KEEP WATCH WATCHMEN

ACTS 20:28 Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God,a]">[a] which he bought with his own blood.b]">[b] 29 I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. 30 Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. 31 So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

"The JOSEPH COMPANY"-by David Wilkerson

"The JOSEPH COMPANY"-by David Wilkerson

by Lawrence Jordan on Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at 12:43pm

The
JOSEPH COMPANY" -by David Wilkerson


"The JOSEPH
COMPANY"
-by David Wilkerson.

Let me show you the Joseph Company—a
body of last-day believers
wholly given to the Lord. They commune with God
daily and are led
by the Spirit in every detail of their lives. At this
moment they are
coming out of great trials to enter a place of revelation,
wisdom and
fruitfulness. God is working in them, giving them his truth
and
knowledge, and very soon he is going to call upon them as he
did
Joseph!

For the most part, the church today is experiencing
widespread
spiritual famine: shallow sermons, dead hearers, "lively"
worship
that is not backed up by righteous living.

God has always
worked far in advance of every spiritual famine in
his church. In every
generation he has moved ahead to prepare a
way out for his people!

The
seventy-five members of Jacob's clan would have died in the
great worldwide
famine (and the promise of Israel would have been
destroyed) had God not been
working ahead of it all. In fact, some
twenty years before the famine hit,
God was already setting in
motion a plan to save his people from
destruction.

God sent Joseph ahead to Egypt! For twenty years God worked
on
this man—isolating him, trying him, preparing him for a place
of
authority—because Joseph was to become the life-saver of God's
chosen.
He kept Joseph from the limelight in order that he might be
ready for a
coming day of chaos and death!

Beloved, just as surely as God isolated
Joseph, he has a Joseph
Company today that is hidden from all eyes. These are
in the
furnace of affliction, prisons of testing, battlegrounds of trials and
temptations. They are dying to this world, wanting nothing of
its
fame, honor, money or pleasure. And they are growing hungry to
become
more intimate with Christ, to know his heart and his voice.

You may not
understand all the mysterious testings, trials and
troubles in your life. But
if your heart is fully set on following Christ,
you can rest assured God has
purpose in it all: He wants to bring
you into his Joseph
Company!

JOSEPH and GOD’S FAVOR

Does our heavenly Father favor
certain of his children? Does the
Bible say God is no respecter of persons?
When it comes to
salvation and his wonderful promises, God treats all alike
but he
also puts his special favor on those who respond wholeheartedly
to
his calling and yield their lives to him entirely!

Job said: "Thou
hast granted me life and favour" (Job 10:12). David
said: "For thou, Lord,
wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou
compass him as with a shield"
(Psalm 5:12).

Our heavenly Father puts a special garment on those
who
completely give him their heart: "I will greatly rejoice in the
Lord,
my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with
the
garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe
of
righteousness" (Isaiah 61:10).

Joseph responded to the Spirit's
call, surrendering all, and as a
favor from his father he received a robe
that set him apart. But that
favor of his father was costly! It cost Joseph
relationships and
brought him rejection, misunderstanding and mockery: "All
his
brethren . . . hated him" (Genesis 37:4).

Why did Joseph's
brothers turn on him? The key is in verse 11:
"His brethren envied him." When
they saw the robe Joseph wore,
they knew it spoke of favor, righteousness.
And they hated it,
because it reminded them of the Spirit's call they had
rejected!
Joseph was a reproach to their halfhearted lifestyle!

You
see, Joseph's brothers sat around indulging in petty gossip
and self-centered
talk. Their hearts were occupied with lands,
possessions, the future, but
Joseph's was elsewhere. He spoke of
the things of God, of supernatural
dealings. God had given him
dreams, which in that day was synonymous with
hearing the voice
of God.

Lukewarm believers around you will want to
talk about their cars,
houses and jobs, but you'd rather talk about eternal
things, about
what God is saying to you. Soon you'll become a reproach to
their
halfheartedness. They will envy you because you represent the
call
of the Holy Ghost they turned down!

Yes, Joseph was of a different cloth
and that difference made him
hated and envied among his brothers. And,
beloved, the same will
happen to you if you are sold out to Jesus!



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