What we’re going back to is we’re trying to set forth in our own hearts, those of us who are in leadership of this community—we’ve not yet hit the times that they were going through in Jerusalem, of persecution to where everybody brought everything they had and laid it at the apostles’ feet.  Do you believe you’re capable of doing that right now?  Can you trust the eldership here that you would give everything you have and put it at their feet and believe that it would be used for the care of everybody as the needs arise?  The most of us here would say, “Well, I believe that’s Bible.  Amen!  It's good, sound doctrine but not for me.  But if that day came, if we really came into that same period of time that they were facing then, I would do it.”  Well, how do you prepare for that?  By learning to fear God now (amen?), by contending with the footmen.  The chariots are coming.

Malachi goes on here.  “What do you mean we’ve despised your name?”  “You’ve given me your crumbs.  You’ve given polluted bread.”  You’ve given that which is of the wisdom of this world—it’s earthly; it’s sensual; it’s demonic.  It’s “lust” bread.  It’s that which you’ve obtained for your own glory and for your own sustenance, that which is left over and polluted, that which is beginning to—whatever bread does when it—mold; that’s what it is and some of those particular things.  So, we can’t eat it anymore.  “So, what I can’t use, I’ll give to God.”  You know, I’m going to bring God my—you know, we’re doing work here around the ministry and the grounds, so I’m going to bring God—and donate my rake.  “It only has one tooth, but, you know, we just want to honor God.  And this new one I’m going to keep at home, just, you know, because I do have this two-foot-square garden.”  What belongs to God?  Do we recognize Him as the source of all we need?  We say it all the time.  “Oh, God’s the provider.  He’s given me everything I have.  God’s my source.”

When we begin to apply the wisdom that we’ve learned from the world in any circumstance that we’re facing before we’ve sought God, we are bringing reproach and despising His name.  Every decision we face, God has a direction for our lives.  He's leading us for a purpose that you can’t see, I can’t see, but God is working in our lives all of these things for His glory.  Can I remind us all of one thing?  We don’t deserve God’s blessings; amen?  I wish I could do, at this moment, a better job of comparing this world, its wisdom, its desires, with the holiness and awesomeness of our God!  When we approach Him, we take off our shoes.  It’s holy ground!  Well, Hebrews says we enter in boldly; amen?  Of course we enter in boldly!  We have a right to be there.  Let me remind you:  when you enter in through that door boldly, in the name of Jesus, you have a right to that access.  When you glimpse God, you’ll fall on your face as dead because our God is an awesome God!  He doesn’t need your counsel!  Amen?