The store pt 6

[Karl Peters]

The store was slow, very slow, but it seemed like a day didn't go by without the Lord doing something.

There was the time when a man walked in looking upwards more that at the products. He just kind of looked around and around. So I greeted him and he started telling me about how he had come over from Europe and things had not gone good in his life. He had woken up that morning crying out to God, but what God? He was asking himself. He didn't know where his son was, or any of his family. His job was cheating him, and everything was wrong with his life. So, he wanted to know who God is. Was God the Muslim god, the Christian God, Budda, or who? Then that man stumbled across the store and felt that God had brought him into the store. So, it gave me an opportunity to minister to this man.

Another time a couple came in looking to the Lord because the man had gotten shot in a gang situation, but the bullet had just hit him and fell off him, as if God had stopped the bullet before he died. I was able to confirm that the Lord does miracles, and get them started with an easy to read Bible and talk about how we can talk back and forth with the Lord via His Holy Spirit.

Then there was the time when we had several Christians together in the store and a man came wildly driving his truck across the parking lot and parking is sideways. He came in either on drugs of alcohol and want help with his problem. So, we all prayed and ministered to him.

Then there was the time when I had closed the store, and went to a weekly intercessor time of prayer I had with a couple of other men. Neither one of them showed up but about six others did we didn't expect. I didn't have the keys to the church so I took the group back to the store to pray because it was close. So we prayed there, but I forgot to close the store and a homeless man came in. We asked him to join us and the Holy Spirit came on him. He started weeping, actually creating a rather large puddle of tears on the floor. We asked him if he knew the Lord, which he did, so we asked him if he would like to and had him accept the Lord into his life.

I have lots of little testimonies about how the Lord used the store day after day after day. It was a very slow store, but things happened everyday.

 

[Karl Peters]

Anytime you do something for the Lord you are going to come under attack. That attack is normally found in us - maybe it is unexplainable anger, or depression with you don't have a reason for it, or a feeling of oppression when you have freedom, and I could go on. But if you start doing something more open, like a bookstore or most any Christian ministry, the evil in this world with come at you there, and it is kind of interesting to see it. Now I didn't get much of it there at the Christian bookstore because it was a small store almost hidden in the corner of the shopping center, yet still being there is going to upset some spirits and the people who battle with those spirits. So let me give a few examples:

One day a couple of guys came walking toward the store. The Lord pointed them out to me before that got into the store and gave me a quick notice as to them. When you actually listen to the Lord He points out little things, and helps you understand, because one of His names is Understanding.

These 2 young men walked toward the store with purpose, and it was easy to see that they were not interested in the merchandise on display, which shows what they were about. They also were not interested in the store in general, like the person looking upwards in the OP. So the only thing left was me. They wanted to talk to me, and it was urgent. The Lord can quickly give you all this insight and more. Again, He is Understanding, so listening to Him, who also gives you quick impressions while He speaks, helps you with what is going to happen.

And sure enough, they walked straight in and straight to me, and the shorter young man, apparently the leader got straight into what he wanted to say! He told me that he did not believe in gifts and prophecy were around today!!

I almost had to laugh. Because if anyone actually knows the Lord and listens to Him, they cannot think that way!! It does not take many conversations with Jesus Christ, via His Holy Spirit, to understand that He can tell you what is going to happen tomorrow about as easily as He can tell you what happened yesterday. HE is after all God the Son and the Word of God, so He has access to the plans of God and those will happen because He is God and made all things and for a purpose. Indeed, if they really spent much time actually talking to the Lord they would at some point, and it would not have taken long, have heard the Lord tell them something about what He was going to do (prophecy).
They would have gotten some 'word of knowledge', which is also a word from the Lord via the Holy Spirit which is given to us as a gift!

So they didn't hear from the Lord and wanted to be counted as experts who by their saying something to be so made it so. Now how to handle them. This of course is an opportunity to talk to them about the Lord, where the spirit of pride in them had felt this was an opportunity to attack me, with their great understanding (their meaning the understanding of the spirit of pride in them).

Of course, because of their pride, they were not really going to listen and consider what I said, but I took a bit of time to explain that God is still there to talk to us, as is explained in the Bible, and that God still knows what He is up to - a lot like what I just explained in this post. This of course put them in the only position they could fall back on, which was that they had never seen such a thing, which of course is what I had been telling them. So I gave them a personal testimony, pointed to God being omni-present, and to the testimonies of others, which are in most of the books in the store. They couldn't even understand that where they were standing, they were surrounded with testimonies of people whose testimony was against them.

Which still left them with the only thing, which was their pride and experience. I told them that they were like the person saying the sky is green and the grass is orange. They can say it is so, but it just means they are color blind. And it is written that with their ears they barely hear and with their eyes they don't see. So like on this forum, I told them that they needed to actually start seeking our Lord Jesus Christ and what He had to say to them. Of course, they were not accepting that, so were not accepting Him. And the thought that He would talk to them, made them angrier and more determined not to believe He might talk to them.

That is a very common thing. We all have that issue at times. So we have to repent of our ways and actually turn to Him and listen! Then maybe will understand how that snake in the garden is still around saying - 'Did God really say', and 'You can be like God'. The fist way the devil attacks Christians is to get them to doubt that God speaks to them, and then to build their pride by telling us that we can be like God.

We can listen to Him and learn from Him but we cannot ever have the understanding He has, except by getting it straight from His mouth because that is where we find Understanding - ( it is from His mouth)

Prov 2:6 For the Lord gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.

In the above proverb, wisdom represents the Holy Spirit, knowledge the Father, and understanding the Son.

So the Lord gives us the Holy Spirit and from His mouth we find the words of the Father which we understand were giving to the Son, right.

Jn 16:13-15 But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. 15 All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.

 

[Karl Peters]

In this part six - I wanted to go over the ways the devil gets into whatever we are doing, but that the Lord takes what is meant for evil and turns it into good. The Lord is plans it; because He created those evil spirits and knows what they will do before they do it. So He can take advantage of their actions for His good. The following testimony is a good example of this.

The Lord had me hire a lady who had come to the Lord out of substance abuse. We all have our problems, our battles, and those with the dark spiritual forces of this world. Anyway, the Lord asked me to hire her and one of the things the Lord wanted was to have here organize a small bible study to be done in the store after closing. The Lord told me to ask various pastors in town to come and run it each week. The Lord explained that I didn't need the main pastors at any church but just those who helped at the churches. They could use the practice, would be willing to help, and so he could give them a small platform to advance their skills. And so it was that I had a small Bible study that I did not decide those who were coming, nor trying to teach myself. He just had me get it going, and provide some food and drink.

This actually didn't last too long, but the results were interesting. The lady who had recently come out of substance abuse knew people who were also just coming out of similar issues and those still in those issues. I hadn't really thought about that, because she was going to a church, so I thought she would get some from there, but no - she brought in old friends of hers and what better people to have come to a bible study?

I didn't realize this until the young pastor that agree to do this first study came up to me in the back after closing and told me that he felt that everyone in the study (which was about to begin) had some type of serious issue!) From the premeeting get together, he felt that they were probably all hearing voice of demonic spirits, and if not all some certainly were. So, I told him - 'Well, what a great opportunity for you' - or something like that, and had a small chuckle inside about how cleaver the Lord is. The pastor was young, but he had be working in a Christian feeding ministry for the poor in town. He was perfect for it, and I gotten some pizza for the meeting (As I recall)

They got going with the meeting as I closed the store and did the things you have to do after you close a retail store. Which takes about 30 minutes, then I checked in on the study, which was do to go about an hour. The meeting seemed to be going just fine, except it was obvious that the people in there were either very new Christians or more like did not really know the Lord yet. It seemed that way by the question they were asking the pastor. They were actually really good question that people should have about the Lord, but also the same type of questions that most Christians learn not to ask. They were more practical questions which were about their personal lives and how God might help them. The young pastor did a nice job of answering them.

And so the meeting broke up, and just in time as far as I was concerned, because my church had a midweek service the same night and I could make it there. Yet after the meeting the young pastor came up to me and told me that he had mysteriously had gotten a really bad headache, and he didn't know why.

I did. Once in the store a couple of men had come into the store, and they didn't say a word to me and wouldn't. They had a presence of evil about them and seem to be like praying over the store quietly. They didn't stay long, because I was asking them if I could help them. Without saying a word to me they simply left, but right afterwards I saddening got a bad headache. It happened to be on that same midweek day with the service at my church afterwards and I went there. The Lord told the pastor's wife that I had a headache. She asked me about it and had the church pray over me, and I was down and out. I woke up a few minutes later and the headache was gone. It was just demonic. So, I prayed for the young pastor and his headache went away.

I also talked to a few of those who had come to the bible study afterwards, and there was a young man who was hearing voices in his head a lot. In fact, he was seeing a psychologist or someone like that, who was trying to help him. They had diagnosed him with some mental issue. Anyway, I had an idea. I would see if I could get him to come with me to my church. It was a very Charismatic Christian church and usually you/I could strongly feel the presence of the Lord there. I remember the first time I had gone to that church, there appeared to me to be a cloud or fog in the church. I later figured out that the presence of God can get so thick that it appears to your spiritual eyes like a cloud. Anyway - I thought it might be interesting to take this man, with his issues, and see how he might respond to the situation. And I got him to come, with the promise that I would bring him back at any time of his choosing if he didn't like it.

So it was that I got him to church. The singing began, the presence of the Lord came down, and the man started thinking that everyone was starring at him - which of course was absolutely not the case. They were all looking forward and praising the Lord our God. So I whispered to him and asked him to kind of point out to me who exactly was starring at him.? He looked around and of course could not point out anyone. Yet as the presence of God grew in the church he became more and more uncomfortable. It did take too long before he asked me to take him back, which of course I gladly did as I promised. It gave me a chance to talk to him and it didn't surprise me at all.

You see - I think that the voices he was clearly hearing were indeed demonic voices, whereas I believe the average phycologist will diagnose it as a disease in his head. So how to you get someone like that to even come in contact with the Lord for the first time? Yeah - I know. You have someone do a bible study at the local Christian bookstore and have someone coming out of that to invite them. Then you pray over them asking the Lord to continue working in their life.

He was a nice guy, the young man who heard lots of voice in his head. But I understand that, because I hear voices also. It is just that mine are mostly from the King over the Kingdom of God and those who He sends to minister to me. Of course, having ears to hear in the spiritual doesn't mean I can only hear from my Lord and His kingdom. Yet I also know that I have some authority over them and also I have access to the King and His Kingdom of God, so I have can bind them up, take them captive to Jesus Christ and being the more who are with me against those who are not for me and my King.

Does this all get explained well at church?