Power and Glory Tabernacle, Akure
Youth Convention 2022
Times and Seasons
Day 3: Sunday 3rd July 2022
Message 5
Rev. Ojo Gbadegesin
Mark 4:1-2,10
If one is to do a program in an agrarian society where people are into crop production and animal rearing, you’d probably expect the peak period would be in the evening. Likewise, in most of our meetings today, the evenings are usually reserved for healing services because many people are available at such times.
In Mark 4:35, we see that Jesus left a place where many people were gathered to be blessed of Him. Humanly speaking, this action was unexpected or even annoying but Jesus was sensitive to know that it was time to do something else. When we yield to the Holy Spirit and allow Him to lead us, we will do some things that may look illogical. That is why it is not necessary for us to share every personal instruction that the Holy Spirit gives us with others. Some instructions are personal while some are for everybody. Some ministers get things wrong when they impose their personal instructions on their congregation.
When Jesus was to cross over to the other side of the lake with his disciples, about three or four small boats must have been required. It is quite certain that most of the disciples would have preferred to be in the same boat with the Lord, knowing fully well that it would be the safest boat. However, the boat that carried Jesus was the one that was affected by the tempest (verses 36,37). The best decision is to be in the same boat with Jesus but sometimes it appears to be the worst.
When we serve God, we should have good stories to tell. Despite the storm that may come our ways, we must be consistent in following Jesus. We must rise above bread-and-butter Christianity that does not have depth.
That God is involved in a matter does not mean storms will not come. Jesus’ journey with His disciples across the lake was quite intentional and it was the right at that point in time but it didn’t stop the storm from coming. This does not mean God was not with them.
Those who were in the same boat with Jesus were privileged to see what God could do while those who did not join Jesus in the boat had a temporal testimony. That is why it is wrong for those who are in the boat with Jesus to be jealous of those who are not. As such, unbelievers should not be our yardstick for measuring success.
It is easy to think that what made Jesus make the journey must have been more important than the crowd he left behind. The disciples must have been eager to see what the outcome of the trip would be.
From Mark 5:1-7, we can guess why only Jesus’ boat was attacked. His mission was already known to the Enemy so the storm was a distraction. When the body of angels rebelled against God, God did not derank them. Fallen angels maintain their ranking just like God’s angels. To displace a fallen angel, a holy angel higher in rank would be required. We need to understand that the spiritual governs the physical.
The mad man who was possessed by demons obviously did not pray for Jesus to come to deliver Him. It was just time for that to happen and Jesus acted accordingly. This is to tell us that there is a supernatural control over this world that is in the hand of God. We must be spiritually sensitive to know what God wants to do per time. There are times that we will be the ones to pray and bring certain events to reality, if we fail, they will not come. There are other times that God will, out of His own sovereignty, bring them to pass. We must know the difference so that we won’t be complacent when we should take action and so that we won’t work ourselves up unnecessarily trying to do what God should do. That is why we must yield to the Holy Spirit to help us from time to time.
God’s plans cannot be stopped; if we are not sensitive to key in, someone else will take our places. We can see how the revival which started in Acts 2 became disrupted by the carnality that came up among the disciples over leadership. Jesus did not settle the issue of leadership amongst the disciples before He left. He did not officially pick anyone as their leader but they started getting themselves concerned with it, distracting themselves from the work committed to them. The problem further degenerated to internal lies by Ananias and Saphira and later tribalism between Jews and Greeks. According to God’s plan, the Gospel should start from Jerusalem and spread to Judea, Samaria and the uttermost part of the earth.
By divine timing, when the gospel was supposed to go to Judea the apostles who should have done it were not sensitive. So, there was a swapping of roles and the ministry was transferred to the deacons while the apostles continued to feel comfortable in Jerusalem. Stephen addressed the people of Judea in a very dramatic event and Philip took the gospel to Samaria. When it was time to take the gospel to the uttermost part of the Earth, God raised a man called Paul who had vigorously opposed the followers of Jesus.
God saw to it that the gospel spread as he had planned even when the original receivers of the message became complacent. The kind of Church God wants is the type that follows Him wherever He goes. God cannot be trapped and so we must be sensitive to always respond to Him positively. May He not abandon us and continue with His work without us.
One issue we have in following God is that of offences; we must guard against offences by all means. John the Baptist did very well but at the end of his life he got offended with Jesus. This was a man who knew Jesus, right from when they were fetuses. He knew Jesus more than everyone else but when offence came, he lost touch of who the Messiah was. The woman with the issue of blood could receive her healing immediately as she touched Jesus’ garment because she did not harbor offence that Jesus abandoned her and the crowd to attend to Jairus’ daughter. When God is about to do something great in our lives, offences often come to distract us.
In conclusion, we must be spiritually sensitive to understand the programme of God and His divine timing. A Christian is a mysterious being whose steps will make no sense to other people as a result of the leading of the Holy Spirit. God’s purposes and plans will always remain but the personnel may change if we are not yielded to the Holy Spirit. For every assignment of God, there is a reserve.