END-TIME REFORMERS.
HYMN 26: STAND UP, STAND UP FOR JESUS.
1. Stand up, stand up for Jesus! ye soldiers of the cross;
Lift high His royal banner, it must not suffer loss:
From vict’ry unto vict’ry, His army shall He lead,
Till every foe is vanquished, and Christ is Lord indeed.
2. Stand up, stand up for Jesus! The trumpet call obey:
Forth to the mighty conflict, in this His glorious day;
Ye that are men now serve Him against unnumbered foes;
Let courage rise with danger, and strength to strength oppose.
3. Stand up, stand up for Jesus! Stand in His strength alone,
The arm of flesh will fail you, ye dare not trust your own;
Put on the gospel armor, and watching unto prayer,
Where calls the voice of duty, be never wanting there.
4. Stand up, stand up for Jesus! the strife will not be long;
This day the noise of battle, the next the victor’s song;
To him that overcometh a crown of life shall be;
He with the King of glory shall reign eternally.
MEMORISE:
The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Mark 1:3
READ: 2 Kings 23:1-8
1 And the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem.
2 And the king went up into the house of the LORD, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, both small and great: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the LORD.
3 And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant.
4 And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Bethel.
5 And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven.
6 And he brought out the grove from the house of the LORD, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people.
7 And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.
8 And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba, and brake down the high places of the gates that were in the entering in of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on a man's left hand at the gate of the city.
MESSAGE
At various times in history, whenever the people of God appeared to have lost their spiritual antennae, God would usually raise a reformer to start off a revival. In biblical terms, a reformer is a person ordained by God to carry out correctional changes in order to rectify ungodly practices. May we yield ourselves to be used as reformers to ignite the fire of revival in the body of Christ today in the mighty name of Jesus.
Reformers include Josiah, Asa, and Hezekiah-kings who rules over Israel at different times in history, as well as prophets Ezekiel, Ezra, Nehemiah and John the Baptist to mention a few. The reformation of Asa- king of Judah is summarized in 1 Kings 15:12-13 thus:
“ And he took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.And also Maachah his mother, even her he removed from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove; and Asa destroyed her idol, and burnt it by the brook Kidron.”
True Christians who once pledge allegiance to God could afterwards turn back to live contrary to their avowed beliefs and declaration of faith. Some people come to accept Jesus at the peak of their hopeless situations only to abandon Him after receiving divine solutions to their problems. The Church is currently in a state of regression; many Christians are no longer living according to God’s word but rather, the standards of the world.
We the children of God must be reformers- people who would do the right thing no matter the cost. We must be people who will instruct fledgling and backslidden Christians, as well as unbelievers to completely obey the word of God at all times. God is seeking reformers; are you one?
PRAYER POINT:
Father, please help me to be a reformer in these end times, in the mighty name of Jesus.
BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: Proverbs 16-18.
