THE CRY OF THE SPIRIT DEVOTIONALS – BY RICHARD E. S. TAKIM

TODAY’S DEVOTION (MONDAY 15TH May 2023)

“Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Make me hear joy and gladness, That the bones You have broken may rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins, And blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, And uphold me by Your generous Spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, And sinners shall be converted to You.” Psalm 51:7-13 NKJV

WELCOME TO THE 135TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS & WONDERS!

This is the day the LORD has made, we shall again and again rejoice and be glad in it; the mercies of the LORD, helping us to forge ahead.

It’s been 15 days of hearing the Cry of the Holy Spirit on matters of the faith, purity and patience of the saints, and the ultimate catalyst of same – a consecrated Christian living. We began our journey into the fourth unit of the soul yesterday, the unit of the soul known as the emotions.

By definition, the emotion is that unit of the soul that has the conscious mental reaction, such as anger, joy, sorrow, sadness, courage or fear, which is experienced as a strong feeling, directed towards a circumstance or a living or non living thing. Please go through the definition again.

The unit is a state of feeling that is usually accompanied by a bodily or behavioural change in the body. In its sanctified state, it can empower us to do God’s will at an immediate present, and I will give you examples.

Let us look at a spiritually tragic event that happen in the Old Testament.

To start with, I want you to understand that the journey of Israel from Egypt to the Promise land is a type and shadow of our Journey from a life of sin, through a life of righteousness, purity, and holiness, by the faith and patience of the saints, to the promise land called Heaven.

THE MISSIONARY NATION, ISRAEL, WENT THROUGH A LOT, AND ALSO DID A LOT WITH GOD, THAT TAUGHT US SO MUCH ABOUT GOD AND OUR FAITH.

The Bible says;

“Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” 1 Corinthians 10:11 NKJV

One of the things that happened to them as examples and written for our admonition was the incident that happened at acacia groove. The Bible says;

“Now Israel remained in Acacia Grove, and the people began to commit harlotry with the women of Moab.

They invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So, Israel was joined to Baal of Peor, and the anger of the LORD was aroused against Israel.

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of the people and hang the offenders before the LORD, out in the sun, that the fierce anger of the LORD may turn away from Israel.”

So, Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Every one of you kill his men who were joined to Baal of Peor.”

And indeed, one of the children of Israel came and presented to his brethren a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.

Now when Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose from among the congregation and took a javelin in his hand;

and he went after the man of Israel into the tent and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her body. So, the plague was stopped among the children of Israel. And those who died in the plague were twenty-four thousand.” Number 25:1-9 NKJV

This incident would later resurface in the book of revelation as a child of the doctrine of Balaam. It was a major attack that was launched at this missionary nation that would later be called the Church in the wilderness in Acts Chapter 7.

The enemy realized that He could not defeat them through curses when he used the false prophet Balaam to wipe them away from the face of the earth. Then he suggested a method that has worked for Satan for so many years;

THE METHOD OF SEXUAL DEFILEMENT MIXED WITH IDOLATORY.

The Bible says 24,000 died by the plague that broke out through the method.

The method of sexual defilement alone, has remained a very powerful tool in the hands of the wicked one till date. We will never fulfil our prophetic or eternal destinies in this perverse world, if we do not arrest these ancient methods of desecrating and destroying the righteous, from the kingdom of darkness. David lamented and said;

“The beauty of Israel is slain on your high places! How the mighty have fallen!

Tell it not in Gath, proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon— Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph. 2 Samuel 1:19-20 NKJV

Indeed, when it comes to matters of sexual sins and idolatry, so many mighty warriors in the kingdom of God have fallen. We fell because we refused to listen to the word of the LORD on sexual sins and true worship. We listened to our emotions and feelings instead of God’s written word. Sadly, today, the beauty of Israel (the Church), is slain on the high places of sexual sins and idolatry.

David continued by saying “Tell it not in Gath, Proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon— Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.

In these days of social media, it has become impossible for the daughters of the philistines not to hear what we are doing in secrets, especially we preachers. It has become impossible not to tell it on the streets.

God never wanted this to happen, hence warning us in His word not to be living a life of secret sins; He never wanted the Church to get to the point where our sins are reported on the street, hence warning us not to commit them.

BUT WE WOULD NOT LISTEN, THEN HE HANDED US OVER TO OURSELVES, TO EAT THE FRUIT OF OUR DOING.

Today the social media is reporting on the streets of Ashkelon what the beauty of Israel does in secret with women. Will you blame the media? You will be a fool if you do; you will be displaying Biblical Illiteracy if you do. God blames us the preachers who gave them what to report.

Last year, I said that “In the court of divine settlement, there is no content creator who righteously tell on the street the terrible things that we preachers do in secret, that will be held in contempt by the LORD.

So many of us in the faith today, live our daily lives from sex cells and idolatry, built for us by the enemy, using our carnal desires and lust. That will not boost the faith, purity, and patience of the saints. It will rather kill it. What we preachers are doing with women and what the women are doing with us is saying it all.

The sin in the numbers 25 story is the sin of passion and emotions.

Yes, sexual sin is a sin attached to the unit of the soul called emotions, that is why it is difficult to overcome without the unit being sanctified. It is usually felt within this unit of the soul, and then given over to the unit called imagination, to create the photos. After which it is passed to the unit called the memory, to bank for future recall.

The unit called intelligence, will help in conceptualizing everything, for corresponding actions to be taken by the part of the body responsible for such deeds.

From this analogy, it is clear that sexual sin is usually attached to our feelings, leading to sexual cravings and behaviour.

In other words, the conscious mental reaction created when we see the full or semi nakedness of an opposite sex, or when we admire and observe them in their attractive or sexy dresses for a long time, generates a strong feeling that becomes cravings directed towards the person, or towards someone who look like them. That is why we go after them to satisfy those cravings.

SOMEONE HAS SAID THE BRAIN IS THE GREATEST SEX ORGAN IN THE WORLD. AND I AGREE WITH HIM.

It is the collective activity that goes on in our imagination, memory, intelligence and emotions after we have seen, felt, or touched what causes the sex adrenaline to rise, that results in sexual sins.

God created this kind of things to happen between married people alone, but we have taken it outside this boundary, with the help of the lost world and the sick church in some cases.

What we are sharing about this unit of the soul today, is the root cause of all adulteries, fornication, masturbation, and all forms of sexual abominations like incest, and etc. The Bible calls the sexual cravings generated by this unit of the soul “cravings of the flesh.” That is why if we get it sanctified, we can be free from any kind of sexual sin.

I reiterate again that these phenomenal things that are created in this unit of the soul, when we see, admire, or desire the opposite sex, or when we are touched in sensitive places, we see sexually arousing dreams, watch sex inspiring movies or photos, or fantasize, make sexual sin the most practiced sin on earth. The consequences make it the most dangerous of all sins.

You see this sin generated by the teaching or doctrine of Balaam killing 24000 people in one day. Only God knows the millions or billions it has dumped in hell.

We pastors do it with a reckless abandon because of the same reason. Those who sit under us do it with a reckless abandon for the same reasons. And you find the consequences hitting us hard, and we foolishly blame the attacks on demons or curses, or bloodlines and all kinds of fabrications from the demon of deliverance living in some. That is why it is very deadly.

Child of God, sexual sin unlike few other sins, is the source of all plagues. The plague that broke out that day in Israel was a disease, and killed like the Corona virus did. It broke out, killing 24,000 people in one sweep.

Yes, it is still the catalyst of all captivities. When we commit sexual sin, something dies in us. When we commit sexual sin, something divine departs from us, making us vulnerable to the demonic.

WHEN WE COMMIT SEXUAL SIN (LIKE ANY OTHER SIN), WE BECOME OF THE DEVIL UNTIL WE REPENT AND BEGIN TO LIVE RIGHT.

If you think that sin, especially sexual sin, no longer burns the way it burned in the days of the Bible, you are deluded. It is just because you are not keeping record and there is no one to write the stories of what it is doing today. And you are deluded because of the pleasure it may be giving you.

It still burns my friend. It begins by taking away the joy of our salvation. That is why our devotional text says;

“Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness, That the bones You have broken may rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins, And blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, And uphold me by Your generous Spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, And sinners shall be converted to You.” Psalm 51:7-13 NKJV

This was a heartfelt prayer of someone who experienced the fire of sexual sins and the sin of murder in Bible days. The content tells us of how both sins consumed his spiritual life. Sexual sins will always lead to other sins.

From his prayer, you can see that the sexual sin, and the other sin it led him to, eliminated the joy of his salvation, desecrated his heart and made it unclean. It also made his spirit unstable and unfaithful. Yes, the sexual sin and the other sin it led him to, casted him away from the manifest presence of God, and made him dirty and filthy.

It actually defiled his holiness garments, attracting chastisement from the LORD. Anyone who tells us that the same will not happen to us today because of what they call grace, if we live in sexual sins, is deluded and wants us damned.

I think enough have been said today!

MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!

“Everything is permissible (allowable and lawful) for me; but not all things are helpful (good for me to do, expedient and profitable when considered with other things). Everything is lawful for me, but I will not become the slave of anything or be brought under its power.

Food [is intended] for the stomach and the stomach for food, but God will finally end [the functions of] both and bring them to nothing. The body is not intended for sexual immorality, but [is intended] for the Lord, and the Lord [is intended] for the body [to save, sanctify, and raise it again].

And God both raised the Lord to life and will also raise us up by His power. 1 Corinthians 6:12-14 AMPC