"You Can't Go Forward, Looking Back"
Greetings in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I want you to know that I�m excited about all that God is doing for His children. His thoughts and expectations for every child of God are blessings, not cursings! It is living with exactly what you need and not cast down into poverty. It is joy, health and happiness, not sitting in a state of helplessness and tears! We are God�s children and He has great, wondrous, beautiful things for all of us. We can enjoy the kingdom of Heaven now, even before we step into Heaven. He has given me several messages to preach, al of them tying together. If we take them and put them into action in our lives, we can be victors, not victims! It�s promised to you and completely in you to do this. God will pick you up out of the ashes and the way was made at Calvary! Jesus FINISHED it all there! I pray you have the understanding that only the Holy Spirit can give as you proceed with this message. Please stop and pray: the very first thing to ask is for forgiveness, for a clean heart and a right spirit. Sin hinders prayer. Then ask for understanding, eyes that see and ears that hear. Now you must realize this: �You Can�t Go Forward, Looking Back!�
I have had the opportunity to speak with a man who was in deep sorrow. The man is a homosexual and shot drugs most of his life. I�ve ministered to him for years giving him warning of his lifestyle, and the price of it. He�s in his 30�s and looks like 60, a frame of bones. He approached me recently and said, �Don, I need to talk to you.� As we talked he told me he was dying and didn�t have much longer. The drugs and homosexual lifestyle now demanding satan�s price. I told him the same Jesus I�ve told him about for years is still ready to accept him. I told him he still has time to repent, and that God still very much loves him. Sadly, he would not give his heart to God, and this is where the root of the problem came in. This man kept dwelling on his childhood years of being molested, and how he tried to drown that with drugs and alcohol. The molestation opened doors for demons to enter. You see, people are not �born� to molest or enter homosexual lifestyles � it�s a demon possession. There�s only One who can deliver them, and His name is Jesus Christ. No self-help program, psychiatrist or drug � only Jesus can set people free. He paid that price with His blood! This man left me with his head hung low. He kept clinging to the wrongs done to him in childhood, then all the bad of being passed around in the state system for years. Holding onto these things has made him an old man and destroyed his body. He has taken himself to a level of shame in which he feels worthless and as nothing. I will tell each of you this � sin will take you farther than you want to go, and keep you longer than you want to stay! There�s a subtle trick to keep you there and take you to hell. If you don�t turn loose of ALL that has happened to you in the past, it will destroy you! God has healing, deliverance and all your needs met, just for you to accept. You can�t do it living with the past. Can you drive down the highway in your vehicle looking back at the road behind? No! Not unless you plan of getting killed. �You Can�t Go Forward, Looking Back.�
When I look at the Fruits of the Spirit, I just don�t see �mourn constantly� or �frown� or �stay beat down� or �defeat�! What I do see is Love, Joy, Peace, Longsuffering (this does not mean staying a sufferer), Goodness, Faith, Meekness (doesn�t mean laying around in ashes) and Temperance. These are the fruits that hang on every tree that is rooted in Christ. These are the fruits for those in fellowship with Him. All these are beautiful things and testify to the nature of God in us! Let me tell you how Paul could testify of these � he looked forward! He pressed forward, onward! Sitting in his damp stinking prison cell, stripes on his back, often chained to a guard � yet Paul looked forward to what he knew God has for all of us. Philippians 3:14-13 states, �Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.� What did he do? Forgot what was behind, reached forward, pressed toward! Nothing behind you and everything God has in front. Forget your past, all you�ve done or what�s been done to you, and reach for the beauty God has for each of us. That beauty is not just for Heaven, but can be enjoyed now! It�s in YOU to receive that. If you are a Christian, God has cast your past away � you must do the same. If you don�t, only heartache, poverty, sickness and a lifetime of lying in ashes mourning is ahead of you. There�s a bad wreck coming if you don�t. God has better for each of us. �You Can�t Go Forward, Looking Back.�
Let�s talk a little about mourning and ashes� Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, �To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.� I�ll let you read verses 2-8 for yourself. God has a very unique plan for each of us. A time and a season for everything we do. We may pray for someone to be healed and then they die. Yes, we mourn, but that is only meant to be for a season. A season is not a lifetime. I missed a lot of wonderful things God had for me and my family by staying in mourning of my mother for 3 years. God does not want us to walk through every day of our life grieving! That is holding onto the past. My mother is in Heaven and in perfect health, and has been since her last heart beat here. A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to be born and a time to die! Everything has a time, but we are not to let that time and season to turn into a lifetime. God has beautiful things for each of us to receive and to pass on to others. Our life is but a vapor if we spend it dwelling on the past, constantly mourning, sitting in ashes. Then we have thrown away all the beautiful, wonderful, joyful blessings God has given us! �You Can�t Go Forward, Looking Back.�
Let�s take a look at Isaiah 61:3a � �To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning�� Ashes were used in mourning and fasting, a sign of being humble or grieving, weeping. People would scatter ashes over themselves as they did these things. Yes, we must stay humble to the Lord, but we must also rise up in the victory that He provided and be bold for Him. Christians are not a whipped people. Jesus was not defeated by the religious, the rich or any of satan�s people or devices. He was victorious! As Christians we take on His nature, the nature of victory. You can�t be victorious if you sit down and live in the ashes! Here in this verse the Hebrew word for �ashes� is �abal�, meaning �weep, mourn, to grieve�. Another word used in the Hebrew is �epher�, which is �to bestrew, scatter over�. What all these words point back to is the Hebrew word �aphar�, which means �rubbish�! This scripture is saying that God wants to pick you up out of the rubbish, trash, the waste you are covered in, something of no use, and give you BEAUTY! He wants to take away your mourning and exchange it for joy! Why? So you can lose your heaviness and be clothed with PRAISE, seen as trees of righteousness planted by Him for a testimony of His Glory. Read the rest of the verse � who was that power given to? Jesus Christ. Read 61:1-2, and Luke 4:18. Jesus paid the price for you to live victorious! Who has that power now? If you truly have Christ in you, you have that power! First you must truly believe and want to turn loose of a past full of hurts, let downs and grief. Then you will live in and have ALL God made available to you. �YOU CAN�T GO FORWARD, LOOKING BACK.�
I never like to use just one scripture, so I ask that you study Psalm 30:11 and see what David experienced there. Let�s also look at Psalm 113:7-9. There in verse 7, the word for �dunghill� is �ashpoth� in the Hebrew. It translates as �ashes, a heap of rubbish or filth�. God wants to raise you up out of that. Look at verses 8-9 at what God wants for you. He wants a beautiful, victorious life. It�s up to you. You can lay around dwelling on pains of the past or change your attitude. You can stay negative and be a bad testimony, or you can lay claim to and receive all God has for you and your family. Don�t pass a curse to your children! You are not a prisoner of the past � you are set free and have blessings and beauty. Only you can obtain it. If you look at Ruth and Naomi, you�ll see two women in the same situation. Ruth kept a positive attitude � she didn�t starve and she was able to feed others. She received beauty. Naomi kept a beat-down bad attitude and reaped it in her appearance. She was bitter and it changed her very face. Which will you choose? �You Can�t Go Forward, Looking Back.�
Victim or victor is your choice, but Christ gave us victory. Read I Corinthians 15:57 and see we are given victory through our Lord Christ Jesus. Read I John 5:4-5 and see we are victorious, overcomers in Christ. Who is? �He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of His Son.� (I John 5:10) Is your testimony calling God a liar? Only you know. If you are wallowing in self-pity, settling for the attention it brings from others � if you settle for being a victim and keep talking about the past, digging it up, opening up wounds that God wants to heal � the Word of God says your testimony is bad and that you don�t believe in Him. It says you call Him a liar! Not my words but God�s! John 16:33 tells us that Jesus provided peace for us in this world, where we will encounter tribulation. It does not say we live in constant tribulation, beat down. No, it says Christ overcame, be of good cheer. Each of us can be victorious and a good testimony even while in tribulations. Get over the past, throw out the ashes and let God bring in the new! Kim and I have and will continue to find more to throw out. We�ve started seeing all the greatness of God, and there is more. �You Can�t Go Forward, Looking Back.�
In Christ, Bro. Don George
