AWAKE!
OH ZION –
His Words And You 004 - 29June2013
Awake, awake!
Put on your strength, O Zion;
Put on your beautiful garments,
O Jerusalem, the holy city!
For the uncircumcised and the unclean
Shall no longer come to you. - Isaiah
52 1
Here we are talking to Zion
What is Zion? – a city.
Where is Zion? – Zion is a
hill in Jerusalem, where the temple is, it is a holy place where they go to
seek the face of God
Our Zion today is the church
of God – this is where the presence of God is, this is where we gather to seek
the face of God. Although God is everywhere, but this is where we gather. When
we talk of Zion we are not talking of the building but our gathering. This goes
to say that if ten of us gather to seek the face of God, where we gather is our
Zion.
Awake oh Zion – I do not think
it is possible for me to see a man working or walking and I will tell him to
wake up, it is obvious that before we can tell a guy to wake up, something is
definitely wrong, it is either the person is sick, sleeping, slumbering,
sluggish or even dead.
In our bible verse we have
about five points which we will divide into two. First one has three points
while the second has two points.
Awake, awake oh! Zion. –
Zion is sleeping
Put on your strength, O
Zion;
Put on your beautiful
garments,
With these three points we
can diagnose three problems of Zion, it is either they are sleeping sick or
even dead.
They were weak, they have no
strength in them, that is why they were asked to cloth themselves with strength
They were unfortunate
without their glory, which is why they were asked to put on their garment of
splendor, of glory. They lost their glory
2 O Jerusalem, the holy city! – Zion is an holy place, a
place that is holy is not supposed to manifest the three problems earlier
mentioned. A holy place is not supposed to be sleeping, it is not supposed to
be weak nor supposed to be without glory
Let’s see why it is so.
For the uncircumcised and
the unclean shall no longer come to you. – The uncircumcised and the unclean
has been gathering with them when worshipping.
Now tell me why there will
not be problem when the place is constantly defiled. That is why many churches
are sleeping. The world has entered the church and the church has entered the
world. The uncircumcised and the unclean are the ones in the church, in fact
they are the ones preaching, they are the ones in charge. They are also
members, so there will be problem
Let’s look at the problems
one after the other
Sleepiness – let’s look at
the complexities of being asleep. No man can predict exactly when he will sleep
it is not possible, you either sleep before or after, you can only give time
when you’ll lie down, not when you’ll sleep. There was a time I was trying to
time when I will sleep; I was concentrating on the watch that I could not even
sleep, so I had to put the watch away, before I could get my sleep.
Let’s consider what could
happen when we sleep, let’s see what God can do when we are sleeping, we will also
look at what the devil can do when we are sleeping.
Let’s look at Gen 2:21 “ And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall
on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in
its place”.
This is similar to
operations in the hospital, that is why before any operation is carried out in the
hospital, they cause the patient to sleep, then they open up the belly remove
things, put things and have the belly sewn back., with the help of almighty,
the patient is brought back to life. He will then see the wound and feel pains
thereafter. Unless told, the patient does not know what has been removed or
added to his being..
We can see what God did to
Adam, he needed a rib from him to create Eve, he did not remove the rib in
Adam’s awareness, he caused him to sleep, and then he removed what he wanted. He
was not dead, cause you may think it is only when one is dead that something
like this could be performed, the bible says he was caused to sleep. So you can
imagine what can be done to you while you sleep.
They were weak, that is why
they were told to cloth themselves with strength. We can see this in the live
of Samson, the strongest man on earth. The philistines could not defeat him, because
of his strength they need to take care of his power first, what did they do,
they cut off the binds of his hair while asleep. He woke up and found his power
is gone.
They were unfortunate; they
were wretched because their glory was lost. We can see this in the life of Joseph.
When he told his brothers about his dream, they were determined to take off his
garment of glory. They did not stop at that, but they soaked the garment of
glory in blood.
The uncircumcised and the
defiled shall not enter you again. Defiled means something dirty, unclean, not
pleasant to God. Uncircumcised, his then was sign of gods covenant. Whoever is
born is circum within 7 days, if not it means the child is not of God.
When you pray too much in
the physical it affects the spiritual.
The influx of the
uncircumcised and the defiled brought about the three situations above.
Circumcision today refers to
the circumcision of the spirit – being born again.
What can we do about the
uncircumcised and the defiled let us look at Is52 3, 11,12
Gen 2:21-22
Isa 52:3
3 For thus says the LORD: "You have sold
yourselves for nothing, And you shall be redeemed
without money."
Isa 52:11-12
11 Depart! Depart! Go out
from there, Touch no unclean thing; Go out from the midst of
her, Be clean, You who bear the vessels of
the LORD.
12 For you shall not go out
with haste, Nor go by flight; For the LORD will go before
you, And the God of Israel will
be your rear guard.
Now that we have known our problems,
we have to make sure the uncircumcised are circumcised, and we must not torch
that which is unclean. If we take out these two things the other three will not
manifest. We have to take out those two things – the uncircumcised and the
defiled.
Surely the world and the
church are two opposite things, they operate in different way. If the clubbers
come to the church they want the church to operate like club. They want noise
like in the club, they want lively music and not spiritual music, and they
expect to see harlots around. Bad influences will crop in and even the
believers and the born again will start backsliding and before you know it the
church starts sleeping.
We must therefore find a way
of circumcising the uncircumcised and make holy the deified. Do not be
surprised, even some preachers and the leader are among the uncircumcised, they
may be unaware; they thought they are upright but they are not.
We must pray constantly for
the uncircumcised to get circumcised and the defiled clean, then sleepiness
will depart, strength restored and the garment of glory returned.
We all must search ourselves
whether we are of the world or we are for Christ, whether we want to be hot or
cold. We need to pray that God should cleanse us and have us repaired and make
us whole, god should circumcise us spiritually.
Michael Oladipupo Ogundele
Sermon as Youth Pastor
during Youth week 2013
At Grace Deliverance Bible
Ministries, Iloye, Sango Ogun state Nigeria.
His Words and You Ministries
e-mail – olufemi@hiswordsandyou.com
