"The Way Home" By Brother Parrish Lee March 30th,
2014 I’ve
got good news: I won’t have to talk too
long, thanks to Sister Jeanette, and Brother Rod, and Brother Malcolm, and the
Praise and Worship Team, covering the message in all the songs. So, let’s see, ten, fifteen minutes? Sounds good?
We’ll see. I don’t want anybody
grabbing me with the shepherd’s hook.
Isn’t our God just so good? You
don’t have to look at anything else around you; you just know that He has been
good to you. We don’t have to speak for
anybody else, but we can speak for some other people. But, we know that if He ain’t been good to
nobody else, the Lord has been good to us.
He is that kind of Lord. You
know, if we don’t even finish this time in here, if the trumpet sounds… Brother Rod, you said something and it just
lit me on fire, and then Norma, she said something a couple of weeks ago, that
just did it all. I’m talking about the
son running through the house, singing, “What?
What? What can wash away my
sin?” Before you give an answer to that,
think about it: What can wash away my
sin? Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm,
hmmm! Nothing but the blood of
Jesus. Brother Rod, you said—you know
what? we were just having a little bit of fellowship, and he said, “You know? I just don’t hear much talk about the
Rapture. Sometimes I hear people talking
about going to Heaven, sometimes way off in the future, but I just don’t hear
the talk about the catching away of the bride, abut Him coming in the
clouds…” But, He said there would be
given to us a sign, just like in the days of Noah (Luke 17:26). When they came the time, they entered in, and
that was it. God is just good to us. God is so good to us. Giving honor to that same God, who is the Head of our
lives, who is our maker, our creator, our compassionate One, our lover, our
corrector, our rebuker, our redeemer; the One who paid every price for us. If you were to name all of your faults and
failures, He covers them all, every one.
Giving honor to that God. Giving honor
to those who went before us. To our
founding pastor, he and his family. To
our bishop, he and his family, and the sacrifices they have made—and I’ll just
say this plain: Never take for granted
the sacrifices that God’s people do.
God’s leadership, yes, God lays it on their heart that they hazard their
lives for the Gospel—for our souls. It is a mandate that we lift their arms; that
is a mandate from God. Giving honor to
our bishop, he and his family. Giving
honor to Pastor Wilson, who was here.
Giving honor to Brother Kenneth, who was here. Those
who paved the way, those who stood in the gap, giving honor to all of them. Giving honor to all of y’all, who said, “Hey,
it’s time for worship. It’s time to present
ourselves before the Lord, to give unto Him that which we have, and to receive
that which He has for us. Giving honor
to all of y’all. Amen. This month has been about the House of God. We’ve taken a theme, and we’ve taken a Scripture thought: 2 Corinthians 5:1 For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were
dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in
the heavens. We’ve got something coming eternal in the Heavens. For those of you who don’t know, my name is
Parrish Lee. Brother Andy Giebler, who
was leading the Praise and Worship on the guitar, he and I head up the
fellowship here, and we pray that it’s always an edification to your very soul. Amen. Having said that, let us get into the message. Revelation
21:1-12 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for
the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more
sea. And I John saw the holy city, new
Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for
her husband. And I heard a great voice
out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will
dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with
them, and be their God. And God shall
wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither
sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things
are passed away. And he that sat upon
the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for
these words are true and faithful. 6And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha
and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of
the fountain of the water of life freely.
He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and
he shall be my son. But the fearful, and
unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and
sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake
which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. And there came unto me one of the seven
angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked
with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a
great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem,
descending out of heaven from God, Having the glory of God: and her light was
like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal;
And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve
angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of
the children of Israel: Revelation
21:21-27 And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate
was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were
transparent glass. And I saw no temple
therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither
of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb
is the light thereof. And the nations of
them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth
do bring their glory and honour into it.
And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be
no night there. And they shall bring the
glory and honour of the nations into it.
And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth,
neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are
written in the Lamb's book of life. Could
you bow your heads with me? Lord, we
thank You so much, because truly, You
pour out blessing that it is just so hard to contain, God. We thank You; we walk into Your very presence
and thank You for this time of worship and praise and to listen to Your
Word. We thank You for bringing us all
together and saving us form the fiery pits.
Lord, we thank You for keeping us day by day, for clothing us in our
right mind, for setting us on our feet.
Lord, we thank You for all Your good and perfect gifts. We thank You, we thank You. Lord, we turn to You at this time and ask
that You would have a blessing on Your Word, or You have said that it would not
return unto You void, but would accomplish that which You have sent it to do. So, Lord, we come and present ourselves and
ask that You would give us the blessing that You have for us this day. We do pray and claim in Jesus’ name, and
everyone said, amen. That
city, that city, that city. That
house! That house of God, I tell
you. The theme this month has been the
House of God. Our general Pastor came
up, and he was coming up for a funeral, but he said, “What are you guys talking
about? What are you talking about this
month? What’s the theme?” We said, “You know, Pastor, when you come up,
you can talk about anything you want to talk about.” He said, “I might be the pastor, but I like
to be under the unction of God,” which is a lesson to everybody who is going to
allow him to be your pastor, to be up under the unction of God. And he said, “The House of God? Amen.
The House of God—let me pray about it; I’m sure that the Lord will give
me something to say.” And he came, and
he said, “God’s House.” He said, “I
could talk about the house…” This is
what we call the ‘revisit.’ This is the
revisit; we want to catch you up to speed real quick. “I could talk about the House in Heaven,, but
I’d rather talk about the House here on Earth.”
He said, “I’m not talking about the walls that are here in the building;
I’m talking about this House. The House
of the Church. The House of the people;
where the people dwell. That’s God’s
house.” And he said, “In God’s House, in
this house, we do love.” He said, “In
this house, in God’s House, we do correction.”
He said, “In this house, we do humility.” As he was saying them off, it was almost like
a checklist that would come into your mind.
I need to be able to say, “I’m accomplishing that, Lord. I’m doing that,” but some of that—you weren’t
here, Brother Rod, but I got to tell you, some of that, I had to keep my mouth
shut. When I was examining myself to see
whether I was in God’s House, I saw that maybe sometimes I bring some things
that shouldn’t ought to be there, in God’s House. He went on, and he said, “In God’s House, we
do responsibility.” He said, “In Gods
House, we do forgiveness.” He said,
“Yeah, people tell me I talk about forgiveness all the time; I talk about it
too much,” and he said, “I come to tell you, I don’t talk about it enough,
because we have to have forgiving in our heart and life all the time, including
forgiving ourselves. He said, “But,
there is something we do not do in God’s House:
we don’t do excuses. We don’t do
excuses in God’s House. There’s a reason
for everything, but there’s not an excuse for anything.” Amen.
What a way to start the month off, in God’s House. One of the wonderful things that he said, he
said, “It’s not enough to be part of a good family, you have to make the family
that you are part of, good.” Gracious
alive, I tell you. What a beautiful,
beautiful message. It just lit everything
off for the month—it probably lit everything off for several months; we can’t
let that go. The
very next message was about God’s house, and the message was about the two
phases that we’ve seen in the Old Testament.
The first phase, as God spoke to Moses, He said, “You build Me, you
build Me a House; build Me a Tabernacle.”
He talked about the curtains and the rods, and they’re going to have the
laver over here and you’re not going to be able to have steps going up to it or
coming down from it, because you’re not going to exalt yourself when you come
up to God. It’s not going to be hewn
stones so that you can say, “I did that,” no, no, no, no, no, no. It talked about the Tabernacle—all the things
that God had in it—was mobile,, and that signified that we are to take God
everywhere we go. Everywhere we go, we
need to take God—not meet God, take God. The second part of the message was about the The
next message was from Brother Chris Ulrich, and he talked about Jesus being the
Last
week, it was Brother Jesse, as he talked about “Home Is Where the Heart
Is.’ He had four major points that he
brought out, developed and shared: God
wants to make a home where there is humility.
God wants to make a home where there is not pride and strife and arrogance
and things that don’t pleases God; He wants a place of humility. He mentioned how God has house rules. God is not about any-which-way you do it,
anything goes; no! God has house
rules. He said that God will not live in
a dirty house, and I appreciated the point he made—thank you, Sister Tina, for
helping preach that—he said that when he had done the cleaning for the house in
Virginia (I believe it was), he prepared it, and he said he felt it was good
enough—what a message that is! He said
when his wife came, she didn’t even say anything, she just looked around, began
her evaluation, and began cleaning. He
said it wasn’t a dig, because, he said, “She has a whole different level of
clean than I do.” I took that, because
right after that, he said, “It’s like God.
We might think that we’re doing good, but God has a whole different
level of what He’s looking for.” That’s
why we have to go to Him for the anointing, for the power, for the deliverance,
for the understanding to be right in His will. His last point was, “What’s on the inside is
more important than what’s on the outside.”
To do a quick, really quick recap here, we see that, at the one point,
God made the Heavens and the earth.
Then, right after that—right after that—He made man, and then he gave
man, “You build Me some place to worship.”
Then, right after that—because we could only do a certain level of
good—He had to make the True Tabernacle, which was the Lord Jesus. That had to come first. The had to come first because God wanted to
dwell with us. He wanted to be back with
us—connected with us. He wanted that
separation to be gone, and us to be back.
He wanted to be as He said, and He prophesied in the Book of Joel, He
would pour out His Spirit on all flesh (Joel 2:28). God wanted us to be unified. So He, in the twentieth, and the twenty-first
century, where we are right now, this is kind of hard to catch. See, this is all we’ve ever known. All we ever known is to be able to come to a
church and to be able to hear Jesus’ name, and to hear His word. This is all we’ve ever known. We might come to a better understanding, but,
truly, this is all we’ve ever known. It
was a time when it wasn’t this way. We
see it in a span of, what, fifty, sixty, seventy years, sometimes eighty or
ninety, that’s the span that we can see; God sees the whole thing at once. He saw that there was a separation, and He
said, “I want My people back.” He had to
make a way, and that way, we know, was the Lord Jesus. He had to make a way when there was no way
for us to get back to Him. I’m going to
tell you the truth, if I don’t say another thing, that was it right there: God making a way for us to get back. If I don’t say another thing; if you don’t
hear anther word out of me, that’s it right there: God making a way. He didn’t even know what I was going to talk
about. Brother Andy was choosing the
songs, he was praying about it; he didn’t even know what the message was going
to be about. Between several of the
songs—Jesus Is the Way-Maker, All the Way, Lord—like I said, it might be a
shorter message, but it’s kind of hard to finish it. So, the Lord wanted to make a way for us to
get back to Him, the Lord Jesus. That’s
a big, big, big, big deal, because, without Jesus, we are eternally separated, forever. Try to find any other way, the Lord said you
are as a thief and a robber (John 10:1).
You’re a thief and a robber, if you try to go any other way than the only
one way that God had set up. Somebody
might say, “Well, there should be many different ways…” We should be happy that there is a way to get
back to God. That’s the revisit of the
previous messages of the month. Part II God Is Bigger Than the Works of Our Hands God
is bigger, and, yes, bigger in size, but also bigger in intent, and anointing,
and blessing. Bigger in adoration.
Bigger in beauty. Bigger in what He’s
going to accomplish. God is bigger than
the works of our hands! God, being
bigger than the works of our hands: Acts 17:24 God that made the world and all things
therein, seeing that He is Lord of Heaven and Earth, dwelleth not in temples
made with hands; I’ve
got to say this right quick: You know, people
can get to the place where they’ve got to have the fanciest church, the most
precious windows—you know, they put names on them and some people buy a brick
(“I helped built that church—that’s my church.”)—but God isn’t impressed with
buildings. In fact, he doesn’t dwell in
the house that’s made with hands, He dwells in the people that are in the house
that’s made with hands. How is God
moving in there, with nobody there? It
might look pleasant to the eye, but how is God—what purpose would it serve for
Him to be in a house void of people? You
know, that just goes to show you, that if you—and the church is a saving station,
like a hospital. It’s like a place for
intensive care. If you have issues, you
have problems, you need prayer, you bring it to the house of God, but the house
of God, like the Tabernacle, moves. The house
of God could be the prayer meeting. The house
of God could be somebody’s kitchen table.
The house of God could be—you know, some families pray right before they
go to bed, or whatever-- the house of God could be right in that bedroom. The house of God, because we’re going to
invoke His Spirit, and we’re going to see Him bless right now. So, the point is, if you’ve ever been in a
situation that just seems impossible, if you have an obstacle that you can’t
overcome, if you need a blessing, and you’ve wondered how is it going to get to
you, if you feel like there’s no other way, the truth of the matter is, God
knows what you are going through, to the iota, to the increment, to the atomic
particle. He knows what you’re going
through; He sees it, every bit. He wants
to dwell with you, and He wants to show you the way. He wants to show me the way. He wants to show us the way. He wants to show us the way, collectively,
and He wants to show you the way, individually.
He wants that dwelling-place.
But, let’s go back to what Jesse said, “God won’t dwell in a dirty
house.” If you put things in there and
He can’t make His way in there, you don’t have to worry about it; He will not
be there. So
if you ever get into that thing, saying, “I wonder how I can get that. I wonder how I can get to the place where God
can dwell in me.” You know, Jesus said,
“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God,
believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions…” and then He
said, “I go to prepare a place for you… …that where I am, there ye may be also.” Us dwelling together with God. And, you know, on the one hand, I want to
mention, the Kingdom of heaven—can you imagine, we were reading down through
Revelation, can you imagine, they’ve got a whole gate… You know, they have these divers, and they go
down, and they put something in the clam, under the gums, and they come back
years later, and you know what they find?
a pearl. One pearl, one clam. Little thing.
If they wait a certain number of years, or if it’s a bigger clam, then
it’s bigger, and it’s worth more money, because pearls are precious; pearls are
precious. In this city that God’s
making, the gates are made out of pearl.
They talk about that city, that place has twelve gates. Can you imagine how precious that’s going to
be? You’ll be able to look down where
your feet are going to be—down here we have street sweepers, and we have people
that come out and they spray the street with this stuff that’s real nasty. They have the salt, and they throw the stuff
in there to repair the streets because they get holes in them, but that street
there, the bible says, is going to be pure gold, so clear, you can see through
it. That is pure gold; I don’t even know
what that is. That would be worth a lot
of money down here. IF you could get
just a little bit, it would be worth a lot of money. You know what? if you’re worried about the
money part of that, you’re missing the point.
Can you imagine to actually be in that place, where all the things that
want to take ahold of you are powerless?
Any trial, any temptation, any obstacle, anything that upsets you,
anything that comes along and tries to take way, dig into your family, and take
away your job, and take away a relationship you might have with your brothers
and sisters, take away from your worship, take away from you just being able to
read, understand, and enjoy the beauty of the Spirit of God as He pours it out
as you commune with Him. All those
things are gone, never to be remembered anymore, powerless over you. Can you imagine, you don’t have to worry
about tomorrow; you don ‘t have to worry about what’s next. Andy
was listening to this song, probably a couple of years ago, now; I was
wondering, “Why you like that song so much?
Okay, you like the song. You’re
alone! There’s the two of us in here,
and you’re a majority of one! Yay!” Because, I wasn’t here you were. That’s a fact. The song is called, “I Can Only
Imagine.” Anybody ever here that? “I can only imagine,” the song says. It talks about going to Heaven, and, “I’ll be
surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel?” It says, “Lord, will I dance for you, Jesus,
or in awe of You be still? Will I stand
in Your presence, or to my knees will I fall?”
I heard this song, and I was like, “Wait a minute, there might be something
going on here.” Andy was years ahead of
me—years ahead of me—but I’m going to catch up.
It says, “ Will I sing,
‘Hallelujah!’ Will I be able to speak at all?
I can only imagine.” Yes, Lord, I
can only imagine. Well, there’s an
answer for all of that. I can imagine
how it’s going to be; I’m going to do all of the above. Yeah, I know what’s it’s going to be
like: When I first get through—when I
first cross the gates—ain’t nobody got to worry about me—I’m going to be,
“Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! I
can imagine no more despair. I can
imagine no more sickness. I can imagine
no more heartache, disappointment. You
know what else I can imagine? no more medication. I can imagine that. No more jokes that somebody has to be excused
about. I don’t really appreciate… No foul language. I don’t have to worry about, “Oh, what does
this brother or sister have on their mind?
What do I have to… How you
doing?” “We’re good today, but I don’t know about… Are we okay?” I don’t have to worry about that; we’ll all
be in joy together! I don’t have to
worry about darkness. You don’t have to
worry about the lights ever going out; you don’t have to worry about paying a
bill. You don’t have to worry about,
“Oh, I fall short!” ‘cause you’re home.
You’re right, Rod we don’t talk about Heaven enough; we don’t talk about
it enough. We
say this verse frequently; we cover it a lot.
We’ve said in many different environments and many different times;
we’ve said it often enough. It’s a great
verse. 1 Corinthians 2:9-10 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear
heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath
prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit:
for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. So,
somebody said, “How do you know about all that?
How do you know about that stuff in Heaven? How do you know Heaven’s going to be all that
great, anyway?” I actually heard somebody
say, “Heaven’s going to be boring! I’d
rather go to Hell! Look at all the
people that you’re going to talk to; they’re going to be interesting down
there! Yeah, you’ve got the dictators
that killed massive amounts of people, you’ve got serial killers, you’ve got
the people that tell all the dirty jokes.
Yeah, it’s going to be funny down there; it’s going to be entertaining
down there. That’s where the fun is
going to be.” Fun? Yeah, you can imagine how that conversation
went. I told him, “I’m in the mood for a
feast, and not a barbecue! I plan on
going where it’s light, and not weeping and gnashing of teeth. NO, you don’t have a good vision of Hell. If you really had a good vision of Hell, we
would have a different conversation
right now.” “But how can you know how
great Heaven’s going to be? You ain’t
never been there; you don’t know! All you’ve
got is conjecture. All you’ve got is
what’s written down in somebody’s book; what somebody’s told you! And even the Word says, ‘”Eye hath not seen,
nor ear heard, neither have entered into the hearts…’” Yeah?
But verse ten says, “But God hath revealed them unto us by his
Spirit…” Let’s just take—I’m taking a
whole lot longer than I thought. I’m
going to try to wrap this up. “But God
hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit…”
Now this is important. This is
important, because if God’s going to reveal them to us by His Spirit, you’ve
got to ask, “Lord, what do You have for me; I’d like to know?” You want to know the answer? Get in the Spirit. “God, I need a victory over a trial. Why, why, why am I going through this
one? You want to know the answer? Get in the Spirit. “God, You know I was sick, laying on my
back. It don’t make sense. Look at all the opportunities that went away. You know, it’s kind of hard. I’m kind of short on cash this week. How did I get here, and why do I have to
suffer like this?” You want to know the
answer? Get in the Spirit, because God
will reveal them to us, every one, through His spirit. In His Spirit. Yes, He will give you dreams, He will give
you visions, in His Spirit. Don’t seek
God, and you’re going to be tossed with every wind of doctrine (Ephesians
4:14), and, yes, not just from somebody’s mouth,, but there’s plenty of
anti-christs longing to lash into our brains and bodies. Yes. So,
God has revealed them to us by His Spirit, and that is in God’s time. There’s many times God isn’t going to tell
you everything, because you couldn’t handle everything. I can handle bout this much most times, and
God gives me as much as I can handle, and I’m full! Thank You, Jesus! Thank you for never leaving me; thank You for
never forsaking me! Thank You for never
letting me down. Thank You for even when
I don’t understand, You have patience with me.
You know, I’m going to get to the place where I have some understanding,
but, right now, You’re longsuffering toward Parrish. Thank You, , thank You, thank You, thank You,
thank You! So,
we talked a little bit about that glorious time when we’re going to be called
home. Part III We Don’t Have to Wait For Some Far Away Time
to Experience the Kingdom of God We
talked about the catching away of the Bride, and we’re looking forward to
that. We’re looking forward to the
rapture. We’re looking forward to walking
through gates of pearl. We’re looking
forward to all that. That is the Revelation 7:9 After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude,
which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and
tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white
robes, and palms in their hands; And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation
to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. And all the angels stood round about the
throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on
their faces, and worshipped God, Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom,
and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever
and ever. Amen. And one of the elders answered, saying unto
me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And
he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have
washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and
serve Him day and night in his temple: and He that sitteth on the throne shall
dwell among them. They shall hunger no
more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any
heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst
of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of
waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. Who
are these? (gesturing to the
congregation) Arrayed in white. Pray for us.
Amen. Sermon notes by Pete Shepherd |
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