Under the Shadow of His Wings

Transcription

1 Children s Word by: Mrs. Stacy Asbill August 7, 2007 Mahomet, Illinois Under the Shadow of His Wings Mrs. Asbill: Good morning, children. How are you doing today? Children: Good. Mrs. Asbill: Good. Are we blessed to be here? Yes, we are. Well, let s close our eyes, fold our hands and pray. Father God, we are so thankful to be here today. We are so thankful to be able to come together as a Body to meet with You this day, Father. It is our desire, Lord God, to meet with You, to hear from Your throne the words that You desire to speak to us. So, Father, as I am speaking to these children, I pray that Your Word would come forth and that it would be the thing that would bring us life in the hour that we are in. Father, help us all. We know that you desire to have a people in this hour. We pray that we might listen and that we might do that which You are requiring of us, Father, so that we might be that people. In the name of Jesus we pray, amen. Well, I have a little testimony to start out with. I am really excited to be here today. There have been some things that God has been speaking to me lately. He has been speaking them to me personally, but as I have been dwelling on what God has been saying, He has begun to show me different things in the Word and He put a burden on my heart to share this word with you. It is really interesting, because I was not supposed to give the children s word for quite a while, but God opened the door, so I knew that this is what He wanted to say. I would like to talk to you about the theme that God was speaking to us throughout the conference, as well as in the meetings that we had with Brother ducille before the confer- K.I.T. for KIDS 1 November 2007

2 ence. It seemed that God was really speaking to us about the seriousness of the hour that we are in. I don t know how it is for the rest of you children, but I noticed that my children picked up on quite a bit of what was spoken concerning the tribulation and destruction that is going to come upon the earth. Did any of you hear some of those things and think anything about them? Yes? Well, I believe that God speaks things to us for a purpose. Why do you think that He would tell us that difficult times are ahead? Isaac: Because we are getting really close to the time when Jesus is coming back. Mrs. Asbill: That s true. Why does He tell us that? Moriah: Because we need to get ready. Mrs. Asbill: We need to get ready. We need to be prepared, don t we? I was thinking about the different things that God was saying and our need to be prepared and I began to see a picture that is found in Matthew 23:37. Jesus and His disciples were approaching Jerusalem before the Passover and He said, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy chil- dren together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings I want to talk a little bit about what a mother hen does so that we might understand what Jesus was saying. I thought it was very interesting that the mother hen protects her chicks and provides them with refuge from the time they hatch until they are about two months old. Have you ever heard about or seen a hen gathering her chicks under her wings? Why do you think a hen would do that? Caleb: To protect them from bad animals like hawks and coyotes. Christopher: So that the animals can t see where the chicks are. Nathan: So the babies don t get scared. Mrs. Asbill: Yes, the hen gathers her chicks under her wings to protect them, right? Now, I want to show you something and I need a couple of little volunteers. Nathan, Peyton and Esther Daniel, come on up. Now, you are going to be my little chicks, okay? These are my wings (Mrs. Asbill stretches a big blanket with her arms and pretends it is her wings). When the mama hen sees a hawk coming, or sees a storm coming, she begins to flap her wings (Mrs. Asbill flaps her arms with the big blanket). She begins to speak to her chicks by clucking to them. She calls them and the little chicks know to come. Now, you little K.I.T. for KIDS 2 November 2007

3 ones come under my blanket. Come on in (the three little children come to hide under the blanket). So, the mama chick is taking her wings and covering her chicks (the children are being completely covered by the blanket). She then settles right down with her wings covering over them. Now, can you see my little chicks? You can t see them, can you? Do you think they are safe? If the storm comes, are they going to get wet? No! If a hawk comes, can he see them? Do you know that a chick, in the face of danger, will never leave its mother s wings until that danger is past? It will never leave the security of the mother s wings. Thank you, little ones, you can sit down now. You were great chicks. I read a story about a mother hen and her chicks that I want to share with you. The story starts as a farmer awoke one morning and saw that his barn was on fire. When the fire burned out, the barn was burned completely down. Very little remained. As the man and his wife shuffled through the ashes surveying the rubble, they picked up an occasional relic. As the farmer went through where his barn once stood, he kicked at some of the charred remains and exposed four little baby chicks. They were alive! The mother hen had gathered her chicks under her wings and protected them in the midst of the fire. She gave her life to protect those babies and those babies lived. Can you imagine that? Those baby chicks lived through a whole barn burning down! Isn t that incredible? You know, that is really like Jesus, isn t it? What did Jesus do for us? He gave His life for us that we might live! Amen. So, I have been thinking about this example of Jesus coming into Jerusalem and saying, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. Now, you children probably know what Jerusalem is symbolic of, because Brother ducille has talked about this a lot. What is it? We are Jerusalem. And Jesus says, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chick- ens under her wings You can begin to imagine the heart of God for His people in this illustration. I think Jesus is beckoning to us to come to Him in this hour. He sees what lies ahead and He wants us to be in a place of safety. Let s look at Psalm 91, starting in verse 1, because this really explains this thought very well. The whole of Psalm 91 is incredible and if you could take the time this week and read all of it that would be great. But we are going to read down through verse 7. It says, He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide un- der the shadow of the Almighty. 2 I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. 3 Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noi- some pestilence. 4 He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. 5 Thou shalt not be K.I.T. for KIDS 3 November 2007

4 afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; 6 Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. 7 A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. A thought came to me when I was thinking about being under His wings. Let s think about the Tabernacle. What part of the Tabernacle do those words under the shadow of His wings remind you of? There is a piece of furniture in the Tabernacle that comes to mind. Isaac: The Mercy Seat. Mrs. Asbill: It s the Mercy Seat. Do you know the Mercy Seat has two cherubim? There is one on each side and their wings stretch forward touching each other. I think it is very interesting that the mercy seat is the only piece of furniture in the Tabernacle that is completely made of gold without any other substance to compliment it. You know the golden candlestick is gold, but it also has a wick and it also has oil. So, the mercy seat is the only piece that is completely gold and nothing else. What does gold symbolize? Caleb: It is the nature of Christ. Mrs. Asbill: That s right. The nature of God. Gold symbolizes everything that makes God Who He is. In Exodus 25 verses 21 through 22, God is commanding Moses how to build the Tabernacle. He says, And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. 22 And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel. I thought that was really neat. God was saying there I will meet with thee. So, it is as you come under the shadow of Jesus, He will meet with you. Now, let s think about this, because we want to know how to get there, right? I mean how do we get to be in that place of being under His shadow, of being completely covered with Jesus? Well, when you look at the Tabernacle, what is the thing that is right before you enter the Holy of Holies? Anna: Altar of incense. Mrs. Asbill: Altar of incense, yes. There is one more thing though. As you walk into the Tabernacle and you are passing the altar of incense, there is something before you get to the mercy seat. Do you know what it is? Christopher: The table of shewbread. Mrs. Asbill: No. K.I.T. for KIDS 4 November 2007

5 Caleb: The veil. Mrs. Asbill: The veil! There is a veil that we must part, that we must walk through in order to enter into the Holy of Holies. The veil symbolizes flesh. We must break through the flesh. We must break through the things that govern us now and enter into the place with God. We have talked about the purpose of being under God s shadow: it is to keep us safe. Now, I want us to think a little bit beyond the natural, because I believe that when troubles come God wants to keep us safe. Sometimes He does it naturally. There are many testimonies of people whom God has kept naturally, but most importantly God wants to keep us spiritually. He wants to do something in us so that in the midst of destruction we can have peace, we can have joy, we can have rest and also, that Christ would be the One Who would be moving through us and Emotions there would be nothing of our own self. Another thought that God was speaking to me about is that He wants us to be in a place of hearing His voice. A part of coming under the shadow of Jesus Christ is to be able to hear His voice. As I was thinking about these Mind Soul Desires things, I was blessed to be able to read a word from Brother ducille from the Czech conference last year. He began to speak about training our souls. He said that our mind is the key. Do you remember what the different parts of our soul are? I already told you one part - the mind. Stephen: The mind, the will, the emotions and the desires. Mrs. Asbill: That s right. The mind, the will, the emotions and the desires. Well, Brother ducille shared that one of the things we can do is to begin to train our mind. That is the thing that is going to help God s people come into the place that we need to be in. One of the things that he spoke about was to begin to think about the stories in the Bible. You know, sometimes you read the Word and you go to memorize verses and you go about your day and then, at least for me, I think, Now, what was that verse? Then I go back to it. Sometimes when you begin to think about Will the stories, throughout your day you can begin to think about the story of David and Goliath. What must that have been like? What do you think David went through? You begin to dwell on the Word and on the things that God did for the people in the Bible that we have read about. Well, I read this key that Brother ducille gave and I began to think about Noah. Isn t it interesting that God commanded Noah to build an ark? Here, again, the ark symbolizes being in that place of safety with God. But I began K.I.T. for KIDS 5 November 2007

6 to think about what it must have been like for Noah. Have you ever thought that about people in the Bible? We all know the story about the flood that came and how God kept Noah, his family and all the animals, right? Did you ever stop to think that for us that is easy to imagine because we have seen rain and we know what it means to have a flood. But Noah knew nothing of that. There had never been rain; there had never been a flood. So, what God asked of Noah was something that probably, in our natural mind, would not make sense. Do you know God wants to do the same with us? God speaks things to us and a lot of times our mind wars with it, because it doesn t seem logical. But, God! we say. Did you ever think that when God asked you to do something? Something that maybe seemed hard to you? But, God, I don t understand! But as you begin to obey and walk in the thing that God has said, you see His plan unfold before you. I want to share with you a little story about a woman whose life greatly encourages me and her name is Darlene Diebler Rose. Do you children know about Mrs. Rose? She was a missionary to Papua New Guinea. What is really amazing about her story is that she was about eight or nine when God called her to be a missionary. She was in a meeting and a Voice very audibly behind her asked her, Will you go? She turned around but nobody was there. Who was it? It was God. She said, Yes, Lord. I will go. I will go wherever You send me. From that point in her life she did everything to prepare herself to go wherever God desired to send her. And God sent her to Papua New Guinea, which is by Australia and Indonesia. When God sent her and her husband, it was right about the time of World War II. When they were there, the Japanese came, invaded the country and took captive all of the missionaries, all the people from foreign lands. They separated the men and the women and had them in work camps. It was very much like what the ten Boom sisters went through. The story I want to tell you about took place when their camp was being bombed. They had dug a deep trench all around their camp so that when the bombings came all of the prisoners could run to t h e trench f o r safety. Darlene had a spot that she always went t o. That K.I.T. for KIDS 6 November 2007

7 spot never got bombed and all the women knew that. One day the bombings were going on and she was in the trench. Suddenly, God spoke to her, but she didn t know it was God. Just a thought came to her mind that she had borrowed a Bible from another woman, but had left it on her bunk. In the midst of the bombing she thought, Oh, God, how could I allow that woman s Bible to be burned in the bombing. It wasn t even mine! She ran back to the barracks where she was staying and the Bible was on her bed. She grabbed the Bible and ran back, but by that time the bombing had stopped and the women were beginning to come out from the trench. There was one woman who was standing nearby weeping. Darlene went to her and asked, Are you hurt? Are you okay? She replied, Yes, I m fine. Darlene said, Well, why are you weeping? She said, Because I took my mat and put it in the part of the trench where you always go, because I know that it has never been bombed. So she put it there purposely to keep it safe. But do you know what happened? That exact spot where Darlene always went to had been bombed and that woman s mattress was destroyed. Could you imagine how Mrs. Rose must have felt to be in that situation, knowing the awesomeness of God s ability to speak and to cover her in the midst of destruction? Everything that God has been speaking to me has been really sobering. A thought came to me that never before in our lives has it been as important that we obey God as it is right now; and that we must allow Him to lead us and that we begin to overcome our own souls and the things that our soul dictates to us; and that we say, God, no more do I want to be governed by my soul. God, help me to overcome and to come into that place where it is only You. Because, you know, when we enter into the Holy of Holies, there is nothing of us that is moving; it is only God. Nothing of our flesh, nothing of ourselves can be in the presence of God. Children, this is the thought that I have been burdened with because the Word that we hear is for you as much as for us adults. God s desire is for you, like those chicks, to be gathered under His wings. He wants to keep you naturally and He wants to keep you spiritually in the midst of every situation that you may find yourselves in. We don t know what will happen. We don t know where we will find ourselves. But God wants to keep us. In that place of His keeping there is no fear, there is no need to be afraid, just like those little chicks. When the mother hen gathers her chicks, those chicks are not looking out and saying, Oh my goodness, there s a hawk over us! We are in big trouble! They are right up next to their mother, feeling her warmth and staying there until she says, Now it is okay. That is why I believe that the heart of God is for us not to be afraid, not to fear, but to trust Him and obey Him and allow Him to have His way. Amen. K.I.T. for KIDS 7 November 2007