Arise & Shine For Your Light Has Come

SPEAKER 01 : 0:09

Welcome to Call to Freedom with Barbara Carmack. 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 Power 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.

SPEAKER 02 : 1:04

Thank you, Jimmy Lakey, and welcome to Call to Freedom. I’m so glad you joined Kimberly and me today. It’s going to be a great time of understanding who we are in God and what God presents to us in his presence, his presence coming down inside. into our lives when God gives a gift my friend it’s always good he knows you so well cares for you so deeply and loves you so much if it comes from his heart it’s perfect for you did you hear that when it comes from his heart it’s perfect for you And we see in Philippians 2, verse 13, that God is at work in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. I’ll tell you, I’d rather have God’s good pleasure than anybody’s best pleasure on this earth. Including my own. That’s right. Absolutely. It’s perfect for you, his love, because love is always the reason he gives. First John three, verse one says, behold, what manner of love the father has lavished upon each and every one of you that you are called a child of the most high God. Amen. Wow. Oh, you have a memory verse this week. Yes, I do. Five. Yes. Amos 5, 24 in the New American Standard says, let justice roll down like water and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. And then from the passion, it says, spare me. Now, this is God speaking. Spare me the monotonous melodies of your worship. I don’t want to hear your strumming guitars one more time. Yes. This is so good. It’s just noise to me. However, I delight in a land where justice flows like a river and where true righteousness rolls like a steady flowing stream. Praise God. I do want to before we get into our teaching. Oh, this is wonderful. This week, Kimberly, I’m so glad you mentioned that we’re having a meeting on Saturday. And when you come at 11 o’clock and that’s when the meeting starts, if you’d like to help us by contributing some. Love to your people who are at the meeting. You can take a Valentine’s card, write your favorite scripture on it and then sign it so that they will know who it’s from and they will put their scripture up on their favorite places and it’ll be a reminder, a daily reminder of not only what God can do in their lives, but what you have. done in their life by giving that scripture so god bless you it’s saturday and call me at 1-877-917-7256 if you’d like to come to breakfast at 9 30 god bless you yes yes and if you want to come to the meeting and it’s your first time and you need directions call that same number you’ll hear it again at the end of the program

SPEAKER 03 : 3:49

Yeah. And so the memory verse in Amos five about justice rolling like waters, righteousness, like an ever flowing stream. You went back and you were reading a little bit of what, what God in that section of scripture is saying. He’s tired of, he’s tired of all the ways we show sacrifice and sing songs when we are still stuck in our human thinking in our human ways. And we’re not really acting like him, but, when we were made to be his best friend. We’re not really displaying his image when we were made in the image of God. And, um, earlier also in Amos five, it says to seek good and not evil that you may live. And then the Lord of the Lord, God of hosts will be with you. We want him with us at all times. We want his image to be seen in us. And so we want to be seeking the good and not evil. Just as you claim he is, hate what is evil, love what is right. Let justice prevail in the courts. Perhaps the Lord God of hosts will notice and be gracious. That’s that is what we want to keep our focus on is being like him because he is gracious. He is generous. He is kind.

SPEAKER 02 : 5:13

And those are not our natural tendencies. No gracious and to be kind, to be generous. No, no. That goes against everything in that flesh. Yes.

SPEAKER 03 : 5:23

Especially when we have seen injustice. Yes. We tend to want to make it right. In our own ways. And we forget to wait on the Lord and to ask him what he wants to do in that situation. We forget that he says, vengeance is mine. I will take care of this. Yes. So thank you, Lord. We have started talking about God’s glory and the glory of the Lord being revealed in this earth. Habakkuk tells us that the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord. And Isaiah six verse three tells us that the whole earth is full of the glory. So Habakkuk is saying it will be in the future. Isaiah is saying it is right now full of his glory. And I think it’s good for us to keep searching for the definitions of glory, the definitions of these words that we read in the Bible, righteousness. When we read these words, it’s so good to keep digging and find what those definitions really mean, what they’re really saying to us. And when we’re looking for the definition of glory, we might look in a dictionary. I think you looked it up.

SPEAKER 02 : 6:41

The definition of glory had a whole column from Noah Webster’s dictionary, whole column on glory and glorify glory. and glorious so we know that that’s a word that god loves he does and he wants us to honor him and give him the glory because he’s the one that did it all you want to honor someone that contributed to your career or your family or to you and yeah we want to honor them so it’s it’s important yes

SPEAKER 03 : 7:14

So did you want to give us some of the definitions of the glory? Did you have any of that?

SPEAKER 02 : 7:18

Uh-huh. It’s bright in the sense of being open to expand, to enlarge. And we were just talking about that. God’s love isn’t stagnant. I mean, it’s ever growing. It’s like the universes. They’re seeing more and more universes being created as their telescopes get better.

SPEAKER 03 : 7:39

Right. So if we just take that one word in large and apply it to his glory, when it says to give glory to God in large God, well, what does that mean? He can’t be any larger than he already is. In our own minds, in our own situations and circumstances, in our own thoughts. Enlarge him. Our reverence becomes so much more important to us.

SPEAKER 04 : 8:04

Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER 03 : 8:05

And so we want to make him bigger in our situation rather than the voices that we normally are listening to. We want his voice to be bigger. Enlarge it.

SPEAKER 04 : 8:14

Yes.

SPEAKER 02 : 8:15

Oh. I was looking at Exodus because you had mentioned Exodus 33 as a really great passage of Scripture showing God’s glory. And it really is. In Exodus 15, verse 11, God is saying after their trek through the Red Sea on dry land, and they’re celebrating. They are celebrating with tambourines and all kinds of instruments. And God is saying, who is, and they’re saying, who is like the O Lord among the gods? They’re sizing up every God that they’ve ever worshipped in Egypt, and nobody compares with him, who is like the awesome in praises, glorious in holiness. See, as believers on this earth, Kimberly, we’re not striving, but we’re laboring. to enter into a rest which involves holiness of God. That’s part of his character.

SPEAKER 03 : 9:07

Yes. And again, now that would be a whole other definition. So let’s try to stay focused on glory because holiness, maybe we’ll do that next week. Holiness is another one that we would want to look into and find out what does that mean exactly?

SPEAKER 02 : 9:21

Glory in holiness. That’s what’s important, God’s presence being manifested in what they’re saying.

SPEAKER 03 : 9:28

Yeah, yeah. You’re compounding. We’re having compound word day. But going back to glory, the way that we are encouraged to see God’s glory and to know that God’s glory is being revealed in this earth is And that he the prophets in the Old Testament were prophesying about the future revealing of God’s glory. And at the same time, we have Moses in Exodus 33 that you’re talking about that saying and and we do want to see how Moses was entering the tent with the glory cloud coming down on that tent every day. And Moses saw the glory of the Lord every day. People witnessed that they would come to their tent doorways and watch as Moses was meeting with the glory of God. So finding out what that glory means, it couldn’t it can mean recognition. Giving glory to God in the highest means that he is worthy of recognition. He he deserves it. He gets to have all the recognition and the fame and. So that’s one way of looking at glory. And then Moses, he has a conversation with God in Exodus 33. He is conversing with the Lord because the Israelites had built an idol while Moses was up on the mountaintop with God and conversing with the Lord for 40 days with that glory cloud being all around that mountain. The people, they became impatient. Well, we’re all like that. We are. We become impatient as we’re waiting. And then Moses is talking to God because God says, you know, I can’t go with you guys anymore. The Lord told him, I cannot go in front of you anymore. You’re going to have to just follow an angel. I’ll send an angel to go with you because these people are stubborn and obstinate. They’re stiff necked. If I go with them, I’ll probably wipe them out. And that’s what God is saying in Exodus 33. But Moses stops and says, no, Lord, we don’t want an angel. We want you. That’s right. We want your presence. If your presence does not go with us, then we don’t even want to go any further in life. And that is how I feel about God. If his presence is not with me in this life, I don’t even want to go any further. I want his presence. And then Moses in Exodus 33 verse 18, he says to the Lord, please show me your glory. Please show me your glory. Please show me your glory. He’s already been meeting with the Lord and in that glory cloud meeting day after day in the tent. And here he is crying out, please show me your glory. The Lord defines his glory right here. And he says, I will do what you’re asking.

SPEAKER 02 : 12:31

and i will show compassion on whom i will show compassion and i will show mercy on whom i will show mercy this is god’s definition of glory right here just the chapter before kimberly he was so angry with the people i can’t imagine you know having all those people turn against him and also being such idolaters and he’s angry and then in verse in chapter 33 he’s meeting with god And that shows me in this life when I have an anger issue or something going on and I’m really angry with somebody, I go to God after I’ve made peace with that person or whatever the situation is. I go to God. I go to him. Father, God, what is happening here with this relationship? I need your help, your wisdom and understanding, Holy Spirit. Right. Yes.

SPEAKER 03 : 13:24

And yesterday you had read about the Benghazi incident and reminded us of that. We can hear news in the world and feel very stirred up. We can be angry over what happens in the world and we’ve got to learn how to wait on the Lord because his glory is to be revealed through that waiting on him.

SPEAKER 02 : 13:45

That’s right. It’s like when we just saw these clips from Fox News about they found a person of interest in the Guthrie case. And when they showed the pictures of this person, fully clad, black mask, everything. And I saw his eyes. That’s the only thing that we could see were his eyes. My flesh, Kimberly. Don’t know him from anything. Have not heard about this person before this. But I’ve been so engrossed in the issue with Nancy Guthrie that the minute I saw these eyes, I got angry just for that split second. Angry. And then, oh, Father, forgive him. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Yeah. It’s interesting how our flesh just wants to flash anger.

SPEAKER 03 : 14:37

You’re actually challenging us right now. Father, forgive him. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. When we feel anger, it’s really hard as a human being. to actually say those words, father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing. We would rather pin them with, with what they’re doing, pin it on them, pin the blame on them and say, no, they know exactly what they’re doing and that is wrong of them. Really? Do we know that for certain? So many of us have a veil over our eyes and our understanding and, and the veil, you know what the veil is? Selfishness. We’re so selfish. We’re so caught up with what we want to get out of this life and out of this world that we don’t even see what we’re really doing.

SPEAKER 02 : 15:26

Yeah, we want the charges to be instant. We want the punishment to be instant. And I remember in 1997 with JonBenet Ramsey and that precious little girl, how she was probably, to her identification, was abused. And then to have that around her neck and her death. And it’s really interesting to know they never have found the culprit. And I believe, Kimberly, that God did have justice in that situation. He finds when he finds people are unregenerate. They are not willing to back away or turn around or they’re stubborn in their ways, just like some of these people were in the Old Testament. He goes about giving them punishment. I really believe that. It’s individual heart issues. That’s right. We all get confronted. And I believe that person who murdered Jean Benet is gone. He died. Yes.

SPEAKER 03 : 16:24

We don’t know how the Lord will confront us. and how he will make it right, how the waters of justice will roll down. We don’t know how, but we do know that they will. He makes it right. Yes. That’s right. Not us. That’s right. We’re not the ones who can make it right. He is the one. So God himself defines his glory in Exodus 33, not only that chapter, but the next chapter, 34, he goes into more detail about his glory. And we want to pay attention to how he defines his glory. It’s not just recognition and fame. It’s not just honoring him. It includes recognition, fame, honoring him. It includes that recognition. But his glory is also pardon, forgiveness, compassion, mercy. And when we start displaying those attributes in our lives, when we start displaying his image in our lives, then we are becoming more like him and we have him coming alongside us to make those crooked paths straight. to cause the mountains that have been in our way to be brought down and the valleys that have been so hard and so dark to be brought up. And we have more of a level path in this life. It’s true. It really is true. If we could just wait on him and let him be the one to handle our situations and our deepest concerns. Yes. Moses had seen so much of God’s glory, his of his miracles. Let’s call him his miracles of his movement in this this time of delivering the people of Israel from Egypt, delivering them from bondage. All the people had seen so much of. of what God had done to deliver them through all the plagues and actually taking them out of Egypt with the plunder. He poured riches on them. And then at the Red Sea, parting the Red Sea, they had seen so much. You know, even earlier in Exodus 2410, God revealed himself even to all the elders. They literally saw God with a sapphire pavement at his feet. That’s amazing that he revealed himself to all these people. So he has revealed himself despite all their fears and their complaints and their timidity and their grumbling. He still showed up. He showed up and showed up over and over. And then Exodus 32 records how they turned. Well, I think all of us can say something about God showing up in our lives. He has shown up over and over. And then we might turn and see that there’s another resource. And we turn our attention away from the source to a resource in this world. And we get all excited about it. Hey, I’m not saying that it’s wrong to get excited about finding a new medication or there’s a new surgery available or there’s a new financial way of saving and having your finances in order. Or there’s so many resources that we can have in this, especially in this country. Mm-hmm. But we cannot put our eyes on that resource and make it our God. Like the Israelites did. They pulled their resources together and melted it all down, and out came a calf. Then they said, oh, this is what will lead us through the wilderness and to our promised land.

SPEAKER 02 : 20:18

It was just insane. But we’re seeing a lot of that today with the rhetoric and the narratives that are given. Yeah. We should not be shocked. Sometimes I am. I’m shocked, but we shouldn’t be because God has told us basic behavior of people have never changed. That’s true. They’re the same.

SPEAKER 01 : 20:36

It’s the same.

SPEAKER 02 : 20:37

That’s right. The natural tendency. In Chapter 32, when he talked or when Moses saw the people were out of control. Aaron let them get out of control. That’s not self-control. They are out of control. They’re like animals. They don’t have any kind of conscience to what they’re going to be doing or the consequences. See, we got to think about what we’re going to, what am I going to do? If I do this, can I face the consequences for this decision I’m making? And that’s, boy, that’s difficult sometimes.

SPEAKER 03 : 21:12

It is. And when we look at our country and our communities and our families and our homes and we see division, grumbling, complaining, and we might even start screaming at each other. When we see that, we know that ourself is out of control. That’s that natural human tendency to complain and grumble and try to get control. Try to find a way from point a to point B without God’s guidance. His image in us is what truly brings us to that promised land, to a place of peace and harmony. He’s the God of peace and harmony. And we want to be following him into that promised land. Now, that might all sound very ambiguous, rhetorical, metaphorical. It’s allegorical. Okay. Throw all those words in there. It doesn’t sound literal enough for some people to really grab onto. But what we want to remember is that we were made for God.

SPEAKER 02 : 22:18

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER 03 : 22:18

We weren’t made for ourselves. That’s right. Just go rogue in this life without him. We were made for him.

SPEAKER 02 : 22:24

That’s right. In Exodus 34, it says God descended in a cloud, stood with Moses. And then when he passed by, he proclaimed, oh, this is so good. The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious. slow to anger and abounding abounding in loving kindness and truth who keeps loving kindness for thousands who forgives iniquity transgression and sin yet he will not by no means leave the guilty unpunished visiting the iniquity of fathers of the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations. And we know that can be a curse, and that’s a whole different area to get into. Read right after that, too. And Moses made haste to bow low toward the earth and worship. For he said, I now have found favor in thy sight, O Lord. I pray that, let’s see, let the Lord go along in our midst, even though the people are so obstinate. And do thou pardon our iniquity and our sin and take us as thine own possession.

SPEAKER 03 : 23:30

That’s what’s so beautiful is he’s claiming that pardon. Even though they’ve been obstinate. He’s saying, oh, you have pardoned. And we do trust you to do the punishing. We trust you to bring the justice. You said you would do it to the third and fourth generation. But look a little before that. Your loving kindness, your compassion, your mercy. It’s for a thousand generations. Because it’s God.

SPEAKER 02 : 23:58

That’s who he is. Yes. Who is like unto thee, O Lord among gods. That’s right. Yes.

SPEAKER 03 : 24:03

We might think that we’ve got some good ideas on how to help this world and how to help our families. I have a friend whose mom had started falling, and she fell so many times at the hospital for I don’t know how many times she had been there. They finally just decided the team at the hospital said she needs some physical therapy. So we need to keep her and do some physical therapy so that she’s stronger when she goes home. And my friend was relieved because she hasn’t been able to go to her work. She hasn’t been able to keep her routine because her mom had been falling so much and she’s been caring for her mom. So while her mom’s at the hospital and my friend goes back to work. A very well-meaning family member comes in and the mom is crying and she’s just out of sorts and saying, I just want to go home. So this family member takes her home. Oh. And my friend has to deal with more of the falling. This well-meaning friend or relative. Yeah, we think we are doing the very best for somebody, but that well-meaning friend did not wait on the Lord, did not consult. And he didn’t ask what my friend might want. He did not come together with the family to even find wisdom with the family. That’s what we want to be careful of. Coming to conclusions that we think are so good and so right. Oh, I’m having compassion on this one who’s crying and needs to go home. No, that didn’t bring strength. That didn’t really help in that moment. So all of us could actually learn a lesson from that and realize that we need to wait on the Lord. Pray. Ask him what he wants. Let his voice be a stronger voice than a voice of weeping and crying or complaining and grumbling.

SPEAKER 02 : 25:52

We are so prone to, like I said before in the program, to do things instantly and without thinking or without planning, without asking God first. Well, I got to tell them. I got to tell them about this. Well, is that God’s plan for you? And should you be the one that’s going to be telling these people? Like the person that took the mother home. Did that person ever take care of the elderly mother? Yes. No, they don’t live with her. Yeah. So they did that without real compassion towards the person who was going to be the caregiver. That’s right. Absolutely. So, well, it’s been wonderful talking about this. We’re going to talk more. Get into the New Testament about the word glory. God’s presence on in you on this earth manifested. God bless you. Remember the meeting Saturday. Call me at 1-877-917-7256. God bless you and take joy.

SPEAKER 01 : 27:02

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 partners 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 praise reports and heart cries by mailing them to Call to Freedom, Box 370-367, Denver, Colorado, 80237. Or you may email us at barbracarmack at freedomstreet.org. Until next time, remember, Jesus loves you, Barbara loves you, and take joy.

SPEAKER 1 : 28:27

Bye.