Welcome to Call to Freedom with Barbara Carmag. This is Jimmy Lakey and I’m delighted that you are joining us for this half hour. You can reach Call to Freedom at box 370367 Denver, Colorado 80237 or by going to the website at www.freedomstreet.org. If you want to leave a message or order a word-powered daily reading Bible guide or a Freedom Street Express newsletter, you can call us toll-free at 1-877-917-7256 and leave your name and address including your zip code. If you want to talk to Barbara right now, she is expecting your call. You may call that same toll-free number 1-877-917-7256 to speak to her. And now let’s join Barbara in the studio. Welcome to Call to Freedom. I’m so glad you joined us today. Kimberly has an exciting teaching for you. And when we are looking forward to Jesus coming back, this world doesn’t seem as bad. You know, sometimes we look at the, I hope you’re not looking at the news all the time, but it just seems so negative. And we can look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, praise the Lord. You have taken off your old self with its practices and habits and have put on the new self, which is being renewed and knowledge and the image of its creator. And that’s what we’re doing as we receive Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord. Then we get into a progressive journey of learning. Yes, we do. It’s a classroom until Jesus comes back. It’s a huge, big classroom. We are the students. He is the teacher. You are blessed to dispense for in him you live and move and have your being. Thank you so much for your donations. I appreciate it so much. I appreciate those who mail it into the post office. It comes all the time on time. That’s right. It does. And I know you have to spend a little bit more for the stamp, but thank you so much for your faithfulness. And those who give online, wow. July was a wonderful, wonderful month of giving online. So thank you so much for going to FreedomStreet.org and clicking on that Donate button. That’s all you have to do. And then just fill it in. Thank you. God bless you and keep you as you continue to sow into the kingdom of God. Welcome to the program, Kimberly. Oh, thank you. You know what? You just caught me. You were thanking the listeners. And I am all choked up. I am. I’m just full of emotion right now. I just choked up so grateful for the family that God has surrounded us with. He surrounded you with. He has surrounded you with family, mom, and these people, you who are listening and who donate, we’re just so grateful to you. I’m so grateful because I live in a completely different state. And mom, you don’t have family, right? They’re blood family that just comes and checks on you. You don’t have any other volunteers that are helping you with your ministry. I know this because when I come, it’s from states away. I have to drive through many states to get to you. And I’m just so thankful for all of you who are listening and the way that you support and are present with finances. But also, there are those of you who come by and help clean up the yard and help clean up the house. I’m so grateful for all of you. Thank you for that. Oh, thank you. I really got emotional there when you were thanking them. Yeah. And I realized that. And as our parents get older, then we’re looking out for them a little bit more. And I know as I get to that age of old, old, that old age. I don’t know if you’re getting there, mom. You are still just so stout. You are so full of energy in life. But I’m just saying that you don’t have to be concerned about me because you know that the Lord is my refuge and strength. And that is such a blessing for those of you who have elderly parents to know that they are in Jesus Christ is such a great reassurance. It really is. Yes. And also believing that about your kids who move away to college. You know, because I’m in that era too, where I have children that have moved away and trusting that our Lord, he cares so much more than we do. And that was the emotion that I was feeling. Just gratitude. I start tearing up with gratitude for the ways that God shields and protects. And you know, before we start talking about the day of the Lord, I’m excited about talking about the day of the Lord. But I want to start with Ephesians 1, 17. It’s a prayer. I pray that the Father of glory, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, would impart to you as you’re listening. The riches of the wisdom of the spirit of revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of your heart, your understanding, that your imagination may be enlightened by Him today. That’s our prayer over each one of you. And over us, thank you, Lord, for enlightening us. And you know, you may hear me talk a lot about being in agreement with Jesus or coming into agreement with Him. That is a process. Our church is doing a series right now on the minor prophets for the summertime. So we keep hearing and seeing that phrase the day of the Lord. And I just wanted to talk about that because many think of the day of the Lord and it has been presented in churches from pulpits as being a doom and gloom day, you know, where everything is burned. You have fires going on in Colorado right now. There’s some burning happening. And when we stay focused on the burning process, when we focus our attention on what is being burned, instead of who is able to restore and who is able to redeem and who is able to work all things for good. When we keep our focus on the things being burned, it does look like doom and gloom. But if we keep our focus on the one who does shield, who does protect, he knows how to refine and purify. And he himself is pure and he wants to pure people for himself. So we can trust that process. It’s in his hands and he is a good, good God. So the day of the Lord, we actually get to decide what it will look like. What that looks like for us. For me, it’s a day of wonder and fulfillment. And that’s the truth. I am in wonder and awe of who God is, how good he is. And I’m so fulfilled in his presence. I, wow, I’ve been craving you and I were talking about just craving his word more and more. And now not just reading it, but wanting to say it out loud. Yes. Oh, yes. You often will let our mind and our emotions and the news and social media make decisions for us. We get caught up in emotion and caught up in our senses. You know what makes sense to us. And that is looking at what’s being burned. If I look out at the fires and I see everything that’s being devastated in my senses, I hurt. I’m angry. I’m really sad. I’m very irritated and frustrated that it can’t be put out. You know, so if I get stuck in reason and stuck in emotion, then those fires are just no good. It’s all bad. But when I focus my eyes on the one who overrides it and that’s who our God is, that’s what he does. He overrides these situations and he makes something good come of it every time. Every time. You know, even a couple weeks ago, I’m sorry, my timing is off, but when the assault happened on President Trump, everyone in that stadium stayed calm. That’s right. Do we really know what a miracle that is? We can say in the day of the Lord, when something is happening that looks like it’s out of our control that looks very, very harmful, when we stay calm and we keep our eyes on the one who knows what he’s doing. He knows how to work it for good. When we do that, then we’re not screaming, yelling, we’re not thinking this is the end. You know, we’re calm, we’re at peace and we find a place in Oasis in him. Now there were lives that were forever changed in that stadium and I feel for those people who had great loss and great injury. There were lives that were changed and we can trust that our God will bring comfort like no other comfort. We can read about that in his word when we let ourselves meditate on the Word of God. It changes our perspective. We come into agreement with him and all of a sudden our head is not our boss. Our mind is not our boss. It’s not ruling us anymore. God is. Our spirit is. And that’s what we want. Because the mind set on the flesh is death, Kimberly. The mind set on the spirit is life and peace in Romans 8. So we know that our mind has to be conformed to the Word of God or transformed, I should say, and not on the world. As I was reading, I took Amos and I printed it out and I was looking at God destroying Mohab who was an ancestor of Lot as he’s destroying Judah as he’s destroying Jerusalem as he’s destroying Israel. It was absolutely destroyed. And look what Israel is like today. It’s one of the most productive countries in the whole world. God knew what he was doing. He had to punish sin. He had to and disobedience. But God is also the razor up. He raises up even in destruction, total annihilment. He raises it up again. He’s such a wonderful God. He truly is. Don’t you believe that we’ve got to come to an end of a dream? We have dreams in this life. And it’s kind of like I’ve heard before in sermons a death of a dream. You have this dream and you’re just wanting it so badly that the dream becomes an obsession to you. And God says, “Haha, I don’t want you dreaming about that. I want you to be focused on me.” So there has to be a death of that vision that you had. Yes. I believe because that dream can take over and choke us. We can be so focused on the wrong thing that we don’t even know we’re being choked out. And that’s why the dream needs to die because we’re not finding our dream in him. And we were made for something so much greater than our little dreams here. Wow. When we try to wrap our minds around who we were made for, to be his perfect partner, I love that phrase. I know you’ve heard me say it a lot. The perfect partner to the God of the universe. That is our destiny. That is what we were made for. To be his perfect partner. He created all of this. And we are to be his perfect partner. Really meditate on that. What is that? That’s much bigger than any other dream we might have in this realm. Amen. And it’s more fulfilling. It’s so full of wonder. It’s more fulfilling than anything else we could possibly want here. To be his bride. To be his perfect partner in the universe. In his realm, his realm is so much bigger than our universe. He created this universe. This is so small to him. This is his footstool. And his perfect partner has many members to it. So we’ve got to get along with the members in the body of Jesus Christ. That body is going to be the bride. Not you and me alone. No, we’re cooperating together in love, surrounded by his compassion and his grace. Oh, I’m so glad you mentioned that because I think that’s a good way to look at Amos. The book of Amos can look really harsh. Oh, yes. There’s punishment going out for transgressions and for sin. And yes, that sin needs to be wiped out. This is the second time I’m thinking of this. So let me just say when the flood happened, people tend to think, oh, what a harsh God to wipe out the earth. Wait, what do you mean? There was so much sin that all of creation was being defiled. All children were being defiled in that sin. And God could not stand to watch that. That’s what was happening in Sodom and Gomorrah when he had to wipe out those cities. There was so much flagrant sin that was defiling and traumatizing and abusive to human beings and to children. And he could not just sit back and watch that. He had to bring that to an end. That’s right. That’s mercy. That’s kindness. Yes. You know, to say, I won’t allow this. And Abraham, when he asked God, okay, but if there are some righteous there, you’re not going to wipe out the righteous ones with the wicked ones, are you? And the Lord promised him he would not. And God did pull a lot and his family out of that city. But he was the only one found righteous. I know. And he asked God. He compelled God. If there are even, he went down from 45 to 10. If there are 10 righteous people, God will you spare this city? And the Lord said, yes, but there weren’t even 10. There weren’t even 10. So he pulled the four out. The four righteous, the four. And maybe they weren’t even considered righteous by God’s standards. But God knew what Abraham was asking for. Yes, right. And he saved Abraham’s relatives. That’s right. Oh, that’s a mercy. That’s a mercy. A mercyful. A full of compassion. Yes. So as we’re reading in Amos, thus says the Lord in Amos 13, for these transgressions, I will wipe out Damascus. And it looks like harsh judgment. But what did they do? They threshed another people. They threshed Gilead with threshing boards of iron. They did so much damage to another people. That God says, I won’t stand for this kind of harsh judgment over and over. I’m going to wipe that out. And then when we get to verse 6, he’s talking about Gaza and how he’s going to punish Gaza. And here’s why. Because they exiled an entire population, which they delivered to Edom. They were cutting people off. Dissociating themselves from other people. And God is saying, I don’t want that. That’s not what I want for my people. That’s right. In verse 9, he’s talking about Tyre. And again, this is an area where they’re ignoring a covenant of brotherhood. So they’re deciding that they’re just independent. They don’t need anyone else. They’re going to be independent. And we need to remember that we’re all here to help each other get where we need to go. Yes. And we have an amazing destination, by the way. So we want to remember that we need each other and we need God. We’re not made to be independent. We’re made to be dependent on him. So that’s what he wants to remove. He wants to remove the independence. And you know what? We want that too. We want him to remove the independence so that we remember who we were made for and exactly how we’re supposed to run. The blueprint that we were made for. You know? Yes. In verse 11, the Lord is talking to Edom. And he’s saying, I won’t put up with this. You pursued your brother with the sword and you had no pity. Your anger raged and your fury stormed. And your anger is so harsh that you cannot have pity or compassion. That’s not what God wants. He needs to remove that harsh anger. And we want him to. So in the day of the Lord, that’s what’s happening. He’s removing these characteristics from us that were never meant to be in us in the first place. In verse 13, he’s talking to the Ammonites. And he’s saying, I can’t let you continue to rip open the pregnant women of Gilead. Wow. Evidently, the Ammonites were so greedy that they were causing loss, great loss to others. You know, miscarriages are great loss. Abortion is a great loss. And we need to remember that if there are people who are causing miscarriage and causing abortion, causing great loss of any kind, they’re stealing. They’re not part of God’s kingdom. God’s kingdom doesn’t steal and kill and destroy. That’s not what he does. He comes to save. He comes with great compassion and loving kindness. He is tender and full of mercy. He reminds us of that over and over in his word. Chapter 2 goes on. I don’t know how deep into all of this injustice that you want to go today because it is, there’s ignoring authority, burning the bones of kings, ignoring the authority of kings and not humbling yourself. So there’s pride and following your own way and not following the ways of the Lord and his laws. There’s so much listed here, ignoring justice and mercy, devaluing God’s creation, devaluing his people, causing the humble to be pushed off the road, causing the heads of the poor to be trampled on. It’s sad. This is sad. Yes. And especially Judah and Israel. Those are the apple of God’s eye. And he says here in the second chapter in the sixth verse, he said, “I’m not putting up with you any longer. You buy and sell upstanding people. People for them are only things. People for you are only things, ways of making money.” And we see that all the time in this world that precious children are sold into different areas of this world to be sex slaves. Kimberly God is going to come one day and say, “I’ve had it. I’ve had enough. I was going to be a punishment here for those of you who do evil.” And yet again, the day of the Lord, yes, oh, it’s so exciting. Because we want to see a day when God, all this wrong is going to be turned upside down and become right. We want to see that. And it’s coming. It’s coming. It is. It’s coming. And it’s not necessarily a judgment on people. The wicked has to be wiped out. The burning just has to happen. The purifying we want it to happen. We’re not necessarily pointing our fingers at a group of people because I don’t know how people started hurting people. I believe that people who are hurt begin to hurt others. And so those people need healing. They need restoration. They need to be reworked. And the wickedness needs to be burned out so that that process can happen. That’s what I’m believing for. In chapter 2 of Amos, verse 12, verse 13, let me go to 13, the Lord says, “I will slow your movements.” I love this because he’s talking about these people who are using other people who are pushing the humble off of the road and trampling the heads of the poor. He’s talking to these people and he’s saying, “I will slow your movements.” As a wagon is slowed when it’s full of cut grain, when it’s trying to make it way through a bunch of cut grain, a flight shall fail the swift. The strong shall find no strength and the warrior shall not save his life. The Bowman shall not hold his ground and the Fleet-footed shall not escape. What’s beautiful about that is metaphorically when you’re looking at this, you’re seeing that God wants to slow down what’s happening with the wicked and the strong. And when there’s a strong agenda to really push something through, a strong agenda for vengeance, a strong agenda for justice, when there’s a strong agenda for punishment. It’s not necessarily wrong to have that agenda, but when a human being grabs onto that and clings to it and says, “I must have justice, I must have vengeance,” that can get way out of alignment and go too far and do harm. God doesn’t do that. He slows that down and he makes sure that the people who think they’re strong don’t have that strength to stand anymore so that they will be looking to him to be their strength. That’s right. Oh, I love that. I love being reminded that his strength is perfected in our weakness. Yes, we were talking earlier today and I was talking about people that are puppets for the enemy and you said, “No, Mom, they’re puppets for God.” Ultimately, that’s going to happen. They’re not puppets for the enemy. The enemy is going to be found out and is found out by God. God doesn’t overlook anything at all. That’s right. That’s right. And I’m one of those that believes the more we talk about our enemy, the more that we give him any credit at all. If we say that that’s the devil’s puppet, well, that’s giving him credit. I don’t want to give him any credit. No, that’s God to make him feel good. He’s so prideful so that if I do say that, “Oh, that’s his puppet,” then he must be just grinning and so pleased. No, that’s not his puppet. That’s God’s puppet. It’s my father’s puppet. So when my father allows something to happen, that just means that you needed permission for it. That enemy needed permission for it. Whatever his name is over there in the dark. You needed permission for it and you have to get permission from my father. And there is no puppet that you own. My father owns it all. Well, just like in Amos, everything is being destroyed here. From Moab to Jerusalem to Israel to Judah to eat them. And yet God is going to raise it back up. God is in charge here. Not those evil men that are coming to destroy countries. No, God is in charge. And he’s going to make everything right. That’s the day of the Lord. That’s right. That’s the day of the Lord. Yes, we’re both saying it at the same time. And that’s exciting because we do long for that. It doesn’t look like we’re longing for fires to come through and purify, but we are longing for that because we don’t want it to stay the way it has been. We don’t want to fight the day of the Lord or try to escape it. We want to humble ourselves and surrender to His goodness. And one way of doing that is to really get into His Word. Start reading His Word and not just reading it, but speaking it out loud and asking Him to give you revelation. We walk by faith, not by sight. And so the more you put the Word of God in front of your eyes, the more faith you will have, the believer in you will rise up and start believing again. I love the way someone said, I can’t take credit for this, but it really stuck. And so I say it quite often that our speaker, that means our mouth, because it speaks, our mouth speaks. Our speaker needs to be hooked up and wired to our believer. We don’t want our speaker wired or hooked up to our feeler because our feeler will lead us astray, but our believer will not. So line up your speaker, your mouth with your believer and keep believing, strengthen the believing part of you with your mouth and let your mouth speak, believe, speak goodness, speak the Word of God in agreement with Him. That is so good. I am looking forward to the day of the Lord, Kimberly. And those of you listening, He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete and perfect that work in you until the day of the Lord. Amen. That’s a great scripture to end with. Thank you for talking about this with me today. We bless all of you out there. Don’t be worried. Instead, take joy. Thank you for listening to Call to Freedom with Barbara Carmack. You may get in touch with Barbara at Call to Freedom. Box 370-367 Denver, Colorado 80237. Or you may leave your message at 1-877-917-7256. Call to Freedom is a listener supported radio ministry. Barbara and her power partners invite you to come on board with us and become a network of hands holding up Call to Freedom Ministry. Power partner support call to Freedom with Prayer and Monthly Financial Support. You will be blessed supernaturally. We invite you to visit Call to Freedom’s website, www.freedomstreet.org, where you can hear Barbara’s daily radio broadcast 24 hours a day or order materials. You may share your phrase reports and heart cries by mailing them to Call to Freedom. Box 370-367 Denver, Colorado 80237. Or you may email us at Barbara Carmack at FreedomStreet.org. Until next time, remember Jesus loves you, Barbara loves you, and take joy. Thank you. [Music]
