Restoration 2019:  Brokenness

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Restoration Ministry

2019:  Evening and Sabbath Meetings

Dean Cullinane

Father of the Fatherless

Father in heaven, Lord we have so much to be grateful for.

To come before you in your presence, to have this opportunity to delight in your creation, to delight in the rest from that creation.

Father that we can spend this time with you, that we can worship you, that we have the Scriptures, that we can sing and praise your name, Lord.

These are privileges that none of us deserve.

But Father, you have entrusted us with the gospel.

You've entrusted us with this sacred message that the entire world needs to hear.

And so, Father, we pray as we begin this restoration series that, Father, you would Fill us with your Holy Spirit like we've never been filled before.

We have not come here for yesterday's blessings.

We have not come here just to relive old experiences.

We want to feel the presence of Your Spirit in our hearts.

We want to go forth in faith, Lord, knowing that heaven is behind us.

Father, I personally ask that Your Spirit would use me this evening.

Father, You told us in the book of Revelation chapter 12 verse 11 that they overcame Him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.

And so as I share what You have done in my brief experience with You, Lord, I just pray that you would take your word, you would send it forth to do that which it would and that it would not return unto you void.

This Lord is our prayer in Jesus name, amen.

For those of you that aren't aware, if there is a remnant of my accent remaining, then the majority of what you can hear is probably from the United Kingdom.

I was born in the small little country next to it called the Republic of Ireland.

I was born on the West Coast and I moved to the United Kingdom when I was 8 years old.

This was in the year 1999, which means that I'm 27 now.

I feel like age is already grasping me by the neck and I seek to overcome it, though I know it's essentially a losing battle.

But at the age of 8, myself, my brother, my younger brother, and my mom, we moved from Galway Island to London.

And the reason why we moved was because there was a family led by a particular man who had made death threats to my family, especially to my mother.

And at first we didn't take them seriously, but then later on we had no choice but to take them seriously.

I remember 1 time when I was really young, this rather imposing gentleman just kind of stormed into my house and physically abused my mother.

I think I was 7 at the time and I remember the next day my mom just coming to me and saying we're leaving, we're like we're leaving everything behind and I was like well what about my toys you know I'd built up such a collection in the past 3 or 4 years.

And we got on a boat, not a paddle boat or a row boat, but a cruise if you would, and we headed to London.

And that's where I spent all of the years from that point up until the age of maybe 24.

And that is where most of the experiences that I will share with you this evening stem from.

And I wanna share first a verse from Jeremiah 29 11.

You know the verse, for I know the thoughts that I think towards you, saith the Lord, thoughts of, okay, maybe you don't know it, thoughts of peace and not of evil, and to give you an expected end.

I attended church faithfully every Sunday.

My grandparents were rather militant in that we lived a literal stone's throw away from the Catholic Church in the area.

It was a big, 1 of those big, I wouldn't say it was a cathedral, but it was a strange set up.

The pulpit was in the middle and everyone kind of sat around it.

I guess it made good ways for the whole communion thing.

But that was really the extent of my religious experience by the age of 13.

I went to church because my parents or my mom decided that I had to, because my grandma decided that I had to, because my grandfather decided that I had to.

And if we didn't go, then there'd be trouble, especially if my brother or I kicked up a fuss and decided that we didn't want to go and eat paper, you know, for church.

We just did this not how we wanted to spend our Sunday mornings and there would always be repercussions for those minor outbursts.

So, around about the age of 13 I had convinced my mum that we needed to stop doing this.

We'd moved from the motherland as it were and look, I remember in a very logical way saying, mum why do we still go to church?

And she was like, well, because we're Catholic.

And I was like, oh, is that all Catholics do?

And she was like, yeah, that's pretty much it.

Maybe we don't, maybe we just stop that now because I don't know if you've realized, but we don't live with grandma and grandpa anymore.

And so they're not really gonna know, but here's the thing, I kid you not, for the 5 years from when we left Ireland to that point, my grandma would call every Sunday.

She would call every Sunday at lunchtime just to ask, did you go to church today?

It's like, put the phone down and, oh, how are you?

How's your new life that you started overnight?

And But as long as you're going to church on Sunday, you should be fine.

So I convinced my mom that time that we should stop going.

Church had just become a game, a literal game in fact, because I used to go there with my video games because it was the only way that my mother could convince me to actually stay and remain quiet was if I had my Game Boy Advance.

Little Game Boy Advance just catching Pokemon, You know, the irony of catching ghost demons in the church.

So, I convinced my mum that we should stop going.

And she was like, but what are we gonna do when grandma calls?

And I was like, yeah, you know, maybe we don't pick up.

She's like, well, how often are we gonna be able to do that before she, she only calls on Sundays, or are we just, are we just killing the relationship right here?

And I had this, now I can't say I was a believer in God, But I had this thought at least in my mind that if God is real, at least at the age of 13, that it doesn't really matter.

The only thing that God is concerned about is Where am I on Sunday morning?

Yes, there's billions of people on the earth, but God obviously has other things to do, but Sunday morning, he has a keen eye.

Sunday morning, he wants to know, are you where you should be?

My own religious experience pretty much stopped there.

I went through school, I took my exams at the age of 16 because fortunately for us school stops at 16 years old in England, unless you want to continue it, but 16 is your 18.

When God’s Not Around

Father in heaven, Lord, we humbly ask that your spirit would be in this room.

Father, as your Word is opened, we pray for a special blessing upon it.

We pray that you'll take these wonderful words and give them a special place in our heart today.

Remove anything that would serve as a distraction.

Help us, Father, to give You our undivided attention.

We pray, Lord, that our hearts would be open to your word today in Jesus name.

We pray amen You've probably at 1 point in your life asked the question Why do bad things?

Happen to good people Let's go to mark chapter 4 if you have your Bibles.

If you have your Bibles, let's go to Mark chapter 4.

Why is it that bad things happen to good people?

Of course, you can also ask, why is it that good things happen to bad people?

But today, why do bad things happen to good people?

And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.

And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow, and they wake him and saith unto him, Master, do you not care that we perish?" Why is it that bad things happen to good people?

You might have heard a sermon based on this verse that had a rather strange axiom that sounded something like this, if Jesus is in the boat of your life, then nothing bad will happen.

Because if you think about it, it was Jesus' command to go into the boat.

Verse 35, let us pass over to the other side.

He wasn't inviting them for a group swim.

Okay, he intended that they would make their way into the boat.

And when you think about it like this, the storm, and we'll see this, It was a different kind of storm.

And I think that Jesus probably knew that it was coming.

Now, I wouldn't suggest that He fell asleep so as to test them.

I would say that He fell asleep because He was human.

He fell asleep because he had spent the entire day preaching, teaching, and healing.

When I finish 1 sermon, it's time to sleep.

In fact, it's time to eat, and then it's time to really sleep.

I was reading something this morning that made me chuckle.

It said that there was a prophet, Elijah, who once had said to God, God, I'm so angry, I just want to die." And then God said, okay, Elijah, have some food and then go and have a nap.

And then Elijah wakes up and everything is fine.

And it said, don't underestimate the spiritual power of a nap and a snack Jesus I believe went to sleep on the boat because he was tired Not necessarily to test the disciples, but I want you I want you just to just to think about this for a second.

It's because the disciples followed Jesus that they found themselves in a storm.

Because if they had decided to not stay on the boat, If they had decided to let some of them, or maybe just Jesus, go on the boat, and they stayed back on the land, they would never have found themselves in this situation.

So the reason why they were in the storm, the reason why bad things were happening to them, the reason why they felt like they were going to actually lose their life, was in actual fact because they were following Jesus.

So the axiom that if Jesus is in your life, bad things will never happen, couldn't be more of an untruth.

In fact, I would say that the reason why bad things happen to you and I is because Jesus is in our life.

The reason why we suffer, the reason why the trials that befall us are so often much stronger than those that befall the unbelievers is because we have Jesus, not because we don't have Him.

So the disciples find themselves in the midst of a storm.

And so we ask the question, why is it that bad things happen to good people?

If you read Romans chapter 3, there is none that are good.

In fact, bad things don't happen to good people.

You and I need to come to the realization that bad things happen to us, but in actual fact, the way that we have lived our life and The way that we have so often chosen self over God means that bad things should probably come our way.

Luckily, as I shared yesterday, heaven is on our side.

So those bad things that do befall us are so often not as bad as they could have been.

Jesus is in the boat of your life, so bad things are going to happen.

Let's look at some context for this particular event.

In Mark chapter 3, Jesus calls the disciples into ministry.

And shortly after that, he's actually accused of being the devil himself.

It says in Verse 22 of Mark chapter 3, and the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, he hath Baal-zebub, and by the prince of the devil casteth he out devils.

And then so Jesus said to them, how can Satan cast out Satan?

He's trying to make a point here, and he finishes the chapter by saying this from verse 31, when they come to him to talk about the fact that his mother and his brothers are coming to speak to him.

He says in verse 33, who is my mother or my brethren?

Verse 35, for whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother and my sister and my mother.

What Jesus is saying is that the kingdom of God, the gospel, is not just for the Jews, but this message is in fact going to go to the Gentiles and when the disciples make efforts to take that message, they are going to be met with trials.

And so he gives them a little bit more teaching and then we find ourselves in Mark chapter 4 and verse 35.

And if you're not sure where the other side is, you just have to jump to verse 1 of chapter 5.

It says, and they came over to the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes.

In other words, they went over to the Gentile lands.

Now there's something that I like to do when studying my Bible that helps me, I think, sometimes To catch the pieces of information that we sometimes overlook when it comes to just our casual Bible study I like to call them flags.

Flags now flags generally and I mean it literally I draw a little flag by the verse, is something, in pencil so I can rub it out, is something that at first appears to be irregular.

It appears to stand out, or the opposite, It appears to not mean anything at all.

Now the Bible says that all scripture is given as inspiration of God.

I don't believe that there's a single word in this book that is just mere information.

There's something that God wants to tell us.

And so if you're coming across something in your study or your reading of the Scriptures that to you seems like it's just a piece of information, for me, I like to flag that and say this is something that I don't understand and I'm going to try and understand it better.

You don't just plant the flag and then suddenly look up and you're able to recognize what it is.

Okay, there's great effort that sometimes needs to go into this.

But I'd like to read verse 35 to 41 and I want you to, as we're reading through it, Think about what the possible flags might be in this passage.

I think that there's at least 2 that stick out.

Let's read it, and then I'll ask you guys to see what you came up with.

And the same day, when the evening was come, he said unto them, Let us pass over to the other side.

God’s Quiver

Father, we thank you for bringing us back here this afternoon, for the opportunity to speak here as part of the restoration program.

Lord, I'm humbled by the way that you have shunned through all that has been done.

And Father, We pray that as we briefly look now through the 127th Psalm, Father, your spirit would once again be in this place, in our hearts, that Father, you'd speak directly to us, that there's a message I know that you have for each 1 of us individually.

We pray, Father, that as the Sabbath draws to a nigh, that your word would come even closer to us, that our experience with you would not also draw to a nigh.

There's a verse in Revelation chapter 13, verse 8 that I want to read with you because it's always kind of struck me, and it says, and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship Him whose names are not written in the book of life, of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." I'll read it 1 more time.

"'And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship Him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

Revelation 13 presents to us a picture where we will eventually get to the point on earth where there will be only 2 camps.

Now you can argue that there are only 2 camps right now, that there are those that are for God and those that are against Him.

But you can't say that all will worship, that all are worshipping right now.

But Revelation 13 verse 8 says, the time is coming where all that dwell upon the earth shall worship Him." And who is the Him?

It is the He that their names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

So in other words, it's worship that's not centered towards God, It's worship that's centered towards the beast.

Now, I'm sure that you're all good Bible prophecy students, and you know the signs of the times, and have a general picture of how things are going to wrap up.

If you don't, that information is available to us through the Scriptures, but, and maybe I'm alone in this 1, there's sometimes when I look around and I just say, how?

I see the step-by-step process, but I think that the idea at least for me is sometimes challenging to get to grips with that everyone will either worship God or worship the beast, especially when there's so many world religions right now and most of the world is geared away from religion.

Sometimes at least in the past I struggled with seeing the how.

How is it that the entire world will worship Him, except those that worship Christ?

The world itself is broken into categories.

We have probably the biggest being continents, and within continents we have countries.

Within countries we have cities, and within cities we have towns.

Within towns we have communities, and within communities, you know what we have within communities?

And the biblical principle of when attacking an issue is to take an axe and do what with it?

It makes no sense if you're looking to destroy a tree to climb up to the top with the scissors.

By the time you get to the bottom, things on the top might have already regrown.

If you want to really destroy something, you attack it right at the roots.

I believe that Satan's formula has, and from the beginning of time has always been and still is now, to attack the root of the world, to attack the family.

Because if you win the family, then you win, period.

And Psalms 127 really is kind of the family psalm.

I believe that 1 of the chief reasons that Satan has such strong attacks for the family is that we're told that the family is essentially the greatest representation of the Godhead that we have here on earth The Bible says in 1st John 4 8 that he that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is what?

1 John 5, 7 says that there are 3 that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and these 3 are 1.

God is love and He is singularity in plurality.

And we don't really have any other symbol of this other than the family, where the Bible says in Genesis chapter 2, And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be as how many flesh?

In the same way that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, well not in exactly the same way, but similarly to how the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost are separate beings yet the same, is when we're looking at the family, it is the closest thing on earth that we have that represents that we have 2 completely different people coming together in unison.

I remember when we were getting premarital counseling, And always a better idea to get that than post-marital counseling if possible.

But when we were getting pre-marital counseling, our pastor came and said to us that it's important that we're very different.

It's important that we're different from 1 another.

1, because no 1 really wants to marry themselves.

But 2, because if we're both the same, then 1 of us is unnecessary.

If everything we do, If we have exactly the same interests, exactly the same personality, exactly the same hobbies, exactly the same likes, and I mean, I mean really and truly, you can love yourself, sure, but to the degree that you want to marry yourself, I think is about 5, 000 steps too far.

If you're both the same, then 1 of you is unnecessary.

There's something that just can't be matched or compared to.

There's something about 2 individuals Coming together in matrimony, being united, and it working.

There's something about seeing a family, there's something about seeing a marriage that just testifies that God is doing something.

That there's a special work going on there.

I believe that's why we see such a heavy attack on marriage today.

Because marriage is the union by which a man and a woman can come together as 1 flesh, and there are 3 in heaven that are 1.

Satan no longer has direct access to the throne of God.

He can no longer just show up in heaven and start throwing railing accusations at the Father.

And so naturally his gaze has shifted to attacking the closest thing to that which is the family which is the family This I guess would also kind of help us to understand why there is too a serious attack, if not a more serious attack on sex and sexuality.

The world is changing, have you realized?

This is not the same world that I grew up in and I'm 27.

When I grew up, you were a boy or a girl.

That's, it might sound strange, but that's how it was back in the day.

But there's been an attack on these things.

There's been an attack because I think that people don't, they're not seeing it.

They're not seeing the symbol of heaven in marriage anymore.

They're not seeing the union that God said we were all meant to see when a husband, When a man leaves his home and joins himself to a wife, it's not as special.

They're not seeing how effective it was meant to be as the gospel message.

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2019: Evening and Sabbath Meetings

Father of the Fatherless

Transcript

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Parent Conference

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