymore. And he decided to finish out the morning and just walk away and leave at lunchtime.
But just before noon, the foreman came around with paychecks. As he handed the man his envelope, he made his first civil comment to him in three weeks. "Hey, there’s a woman working in the front office who knows you. Says she takes care of your kids sometimes." "Who?" He named the woman, who sometimes helped in the nursery of the church where the man and his family worshiped. The foreman then went on with his rounds. When he opened his envelope, he found, along with his check, a handwritten note from the payroll clerk: "When one part of the body of Christ suffers, we all suffer with it. Just wanted you to know that I’m praying for you in these challenging days." He stared at the note, astonished at God’s timing. He hadn’t even known the woman worked for this company. Here at his lowest hour, she had given him the courage to go on, to push another wheelbarrow of mortar up that ramp. What might not mean a lot to someone else, meant a lot to this man at this moment in his life.
God’s ways are not our ways, scripture tells us
Isaiah 55:8-9 For His thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are His ways your ways,” As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His ways higher than your ways and His thoughts than your thoughts.
The Bible also tells us in Proverbs 14:12 that “there is a way that seems right to a person, but the end is the way that leads to destruction”.
Proverbs 3:5-6 says this “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
Because of the office worker’s encouragement, the worker stayed, and because he stayed, the boss, happened to look again at his resume, and called him into the office, to inform him that his assistant had quit, and he had the job!
When folks did it God’s way, the walls of Jericho fell down flat!
When folks did it God’s way, the axe head floated
When folks did it God’s way, manna fell in the wilderness and they were filled
When folks did it God’s way, the Red sea parted, and the Egyptians drowned
When folks did it God’s way, the oil and the meal were multiplied in famine
When folks did it God’s way, they entered the land flowing with milk and honey
When folks did it God’s way, the lame walked, the blind eyes and ears opened, the lepers were cleansed, the sick were healed, and the dead were raised!
Satan knows Jesus’ voice when you speak it... He knows how Jesus acts when you do it..... He knows his power is broken when you demand it.... and he knows when to flee, and get lost when you put God’s word in his face....
You don’t have to convince him, he already knows who Jesus is, and he knows those who Jesus lives within....
"Not I but Christ in me, the hope of glory"....
Irene Sagin says that when she was a teen-ager, she used to cross a park where she saw mothers talking together, while the toddlers sat on their swings, with no one to push them. She says that she would "give them a push, and you know what happens when you push a kid on a swing? Pretty soon he’s pumping for all he’s got and doing it himself. That’s what my role in life is--I’m there to give others a push, so they will start doing it themselves.... (tell someone, pump it up, come on, pump it up)
Who’s way do you choose......Abraham’s way, produced an Ishmael, through someone that was not his wife. God’s way produced an Isaac, through his barren wife at 90 years old, and he was 100 years old! (sounds good to me)
Gideon’s way was to round up an army of thousands to go against the enemy, God’s way was to use 300 men against the 100,000 man army of Midianites....
Jonah’s way was to go as far in the opposite direction as he could from God’s way.
God’s way was to provide an ocean going Uber whale taxi, to bring him to Nineveh so that the entire city could repent, turn to God and experience one of the greatest revivals in the bible. Around 600,000 people repented and turned to God...
Somebody say... God’s way is better!
Satan wants us to do it our way..... the moment we decide to go God’s way, he loses, and blessings begin to fall everywhere!
So the real choice is
1. blessing or 2. Cursing...
You may say, Pastor, that’s a no brainer.... but look what the bible says... Matthew 7:13-14. “Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. But narrow is the gate and difficult.” is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
Amazing!..... God’s way gets voted down most of the time....
And yet it is the way of blessing, restoration, abundance, and reconciliation....
Let’s change the odds.... what do you say!!? I believe we can change the statistics beginning today.... God’s way, not another way!!!
Your influence can make the difference and instead of a Hitler, we can have another Billy Graham.
Jesus has chosen to operate in and through a different body than He had when He was on earth 2000 years ago and guess what, He chose your body and mine.... “Christ in me, the hope of glory”... but it’s my choice.
If these messages have ministered to you and you would feel to support our ministry in any way, you may send any support or drop a note to "Eagle's Rest, P.O box 2820, Key West, Florida 33040.... But most important, keep us in your prayers that we may be a tool in the Master's hands, and Jesus may be exalted continually in our lives and ministry. Thank you in advance and God richly bless you.. We look forward to hearing from you.
