(August 1, 2011)

Prayer House News!

We had a great time in church yesterday as we looked into the controversial subject of today’s Super Heroes vs. our Savior (the true hero).

My message from Sunday is the devotional for today.

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This Week at Prayer House

Morning Prayer: Every morning at 5:00 - 7:00am - Join us in the sanctuary if you can.

Tuesday: - Prayer Day. Our Pastoral staff will be praying together for our church at 8:00am. Our ladies PUSH & Praise meets at 9:00am.

Wednesday: VBS and SWAT will be up and running starting at 6:15pm. Please note: The adult class is taking the month of August off.

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Devotional

Adam – Superman!

Today I’m going to talk to you about Adam as Superman. We live in a very strange world today. It’s a world filled with wonder. Technology is impossible to keep up with. Computers can do things today that literally make us feel indestructible. Computer generated images otherwise known as CGI is the term for using computers to make animated beings in movies who act alongside of actual humans. Many of the current superhero movies use that technology. When Spiderman is swinging from building to building on a web – though it looks like a real human it is all computer generated.

What I want to do is to go back to the beginning and see where all of this started. I have been reading Watchman Nee’s book, “The Latent Power of the Soul.” He made a statement in his book that sparked this whole message and gave me the material that I have been looking for, for a long time in order to address a growing problem within the Christian church today. I’m ultimately going to make some rather harsh statements about what seems to be an inordinate infatuation with Super Hero’s. The whole premise of super hero’s has satanic roots.

Trilogy of Spirit, Soul, and Body

Genesis 2:7 “And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground...”

This refers to the human body.

Genesis 2:7 “…and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,

This describes how God gave spirit to man; it was Adam’s spirit. So man’s body was formed of the dust of the ground, and man’s spirit was given to him by God.

Genesis 2:7 “…and the man became a living soul.”

After the breath of life had entered into his nostrils man became a living soul. The spirit, the soul, and the body are three separate entities.

The spirit is God-given; the soul is a living soul; and the body is God-formed. According to common understanding the soul is our personality. When the spirit and the body were joined, man became a living soul.

The characteristic of the angels is spirit - and animals are flesh. We humans have both spirit and body; but our characteristic is neither spirit nor body but soul. We have a living soul. Hence the Bible calls man soul.

Acts 2:41 So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and there were added that day about three thousand souls. NASB

The spirit makes us conscious of God and relates us to God. The soul is that which relates us to ourselves and gives us self-consciousness. The body causes us to sense the world—such as our seeing the things of the world, our feeling hot or cold, and so forth. C. I. Scofield, said, the spirit gives God-consciousness, the soul self-consciousness, the body world-consciousness.

Our soul stands for our personality; it has the power of determining for itself. In the organization of these three parts of man’s nature, the spirit links us with the Divine, it is the highest order; the body connects us with our animal or base nature, it is the lowest order; in the middle stands the soul, it is the bond that unites spirit and body. Its work, as the central power, is to keep the body, as the lowest, and in subjection to the spirit.

What I want to focus on here today is the issue of our soul. Nee’s book, The Latent Power of the Soul, deals with what happened to Adam’s soul at the fall of man. He believes Adam lost most of his ability to reason and make full use of his mind when sin entered into the world. This is why scientists tell us that we probably only use about 10% of our brains abilities.

I think we make a big mistake when we consider ourselves as being almost equal to Adam before his fall. We assume that since we are human beings just as Adam was, there is not too much difference between us.

“Authority and Physical Prowess “

Genesis 1:27-28 And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

(28) And God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." NASB

Subdue the earth, says God.Subdue and dominion are the same word. Have dominion over the earth. Have you ever thought of how immense the earth is?

I have a friend who manages apartment complexes for her company out in Rapid City. Suppose her boss asks her to oversee 12 complexes. He would do that on the basis of what he believes of her ability to take care of them. Suppose the company owns several dozen complexes. No one employee would be able to handle all of them because it would be beyond their ability. So in this life we do what we can handle. That is why most organizations have presidents, vice-presidents, supervisors, foremen and so forth. If you have more than you can handle – that’s called stress.. Would God, then, ask Adam to do what he was incapable of doing? Adam was a superman capable of managing the whole earth. His prowess was most certainly superior to ours today. He had power, ability, and skill. He received all of these abilities from the Creator. Adam’s power was probably at least a million times over ours. Otherwise he would not have been able to perform the duty commanded him of God.

Adam not only ruled the earth he also had dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the heavens, and every living thing on the earth. To rule is not just to sit by doing nothing. It requires management and work. Adam’s power far exceeds our present situation. Actually this is the teaching of the Bible.

Genesis 3:17,19 Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. (19) By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food.

Before his fall Adam had such strength that he never felt tired after work. It was only after his fall that God told him he would get tired.

Adam’s Brain Power and Memory

Genesis 2:19 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. NASB

This is quite incredible. Adam gave names to all the birds and animals. How intelligent would one have to be to be able to do that! If he named all the animals that means he remembered them. Those of us who are not so brilliant would no doubt soon give up the study of zoology once we saw our inability to memorize all the details. Subsequently, we see how perfect Adam’s rational power was.

Adam’s Managerial Power

Genesis 2:15 Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. NASB

Now we see something Adam was charged with. God commanded him to cultivate the garden of Eden. This needed to be done systematically. How big was the garden?

Genesis 2.10-14 mentions four rivers; namely, Pishon, Gihon, Hiddekel and Euphrates. Can you imagine now how big the garden was? It is several hundred miles from west to east. It encompassed part of Iraq. How strong must Adam be to be charged with dressing a land which was surrounded by four rivers! He was not only to dress it but also to keep it; to keep the garden from being invaded by the enemy. Therefore the power which Adam had in that day must have been tremendous. He must have been a man with astounding ability. He most likely had the ability to transport himself with thought. All his powers were inherent in his living soul.

He was Faster than a speeding bullet, More powerful than a locomotive, Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. There probably weren’t that many speeding bullets, locomotives, or tall buildings in Eden but if there had been he was up to the task.

We may look upon Adam’s power as supernatural and miraculous, but so far as Adam was concerned these abilities were not miraculous but human, not supernatural but natural. But then he fell.

What was the bait which the enemy used in enticing Eve? What did the enemy promise her? It was this:

Genesis 3:5 "For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." NASB

“Be like God” was the enemy’s promise. He told Eve that not withstanding the power which she already possessed there was still a great chasm between her and God, but that if she ate this fruit she would then have God’s authority, wisdom, and power. And on that day Eve was tempted and fell.

The Power God Gave to Adam

“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen. 1.26). The words “image” and “likeness” may seem to be alike in meaning but they are not. In the Hebrew the word “image” does not point to physical likeness, rather it denotes moral or spiritual similarity whereas likeness points to physical likeness. So we were created not merely to look like God but to be like God.

The purpose in God creating man is for man to be transformed according to His image. God wanted Adam to be like Him. This is possibly why God would often come to walk with Adam in the Garden – it appears those were mentoring sessions. Transformation comes with growth. The New Testament says we are transformed by the renewing of our minds. That speaks of a process.

But then the old enemy shows up and uses the immature mind of Eve and says in essence, “Rather than waiting for God’s timing, you will be like God if you just eat of this tree of knowledge of good and evil.” Eve took of the fruit and then gave it to Adam and man fell.

From this we can conclude that before the fall Adam had in him the power to become like God. He was already like Him in outward appearance, but he was ordained by God to become like Him morally. Maybe from this revelation we can see how much loss mankind has suffered through the fall. The magnitude of the damage is probably beyond our imagination.

Nee said, “Man’s spirit and body are joined in his soul. That astonishing power was present in Adam’s soul. In other words, the living soul, which is the result of the coming together of the spirit and the body, possesses unthinkable supernatural power.” Can you imagine – Adam was very similar to how Hollywood depicts superheroes today and yet God was so much more than that that Adam was willing to disobey in an effort to gain the kind of power God had.

At the fall, the power which distinguishes Adam from us is lost. He is no longer a superman. Subsequently, because the superhero status has fallen, man’s continued desire and infatuation with them is being driven by the same force or spirit that caused Adam to sin against his God in the first place.

The soul’s responsibility was to keep the flesh subjugated to the spirit. It failed – it allowed the flesh to rise up and to do its own thing. The soul is our will, it’s our nature. Whenever our will surrenders to the desires of the flesh – the spirit of God in us loses. That’s what fasting is all about. Fasting is our soul telling our flesh – you’re going to come down and the spirit of God will rise. This is why after the fall man is referred to as flesh. The spirit no longer reigns supreme. The flesh envelops the whole being and subjugates him. Man was originally a living soul; now, having fallen, he becomes flesh. His soul had been meant to submit to the spirit’s control; now it is subject to the dominion of the flesh. Hence the Lord said,

Genesis 6:3 Then the Lord said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years."

In God’s eyes man was now flesh. So now Satan tries to use the human soul as an instrument for his activities at the end of this age. This is why God works now to save our souls. The soul is what fell. He has no interest in saving our flesh. Our flesh without our soul or spirit would be what an animal is today. The spirit of God in man does not need to be saved but our souls do.

When Adam fell in the Garden of Eden his power was immobilized. He had not lost this power but rather, it was now buried within him. It has now become a kind of “hidden” power. It is not lost to man; it is simply bound up by the flesh. Today in each and every person who lives on earth lies this power. Now that Adam has fallen he is no longer Adam Superman. He is just Adam. However, he has not lost his power it is still confined in him but is not able to fully express itself. So now he is Adam Kent, the power is there but it’s hidden under his shirt and there are no phone booths for him to use to become superman because the phone had not yet been invented. So he is stuck with a power he cannot get to.

We consider what Adam possessed as special or supernatural ability; though in actuality what he had was not at all special or supernatural, it merely appears that way to us today because we compare who we are today to whom he was. Adam did not see himself as a superman. Before his fall Adam could quite naturally exercise this ability with ease, since it was embodied in his soul. Remember the power was in the soul. As long as the spirit of God had dominion over the flesh the soul could literally will his flesh to do almost anything. But after his fall, this power was locked up by his body because what had really fallen was his soul. Formerly the body was a help to Adam; now that the soul had fallen, he works by the sweat of his brow; his power is hemmed in by the shell of the flesh.

The work of the devil is to stir up man’s soul and to release this power within it but God has told us that that is forbidden. The reason for my mentioning these things is to warn us of the relationship between man’s soul and Satan in the last days. Satan still uses the same tactics of – you will be like God – in our current infatuation with super heroes. The worship of these images is in keeping with the exact spirit that caused man to fall originally.

When we consider the two trees in this account – man had free access to the tree of life – however, it represented dependency upon God. Man had to go to it on a continual basis in order to sustain life. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, afforded man the ability to live independent of God. Eve ate this right to self-determination and then she gave it to Adam who also partook. God is now asking man to come back into dependence upon Him, which is what salvation represents. When we willfully give Jesus our hearts we are simultaneously submitting our will to His. But Satan fights this. He attempts to break or re-open this fleshly shell and to release the power dormant in man’s soul in order to gain control over man. We see this all the time today.

Psychologists declare that within man is a tremendous array of power: the power of self-control, creative power, and reconstructive power, the power of faith, the power of quickening, and the power of restoration. These can all be released by men. One psychology book even goes so far as to proclaim that all humans are gods, only that the god is imprisoned within us. By releasing the god within us we all become gods. How alike are these words to those of Satan!

This is where the practices of breathing, ascetic (a-setic) exercise, hypnosis, predictions of the future, palm reading, and mystical communications are merely the release and manifestation of the power within. Just think of the miraculous acts of hypnosis. There are fortune-tellers whose predictions of the future are well-known and many of them correct.

Supernatural powers lie dormant within us – but they are currently meant to remain dormant. The desire for their release is what puts us at odds with our creator. And I maintain that our attraction to superheroes comes from this desire to release the hidden powers of the soul. Have you ever considered the scene when Moses approached Pharaoh for the release of God’s children?

Exodus 7:8-12 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, (9) "When Pharaoh says to you, 'Perform a miracle,' then say to Aaron, 'Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh,' and it will become a snake."

(10) So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake .

(11) Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts:

(12) Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake . But Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs.

The sorcerers and magicians did exactly what Moses did. They displayed the same supernatural power that Moses did. However, this power had fallen with man, so according to God’s will it should not be used any further and yet the New Testament is filled with examples of the believers having power. The book of Acts says power will come on us after the Holy Spirit falls on us. Mark says signs and wonders will follow those who follow Jesus. So it’s not really a power issue as much as it is the source of power. Today all the powerful acts done in the name of Jesus are just that. They are the works of the Spirit of God flowing through us but it’s not a tapping into the forbidden source hidden within our souls. It is now a release of the spirit of God within us. That is much of what the baptism of the Holy Spirit is.

In the case we just read about both the good guys and the bad guys possessed power. Aaron threw his staff down and it became a snake – but then the bad guys did the same thing. The difference is that Moses and Aaron did it by the power of God whereas the magicians did it by this power within them that is not supposed to be touched today in our fallen state.

Can you imagine what fallen man would do with supernatural powers? And yet it is Satan’s desire to cause us to want to develop this hidden ability so as to make man feel he is as rich as God - in accordance with what Satan had promised. Subsequently, the worship of superheroes falls into the same category of man worshipping himself, though indirectly it is a worship of Satan.

Folks it’s not that someone simply came up with the idea of superheroes and it gradually became an industry. That industry was born out of the constant drive of the enemy for men to worship themselves and him - and to tap into something forbidden. I don’t believe that this is merely entertainment any more than pornography is. For people to say, “I just go to these superhero movies as a form of entertainment. I like the idea of supernatural power but I don’t really try to develop it myself.” That is like a man saying that he goes to x-rated movies but he has never committed adultery, so in his mind he is still true to his wife. It’s not the act it’s the desire. It falls right into the hands of Satan for us to spend God’s money on these aberrations of humans so they can entertain us. If these powers fell with Adam then the desire for them is forbidden in the same way public nakedness is forbidden – since it represents man before the fall. These things express a craving for something not allowed. The evolution of this is already happening. It will not be too long before the majority of Christian kids will have no problem with movies that are sexually explicit or movies like Harry Potter. It’s just another movie of someone with super powers. Why is Harry Potter any worse than Batman? They both derive power from a forbidden source.

This all relates back to the misguided desire to be like God. It’s the desire to have the power to be able to do whatever we want (which is what it means to be like God). What do you think a lust is? It’s the worship of self. No matter what it is you might lust over – in doing so you put yourself in control. Every fantasy – no matter what category it falls under, is a desire for control. In a fantasy the other person’s will is completely subject to the one fantasying. It is a desire to be a god unto you.

Parents this issue of what entertains your kids becomes your responsibility. They are following your lead. We must take a stand in our homes and tell our kids what is right and what is wrong. Don’t you see it? Satan wants to resurrect the first Adam so that men will want to be like him instead of the second Adam. Has anyone’s love for the Hulk or Captain America created an even deeper love for Jesus in their life? Superheroes emulate the first, fallen, Adam. We are to be like the second Adam. That is the battle. First Adam did not possess enough power to redeem us – second Adam did.

If you are going to love a hero – let it be Jesus. Why not be taken up with him young people. Why not fill your rooms with posters of him. Why not listen just to music that glorifies Him? I’m not impressed with the worldly music you know. I got saved out of the world and I have no need for it any more. That world will kill you and send you to hell.

Jesus actually has tremendous power – he can do everything your CGI’s pretend to do. There is nothing fake about him. Hollywood does not have to resort to CGI technology to make him look good. They could take their cameras to various revivals around the world and tape people actually getting healed, bones being put back together, the blind seeing and the deaf hearing, they could see people getting filled with his spirit and speaking in different tongues, and people getting raised from the dead. That stuff is real and it’s available to us.

Just last Thursday I was teaching in a church in Chicago’s south side. A few of our guys went with me. I was teaching on the Holy Spirit. At the end of the service a woman gave a testimony about God prompting her to speak in tongues to a stranger. She was shopping and this lady was checking in the same line. She walked out in front of her and walked to the car parked next to her. When she opened the tailgate of her SUV she collapsed. The woman telling the story then shared about how God impressed her to go to her and pray in tongues over her. Though she was embarrassed to do so because others were gathering around she did it anyway. After she prayed she said the woman (her back went out on her) was helped up. She looked at the one who had been praying for her and then both of them parted ways. The next week the woman was back at the store and so was the other lady. Once again they were checking out at the exact same time and in the same line. This time she approached her and began to apologize to her for praying in a language she did not understand. The woman stopped her and said, “I understood what you were praying perfectly – you were praying in English.” But she wasn’t – she was praying in her heavenly language – apparently God wanted the woman to hear her. Just to make a long story short. The woman and her family got saved through that incident.

To me that’s pretty supernatural. This woman stepped out in faith – prayed in tongues and a whole family got saved. If those were the kind of things we were taken up with we could change the world. Unfortunately for Jesus – we are taken up with CGI’s. We are obsessed with the latest and the greatest the world has to offer. We want the fallen power of a superhero while we fail to fully follow the one and only true superhero.

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Medication

TOP 8 MORONS OF 2010

1. WILL THE REAL DUMMY PLEASE STAND UP?

AT&T fired President John Walter after nine months, saying he lacked intellectual leadership. He received a $26 million severance package. Perhaps it's not Walter who's lacking intelligence.

2. WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS.

Police in Oakland , CA , spent two hours attempting to subdue a gunman who had barricaded himself inside his home. After firing ten tear gas canisters, officers discovered that the man was standing beside them in the police line, shouting, 'Please come out and give yourself up.'

3. WHAT WAS PLAN B???

An Illinois man, pretending to have a gun, kidnapped a motorist and forced him to drive to two different automated teller machines, wherein the kidnapper proceeded to withdraw money from his own bank accounts!

4. THE GET A WAY!

A man walked into a Topeka, Kansas Kwik Stop and asked for all the money in the cash drawer. Apparently, the take was too small, so he tied up the store clerk and worked the counter himself for three hours until police showed up and grabbed him.

5. DID I SAY THAT???

Police in Los Angeles had good luck with a robbery suspect who just couldn't control himself during a lineup. When detectives asked each man in the lineup to repeat the words: 'Give me all your money or I'll shoot', the man shouted, 'that's not what I said!'

6. ARE WE COMMUNICATING???

A man spoke frantically into the phone: 'My wife is pregnant and her contractions are only two minutes apart'.

'Is this her first child?' the doctor asked. 'No!' the man shouted,

'This is her husband!'

7. NOT THE SHARPEST TOOL IN THE SHED!

In Modesto , CA , Steven Richard King was arrested for trying to hold up a Bank of America branch without a weapon. King used a thumb and a finger to simulate a gun. Unfortunately, he failed to keep his hand in his pocket. (hellooooooo)!

8.. THE GRAND FINALE!!!

Last summer, down on Lake Isabella, located in the high desert an hour east of Bakersfield, C A , some folks new to boating, were having a problem. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn't get their brand new 22 foot boat going. It was very sluggish in almost every maneuver, no matter how much power they applied. After about an hour of trying to make it go, they putted into a nearby marina, thinking someone there may be able to tell them what was wrong. A thorough topside check revealed everything in perfect working condition. The engine ran fine, the out-drive went up and down, and the propeller was the correct size and pitch. So, one of the marina guys jumped in the water to check underneath. He came up choking on water, he was laughing so hard.

NOW REMEMBER...THIS IS TRUE.

Under the boat, still strapped securely in place, was the trailer!