Sunday Sermon by Pastor Rajesh Mathew, 25 April 2021

Psalms 84:10- For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand.

I would rather [a]be a doorkeeper in the house of my God

Than dwell in the tents of wickedness.

Ruth 1:16- “Entreat[a] me not to leave you,

Or to turn back from following after you;

For wherever you go, I will go;

And wherever you lodge, I will lodge;

Your people shall be my people,

And your God, my God.

1 Samuel 10:3-3 Then you shall go on forward from there and come to the terebinth tree of Tabor. There three men going up to God at Bethel will meet you, one carrying three young goats, another carrying three loaves of bread, and another carrying a skin of wine.

There is nowhere that you are safer than in the presence of Jesus. The greatest security, protection and blessing is in His presence and in His church.

“I am safe and secure in Him”, declare that if you have surrendered and if you put your trust in Jesus.

The Holy Spirit is removing anxieties and worries from your life. Let the presence of God come upon you.

Naomi and Ruth’s is a story that we all know about. When there was a famine in Bethlehem, Naomi’s husband and two sons left for Moab along with her. They died and she lost them all. They lost everything in Moab. Even when she was in Moab, having lost everything, she heard that God had visited Bethlehem. The interesting aspect is that though she was in Moab, her eyes were towards Bethlehem constantly.

No matter where you are and what troubles plague you, if your eyes are towards Jesus, His presence and His House, God has kept some good news, divine encounters and blessings for you.

God will release a miraculous future for you, beyond what you ever imagined. You need to keep your eyes on Jesus.

Take it and clap you hands and worship Jesus.

Ruth is saying ‘wherever you go, I will go. Your God is my God.’ Why does this daughter in law say this to a mom in law? Especially since all that Naomi had faced was trouble and tragedy in her life. But this could be why Ruth said what she said- Naomi’s peace was not lost. She had lost everything but her faith was not lost. Ruth understood that even in the midst of pain and loss, there was a God who could still give Naomi peace. Not the gods of Moab but the God of the Covenant. The Lord will be our helper. The Lord is the one holding you!

Naomi’s focus was towards Bethlehem.

When she returns to Bethlehem Naomi says ‘do not call me ‘Naomi’, call me ‘Mara’, which means bitterness. She was returning to Bethlehem with bitter experiences. Her old house may have been lying in ruins.

One thing that I understood from the Bible is this -No matter how bitter your circumstances may be, one second in God’s Presence is all that you need. I feel that there is an anointing for that today. That bitterness can be turned into something sweet.

There is an anointing that turns your bitter experiences into sweet experiences. Many of us are unable to enter into God’s Presence. Why is that?

1 Samuel 10:3-3 Then you shall go on forward from there and come to the terebinth tree of Tabor. There three men going up to God at Bethel will meet you, one carrying three young goats, another carrying three loaves of bread, and another carrying a skin of wine.

• Bethel means House of God. This is being told to Saul- ‘There will be three persons you will meet on the way.’ Many will attempt to go into God’s Presence, but what matters is what they are carrying in their hands.

1) In one person’s hands, there were loaves of bread. The bread symbolizes the Body of Jesus. Jesus is the Bread of Life. During the Last Supper, Jesus broke the bread and said this is My Body that is broken for you. Some people when they go into Bethel, they go with the objective to enter into the blessing that is made available to us by the sacrifice that Jesus made for us by giving up His life on the Cross.

2) The other thing in their hands is the wine. Wine symbolizes the Blood of Jesus. They enter into His presence thinking about the ultimate sacrifice, paying for our weakness, our defeat, our pain, our sickness and bondages. They will declare “I have life, healing, freedom, righteousness, victory and freedom from curses” in Christ. This is what they have in their minds as they enter into His presence.

• The Lord who took your stripes and diseases is alive today to set you free. We are going to appear before God for an encounter with HIM. Some people meditate on the bread of Life, Jesus. Some people meditate on the Blood, believing that the Lord will watch over and protect me and my household.

3) But what is strange in this portion of scripture is that the third person with three young goats. Usually people tie a rope around the goat’s neck and take them but here the person is carrying the goats on the shoulders. Maybe they had to travel a distance of about 20 miles. Think about it, it must have hurt his neck.

• One with bread, the other with wine and one with three goats. Supernatural encounter is something we have been hearing for a long time. Some have begun to experience this while some have not. You know why? They have been carrying the goats into the Presence of God.
• Don’t carry goats. Just bread and wine will do. If you need godly encounters, all you need the bread and the wine and not goats. You can experience Godly encounters all through your life. • When you look into the Bible, it doesn’t say they carried sheep; it says specifically that they carried goats.

WHAT DO THE GOATS SYMBOLISE?

1) PRETENSE AND DECEPTION

The first time you see the goat in the Bible is in Genesis 27: 7- Bring me some game and prepare me some tasty food to eat, so that I may give you my blessing in the presence of the LORD before I die.'

• When Jacob is on his way to get hold of Esau’s blessing, he uses the goat’s skin to mislead his father by pretending to be Esau. Some people want the blessing of the Father but you are pretending to be someone else.
• God can only BLESS YOU and not who you pretend to be. You are not being original, you are showing out to be someone else. That is what a GOAT IS---Pretense and Deception. Jacob was deceiving his own father.
• Goat is smelly; even its milk has a peculiar smell. You want the fragrance of Christ, you want to have supernatural experiences; but you are pretending. And you are entering God’s presence. You need to know that God doesn’t want you to carry that pretense.
• You be YOURSELF! Come with your weakness, your unworthiness and your lack. He accepted you and owned you with all of this. Only HE can own you the way you are. Don’t pretend to be someone else. He wants to bless you!
• Jacob was deceived by the smell and the feel of the skin. The idea was Jacob’s mother’s Rebekah’s. The Bible has different kinds of women. Some can make the domestic goat meat taste like wild goat meat.
• Don’t pretend, don’t exaggerate. God wants to bless you and love you. He wants to give you supernatural encounters.

2) GOAT OF JEALOUSY

Genesis 37:31- Then they got Joseph's robe, slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood.

• The goat of jealousy is very cruel. It will destroy your freedom to worship. ‘Why doesn’t God bless me? Wy only somebody else?’ That is the voice of jealousy.
• If you come like the goat of jealousy, you can’t worship Him in liberty because your focus is on somebody else. This morning, reject jealousy. There is a different plan that God has over yourlife. In supernatural encounters, you need to witness those plans.

As long as you are miserable over somebody else’s success or business, you cannot enjoy the Lord.

• Earlier days, we used to conduct meetings for a group of about 100-200. We used to pray for the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Of the 200 people, only 10 did not receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The rest were all rejoicing. They all were filled. I asked the ones who received the Gift to lift their hands. One of the girls raised her hands and then she told me not to ask such questions because she would feel rather awkward that she actually did not receive it but all her family members and cousins were blessed. She would find it very hard to accept that. I told her, “God will give you! But don’t pretend to show as if you have received something that God hasn’t given you.” • It must be so uncomfortable to carry goats and expect an encounter with God.

3) THE GOAT OF IMMORALITY

Genesis 38:17- "I'll send you a young goat from my flock," he said. "Will you give me something as a pledge until you send it?" she asked.

• Judah means praise. Judah slept with a prostitute. (She actually wasn’t a prostitute). She had asked for a Goat in return. Judah did not have one so he gave his bracelet and ring which is the symbol of his inheritance and authority, to her as a guarantee and leaves to bring a goat.

When we walk in the flesh what we lose is authority. Otherwise there is a boldness and courage when we enter into God’s Presence or when we stand before the devil.

• Everything that is not right in the sight of God from your life, let it leave. Every kind of desire of the flesh that is not in harmony with God’s Word, let it leave your life.
• Ask God for the grace to walk in faithfulness, holiness and humility.
• People want divine encounters but they will not forsake sin. They want a strong relationship with God but they won’t change their lifestyle.
• Change what you watch in your laptop at nights. If you do, that very minute God will release a supernatural manifestation of His anointing upon your life.
• Have Champaign all night and be in pain all day. Sin in haste and repent in leisure! • Let go of that and enter into God’s presence. The strength and grace to give victory over the flesh is available in Christ. To stand boldly before God’s Presence.

4) Judges 15:1- Later on, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat and went to visit his wife. He said, "I'm going to my wife's room." But her father would not let him go in.

• Samson was married to a philistine woman. When you marry somebody who is not in faith, it is very difficult to do God’s work. It is a goat. Samson was stuck. There are many youngsters who are listening and it is time for your marriage. You in Christ, you have a calling, you are baptized unto Christ and you are desiring and are surrendered to live for God’s will in and through your life. Any relationship that is outside of that, will take you away from walking in God’s calling and purpose. Declare that you will be committed to God’s work.
• People may say that we believe in all gods. We are all very god fearing but let me tell you that there is only one who is able to save you and be a mediator between you and the Father and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Timothy 2:5- For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus,

• There is only one mediator between man and God. He is only way to salvation. If you have committed your life to Him, your family and your children will walk in godly plans and purposes. Guilt, shame, condemnation, are all symbolized by the Goat.
• If you walking with any of these things then there will be guilt in your hearts.

The Holy Spirit gives conviction; the devil gives condemnation. The devil makes you believe that you can never be free ever. He makes you sit in God’s presence defeated.

• “I am carrying too much guilt and shame and I can never befree”, this is not the voice of the Holy Spirit, that is the lie of the enemy.
• The goats that you are carrying, bring them and tie them to the Cross of Jesus Christ. My guilt, unworthiness, shame, I will tie them all to the Cross. I want to see the manifestation of God’s victory in my life!
• Don’t carry the goat, surrender them to the Cross. Has the Lord asked you to bring the goats into His presence? NO!

He wants you to come with Thanksgiving and praise. (I will enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise); in faith (Those who come to the Lord must believe that He exists); with JOY (I was glad when they said to me let us go into the House of the Lord)

This is not a message to condemn you, it is to free you. He wants to intervene in your life.

The Holy Spirit is saying - You have failed in the past but that is the last time you failed.

This morning the Lord is pouring forth a supernatural grace---this is the last time you have failed in your life. A new beginning for some of you who have failed in the past! A fresh beginning.

Ruth and Naomi entered into God’s House/ Bethlehem. There was a redeemer, Boaz, in Bethlehem.

1. The name Boaz means swiftness of strength is within him- Our Lord Jesus is our Redeemer. In Him there is strength to overcome your weakness. There is an encounter that can add speed to your life.
2. Boaz’s father is Salmon and mother is Rahab. Who was Rahab? She was a woman who spoke in faith. This morning speak faith. FAITH TALKERS! “I will serve the Lord. No work of the enemy will touch us.” Are there women who pray, who talk faith? If yes, heaven will honour your faith and send forth an encounter upon you and your family. Hebrews11 calls Rahab a faith hero! A faith declaration made her to figure in the midst of the Patriarch’s of faith. In the Book of Joshua, she is called a prostitute. But God calls her a woman of faith. One robber went to heaven but we still call him a robber. One prodigal son came back to his father’s house, but we still refer to him as the prodigal son.
3. There was a connection between the husband of Ruth (Elimelech) and Boaz. And because that relationship was honoured, Boaz became a blessing to Ruth. The Lord is saying- “because of your relationship with your redeemer and your God, your children and grandchildren will benefit and be blessed. They will increase in God. Declare this- “Yes, even after my death, my generations will walk in the blessing, they will see increase, they will be blessed because I served the Lord.” Though Elimelech had died, Boaz honoured that connection. If you return to Bethlehem, if you come back to your connection with the Lord, do not FORGET that the blessing is generational!
4. Boaz in his fields, initially, make Ruth gather among the sheaves. Then he made the servants pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up on her way. And then, he pours six measures of barley and places the bundle on her. When God blesses you, you will firstly gather and if you have a relationship with God, HE will purposefully bring blessings into your way, right to your doorstep and then he will measure the blessings into your life. God’s measurement is not like our measurement. When I stand in God’s presence His measurement will be much more, much more, and much more than what I can imagine, HIS hands are bigger than mine!
5. Ruth sat at Boaz’s feet. We become co-heirs with Christ. May you enter into that level. Everything that is Christ’s is yours!

God will put an end to few of your struggles even in these COVID times. Don’t worry, let go of your anxiety and fear. God will bring a certainty into your life. God will bring an intended end to your matters of concern.

6. Boaz used to speak on behalf of Ruth at the gates of the city. Don’t think there is nobody to speak for you. There is the Lord to speak for you.

WHAT DID RUTH OBTAIN BECAUSE OF THAT ENCOUNTER WITH BOAZ?

1. Her garments changed- Till then she wore a servant girl’s and a widow’s clothes 2. He status changed- She was a poor moabitess. Now she entered into the geneology of Christ. 3. Her language changed- Till then a Moab language. Then she turned into Hebrew. 4. Her dwelling place changed
2. Her style of worship changed- There was a shift to worshipping the Living God.
3. Her currency changed
4. Her nation changed

Some nations are not allowing India to enter into those countries. Don’t worry, if God has intended that nation for you, he will make a way for you to get there.

Ruth had an encounter with her Kinsman Redeemer