Sing for joy!  Your hard service is over!!!

  The last few weeks the Lord has been speaking through His Word, from Isaiah 40:1-2, concerning the appointed time, this is a new day; God is doing a new thing.  The Lord has been speaking that we need this Word to sink in deeper.  Actually, God has been speaking that to us since September 9, 2001.  God has been speaking to us exactly this, “Comfort!  Comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her hard service is completed; that her sin has been paid for."

    Let's look at verse 2, “speak to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed.”  In King James it says, “Your warfare is over.”  God spoke separately to both my husband and I, this Word.  This is the appointed time for our hard service to be completed, for our warfare to be accomplished, it’s over, it’s done.  Why?  Because God says it’s the appointed time, this is the appointed time for this to be completed, for the warfare to be accomplished.  He is saying, “Comfort!  Comfort My people with this information, with this revelation.”  We’ve been doing that.  Last week Pastor Vedral spoke about from Ezekiel 37, “Can these dry bones live?”  Well this is the appointed time for dry bones to come to life!  It’s time for the things that were dead to come to life again! 

 Some of us are challenged in this but are we walking in the word “comfort?”  Pastor taught us that the meaning of the word “comfort” means to breathe a sigh of relief.  We need to experience the comfort of the Holy Spirit and the comfort of His Word.  This Word needs to go deeper and become flesh, until there is a change in us, until we are breathing a sigh of relief that our hard service is over, that our warfare has been accomplished.   Not only that we know because we’ve heard it but we must know in our hearts that it is finished!  Even when the enemy tries to come back with warfare and battle and schemes and tricks we can say, “This is finished!  You’re under my feet!  This is done! We’re not going there anymore, the warfare has been accomplished!  My hard service has been completed!  This is a new day, this is the appointed time!”

 When that Word has been deposited in our spirits it cannot be moved.  But when it’s in your head the devil can argue with your mind and show you things that will be in contradiction to the Word that God has spoken.  He’s the enemy of our souls, continuously lying to us because there is no truth in him.  When he bombards us continuously with his lies we are not comforted.  That’s why the Word of God must be deposited in your hearts and not just your heads.  Let’s face it, when you know something in your heart you know it!!  No one can tell you different, and this Word needs to be deposited deeply into our hearts.

 Turn to Isaiah 49 verse 13.  “Shout for joy, O heavens; rejoice O earth (that’s us!); burst into song, O mountains!  For the Lord comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.” Again, that’s us!  If we feel afflicted, like we’ve been battered by the enemy, we probably have been but the good news is we can shout for joy because the Lord comforts His people.  Let’s look at Isaiah 51:3.  “The Lord will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; (maybe you feel ruined today) He will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the Lord.  Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing.”  Isaiah 52:9 says, “Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem.”  Are we hearing something in these verses?  I think we are!  Isaiah 54:1 says “Sing, O barren woman…” Maybe there is no fruit in your life, no evidence of the Holy Spirit’s wonderworking power in your life.  Verse 1 continues, “… Sing you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.”  

 Every one of these verses contains the word “sing.”  Let’s look at Isaiah 55:12.  “You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands” because of the comfort of the Lord! God is giving us a clue here.  We may not be experiencing comfort because this Word has not taken root in our hearts yet.  But He’s giving us a way to get there and that’s through singing!  Through singing, through having confidence and proclaiming in song our faith in God, our trust in His Word. We need to sing to Him and respond to Him.  He says, “My beloved children, I’m coming to you to comfort you, I want you to breathe a sigh of relief because your hard service has been completed, because your warfare has been accomplished.”  He has made our response so easy and that’s to sing!

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