Hi Everyone,

In between everything else this week, I have been having fun on a site called CafePress.com. It allows you to create designs for T-shirts and other apparel, and also for various home and gift wares, then to open an online shop. My shop is at http://www.cafepress.com/lynnbfowler if you would like to check it out (and maybe begin your Christmas shopping.) If you have a bit of artistic flare, and some good image manipulation software (I have used Paint Shop Pro for years, and it is great) you could also open your own store. If you would like to do this, go to http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/storeref.aspx?refby=lynnbfowler. Alternatively, you could just sign up through their main page, but please put my user name (lynnbfowler) in the referrer box. It's easy, it's fun, and it's free!

Have a blessed week. I pray you will enjoy and be blessed by this issue. If you have, please pass it on to a friend. I love to hear your comments; please feel free to contact me.

In the King's service,

Lynn Fowler.

If you would like to know more about me, visit my web site lynnbfowler.com or the Glory to the King Ministries International site.

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Often in the course of my daily reading of Scripture, a passage will jump out at me, grab me by the ears and shake me. When it does I normally mark it, either by highlighting or by a line in the margin, and write the date in the margin next to it. This gives me an informal record of the things that God has spoken to me through His Word over the years.

One Saturday I was reading in 2 Kings, chapter 3, when verses 15-20 jumped out at me. Amazingly, when I looked in the margin, I found the passage was dated exactly one year earlier! I figured that if God was saying the same thing to me exactly a year apart, this must be something important, so we began to delve further into this passage.

The background is that the country of Moab, which was supposed to be paying an annual tribute to Israel because of a treaty, rebelled and cut off the supply. In the ancient world, the breaking of a treaty in this manner was ample cause for war, so Joram the king of Israel enlisted the help of Jehoshaphat king of Judah and the king of Edom, and went off to attack Moab. They believed that God had called them together to fight this battle, but after marching in circles for a week they were out of water, and both they and their animals were in danger of dying from thirst.

Have you ever found yourself in a position like that - believing that God has called you to something, but getting nowhere fast and soon feeling like you are at the end of your resources? This is exactly the point where many people give up. They decide that God hasn't really called them to whatever it was, so they pack their bags and go home. If you're in that place, don't give up yet. Deliverance was just round the corner for the three kings, even though two of them were not walking with God. How much more might deliverance be just around the corner for you, who have set your heart to serve God faithfully?

These three kings had a really good idea. They decided that they really needed to hear from God, so the went to the prophet Elisha. When we are struggling, the best thing we can possibly do is to put ourselves in a position to hear from God. Unlike these men in Old Testament times, if we have been born again through faith in Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Saviour, we have the Spirit of the Living God living within us. We do not need to go to a prophet, but to listen to the voice of the Spirit. We also need to be prepared to respond to whatever the Spirit says. If He tells us we were wrong, that He has not called us to this, then we must be prepared to quit. But if He tells us we are on the right track, then we must be prepared to keep going in faith, no matter how difficult the circumstances may seem.

Because of the involvement of Joram and the king of Edom, Elisha was none too happy about seeking God for this group, nonetheless he made himself available to God and received a surprising word for them. "This is what the Lord says: Make this valley full of ditches. For this is what the Lord says: You will see neither wind nor rain, yet this valley will be filled with water, and you, your cattle and other animals will drink. This is an easy thing in the eyes of the Lord; he will also hand Moab over to you." (2 Kings 3:16-18, NIV)

At first reading, this seems that they were being told to go and dig ditches, but when we read on we find that the water came the very next morning - hardly giving time to dig very many holes in the ground! It seems, then, that "Make this valley full of ditches" was a prophetic declaration rather than a command to the kings. Not they, but the Lord, would make the valley full of ditches, and He would do it by nothing other than the power of His declared word.

Sometimes we struggle and strive, putting programs in place, networking, looking for every way known to man (and inventing a few that have not been known before) in order to make the thing to which we are called happen. Perhaps it is time to lay aside our shovels and instead take up the Word of God. The Church is called to be a prophetic people. Yes, there are those within her who have the anointing of prophecy, and even who stand in the prophetic office. More than that, though, all of God's New Covenant people have access to the same Holy Spirit as did Elisha. What's more, the Lord Jesus Christ has given us authority to speak in His Name. Look at your barren situation, the place where you have been marching in circles (or even on the spot) with no refreshing. Declare over it that it will be full of ditches, ready to receive the outpouring of God's Spirit. Take encouragement from the truth that this is an easy thing for God. Then wait for the waters to begin to flow.

Hour of triumph! Raise the cry
throughout the Heavens of victory!
For death, in seeking to destroy,
has spent itself at Calvary.

One Man has stood for all mankind
to know in full hell's agony -
the Son alone was pure enough
to pay the price of Calvary.

Freely He stepped into my place
to bear the burden meant for me;
freely He took my sin and death
and carried them to Calvary.

"It is finished!" rings the cry,
the victory-cry for man set free;
Justice and Love both satisfied
the task complete at Calvary.

No more the price is mine to pay,
no more the judgment mine to see:
I died, and rose again in Him,
my death destroyed at Calvary.

Most people, when they read these verses, think that Jesus was referring to those who sold merchandise in the temple precinct, and the fact that they were charging exorbitant prices and generally dealing unfairly. However, His reference to "a den of thieves" goes way beyond the specifics of these merchants.

In the book of Jeremiah, Chapter 7, God speaks through the prophet to the people of Judah. They are taking great pride in the temple, boasting wherever they go that the house of the Lord - the place of His dwelling on earth - is located in their city of Jerusalem. They are also very proud of their covenant relationship with YHWH. When they come to the temple they are very religious, making sure that all the offerings are just right, and that they "look the part" of true worshipers of YHWH.

Outside the walls of the temple, things are very different. They practice extortion and oppress the poor and needy, they manipulate justice to suit their own ends and even join freely in the worship of the false gods of the nations around them.

Jeremiah likens them to a bunch of outlaws, who spend their time looting and plundering, then return to their den, their safe place where no-one can find or touch them. The temple, he says, has become like that robbers' den, a place where they retreat after their evil deeds in the belief that there they will be protected. It was this reference that Jesus' picked up in His second cleansing of the temple. (He had done a similar thing, with a different emphasis, at the beginning of His ministry in John 2:14)

How many today turn God's house into a "den of thieves?" As Christians, our standards should be higher than those of the world around us. Yet many today seem to think that their Christianity is a kind of cloak behind which they can hide all kinds of unacceptable behavior. They go to church on Sunday morning and look like the greatest saint on earth, but for the other six and a half days of the week they behave like the devil incarnate. Like God's people of old, they worship all the false gods of the world, they are greedy and cruel, unjust and immoral.

The time is coming when God will no longer tolerate this kind of deception. As Jesus entered the temple with a whip and drove out those who were there from insincere motives, the time is coming when God will enter His house, the Church, with a whip. Those who are sincere, who truly love Him, walk in His ways and seek to serve Him faithfully, will have nothing to fear, but those who use a Christian veneer to cover up lives that are far from Christ will feel the sting of the lash as they are exposed and driven out.

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