The Lord God almighty is not just the creator of the universe, but the sustainer of all life so that we may praise and glorify His name. When David first brought the Ark to the tent, they did not follow God’s instruction and they felt His wrath. He said, 1 Chronicle 15:13 “It was because you, the Levites, did not bring it up the first time that the Lord our God broke out in anger against us. We did not inquire of him about how to do it in the prescribed way.” The church today is feeling the wrath of God because we do not honor Him properly. The praise we are giving, usually through song, God is not interested in due to our rebellion. After David properly brought the Ark of the Covenant to the tent, he praised God and gave Him honor and glory. 1 Chronicles 16:7 “That day David first appointed Asaph and his associates to give praise to the Lord in this manner: 8 Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done. 9 Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts. 10 Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. 11 Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always. 12 Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced, 13 you his servants, the descendants of Israel, his chosen ones, the children of Jacob. 14 He is the Lord our God; his judgments are in all the earth. 15 He remembers his covenant forever, the promise he made, for a thousand generations, 16 the covenant he made with Abraham, the oath he swore to Isaac. 17 He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree, to Israel as an everlasting covenant: 18 “To you I will give the land of Canaan as the portion you will inherit.” 19 When they were but few in number, few indeed, and strangers in it, 20 they wandered from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another. 21 He allowed no one to oppress them; for their sake he rebuked kings: 22 “Do not touch my anointed ones; do my prophets no harm.” 23 Sing to the Lord, all the earth; proclaim his salvation day after day. 24 Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples. 25 For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; he is to be feared above all gods. 26 For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. 27 Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and joy are in his dwelling place. 28 Ascribe to the Lord, all you families of nations, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. 29 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; bring an offering and come before him. Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness. 30 Tremble before him, all the earth! The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved. 31 Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let them say among the nations, “The Lord reigns!” 32 Let the sea resound, and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them! 33 Let the trees of the forest sing, let them sing for joy before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth.”

         David then concludes 34 “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever. 35 Cry out, “Save us, God our Savior; gather us and deliver us from the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name, and glory in your praise.” 36 Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Then all the people said “Amen” and “Praise the Lord.”We were created to give God praise. Isaiah 43:21 “The people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise.” The earth and all creation are unfathomable but shows God’s amazing love for us. Paul prayed Ephesians 1:16 “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

        God created this earth it to be inhabited by His people. Isaiah 45:18 “For this is what the Lord says— he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited— he says: “I am the Lord, and there is no other.” satan wants to make it uninhabited with God’s people. satan started with the Garden of Eden and moved to the Promised Land and now the church. When we sin by worshipping other gods / other gospels, the cites, the land, the church are no longer inhabited as God turns His face from us because we no longer give Him the glory we were created to give. By worshipping other gods, God’s people did not bring glory to God. They withheld their praise. Jeremiah 25:6 “Do not follow other gods to serve and worship them; do not arouse my anger with what your hands have made. Then I will not harm you.” 7 “But you did not listen to me,” declares the Lord, “and you have aroused my anger with what your hands have made, and you have brought harm to yourselves.” 8 Therefore the Lord Almighty says this: “Because you have not listened to my words, 9 I will summon all the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon,” declares the Lord, “and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy them and make them an object of horror and scorn, and an everlasting ruin. 10 I will banish from them the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, the sound of millstones and the light of the lamp. 11 This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. 12 “But when the seventy years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation, the land of the Babylonians, for their guilt,” declares the Lord, “and will make it desolate forever. 13 I will bring on that land all the things I have spoken against it, all that are written in this book and prophesied by Jeremiah against all the nations. 14 They themselves will be enslaved by many nations and great kings; I will repay them according to their deeds and the work of their hands.”

    The good news is that when we repent, Jeremiah 33:10 “This is what the Lord says: ‘You say about this place, “It is a desolate waste, without people or animals.” Yet in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem that are deserted, inhabited by neither people nor animals, there will be heard once more. 11 the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, and the voices of those who bring thank offerings to the house of the Lord, saying,“Give thanks to the Lord Almighty, for the Lord is good; his love endures forever. For I will restore the fortunes of the land as they were before,’ says the Lord.” Isaiah 44:24 “This is what the Lord says—your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the Lord, the Maker of all things, who stretches out the heavens, who spreads out the earth by myself, 25 who foils the signs of false prophets and makes fools of diviners, who overthrows the learning of the wise and turns it into nonsense, 26 who carries out the words of his servants and fulfills the predictions of his messengers, who says of Jerusalem, ‘It shall be inhabited,’ of the towns of Judah, ‘They shall be rebuilt,’ and of their ruins, ‘I will restore them,’ 27 who says to the watery deep, ‘Be dry, and I will dry up your streams,’ 28 who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please; he will say of Jerusalem, “Let it be rebuilt,” and of the temple, “Let its foundations be laid.”’

    “Stephen Hawking said when talking about God, “They mean a human-like being, with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe, and how insignificant and accidental human life is in it, that seems most implausible.” That is why we were created to give praise to a personal God who created the universe just for us. One day Hawking will meet Jesus but then spend the rest of eternity with satan. The universe doesn’t even begin to show the magnitude of God’s love for His people as we saw with Paul’s prayer because He gave His son Jesus to save us from our sins. John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” We are told Acts 17:24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.” 1 Peter 2:9 “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” John 4:23 “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” Psalm 9:1 “I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds. 2 I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing the praises of your name, O Most High 11 Sing the praises of the Lord, enthroned in Zion; proclaim among the nations what he has done.” Psalm 100:1 “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. 2 Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. 3 Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. 4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. 5 For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.”

    But will you call on God and give Him the praise He deserves with your life. Psalm 95:1 “Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. 6 Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; 7 for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. Today, if only you would hear his voice, 8 “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness, 9 where your ancestors tested me; they tried me, though they had seen what I did. 10 For forty years I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways.’ 11 So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’” Isaiah 43:7 “Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” 20 to give drink to my people, my chosen, 21 the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise. “Yet you have not called on me, Jacob, you have not wearied yourselves for me, Israel. 23 You have not brought me sheep for burnt offerings, nor honored me with your sacrifices.” Yet with all that God has given to us, people still refuse to give glory to God and the honor due Him but have hardened their hearts.

    Since God created the heavens and the earth in six days, our minds cannot fathom what God has prepared for those who love Him and give Him praise with their lives. Isaiah 64:4 “Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.” Paul adds to this and says 1 Corinthians 2:9 “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”—    the things God has prepared for those who love him.” If we think this earth and universe are amazing and created in six days, after thousands of years what heaven will be like. Jesus said, John 14:1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” Jesus also said to the obedient Matthew 25:34 “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world,” but He also said to disobedient, Matthew 25:41 “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” Heaven will be an eternity of praise with only God and no satan or anything impure or evil. Revelation 20:11 “Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15 Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire. 10 And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” Revelation 21:6 “To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. 7 Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. 8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” Paul said 1 Corinthians 6:9 “Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” But Paul does not leave it there. There was great power flowing. Acts 19:11 “ “God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, 12 so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them,” which is why we desperately need to have God turn His face back to the church so once again this can be said. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” 

    In light of this verse and there are many other verses, I wanted to add this from the Asbury gathering from a young man, a graduate from Spring Arbor University (Free Methodist) and studies at Asbury Seminary and says he is openly gay and celibate. He wrote on Twitter February 11, 23 (Asbury gathering started February 8th) “Tonight I’ve been at the Asbury University revival going on 4 days. Yesterday I wrote a prayer request for queer students on campus that I returned to see erased. This troubled my soul because it felt emblematic of the way that queer people have their stories erased at Church.” He still has a deprived mind, and it is not about whether you remain celibate, it matters if you are healed from your depraved mind. As Romans tells us Romans 1:24 “Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.” Leviticus 18:22 “‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable / abomination. In his personal testimony on video, he shares the exact opposite of what scripture states. He said people have tried to pray the gay out of him and truthfully in the desolate church this is probably not going to happen but in the church that has turned back to God and the power of God is once again flowing, we will once again be able to say as Paul said “And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” Speaking the truth of God’s word is not hating, it is actually loving because eternity is a long time and no matter what people tell him, God’s word says he will not be in heaven unless he repents. The deception as this young man believes, is that God has no problem with this abomination but scripture states otherwise. If the church embraces this, of which so many have, then so many will meet God and hear depart from me, I don’t know you. This is where the quadrilateral we talked about gets in trouble. The bible is set aside for experience, tradition and reason. He was part of the Asbury gathering and if the power of God was as present as they said God was, then there would have been healing from this sexual abomination, not embracing / affirmation of their sexual sin. The testimony would have been this is what I was, but I am no longer controlled by satan. As Romans states, this is not just about the sin of homosexuality, Paul says Romans 1:29 “They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.”

    Accepting sin does not give praise to God. It is better to find out now before it is to late. To truly praise God and honor Him, we must turn to His word, humble ourselves and repent and say woe is me. Isaiah 6:5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” I feel sorry for this young man and what he has had to endure but for those in the church who are embracing his journey, they will be accountable for that. The love he so desperately is looking for is the love God gives us as described in His word. You cannot reject His word and expect God to embrace you. As for the church, the church must stand firm of God’s word and not accept the world’s view as so many have. To see this kind of healing, the church must turn from its own wicked ways. Yes, he will always be able to find someone to give him affirmation, but it will not come from scripture. I do believe that once again there will be many testimonies of darkness fleeing, and captives set free. Jesus said Luke 4:18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” The good news as Isaiah said Isaiah 61:4 “They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations. 5 Strangers will shepherd your flocks; foreigners will work your fields and vineyards. 6 And you will be called priests of the Lord, you will be named ministers of our God. You will feed on the wealth of nations, and in their riches you will boast. 7 Instead of your shame you will receive a double portion, and instead of disgrace you will rejoice in your inheritance. And so you will inherit a double portion in your land, and everlasting joy will be yours.” But now Jeremiah 6:15 “Are they ashamed of their detestable conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; they will be brought down when I punish them,” says the Lord.” It will only be the power from on High that can save this young man and others like him. Homosexuality is not the only sin to be saved from. The powerless church cannot bring healing which is why so many have embraced the abomination and say God approves, instead they refuse to repent. Instead of returning to God’s word they set His word aside and replace it with reason, tradition and experience.

        So we cry out Psalm 106:47 “Save us, Lord our God, and gather us from the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise.” God will hear our cry if we cry out to Him. 2 Chronicles 20:9 “Lord, the God of our ancestors, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand, and no one can withstand you. 7 Our God, did you not drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? 8 They have lived in it and have built in it a sanctuary for your Name, saying, 9 ‘If calamity comes upon us, whether the sword of judgment, or plague or famine, we will stand in your presence before this temple that bears your Name and will cry out to you in our distress, and you will hear us and save us.’ 12 Our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you. This is what the Lord says to you: ‘Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God’s. “Give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever. 29 The fear of God came on all the surrounding kingdoms when they heard how the Lord had fought against the enemies of Israel. 30 And the kingdom of Jehoshaphat was at peace, for his God had given him rest on every side.”

    Today in order for God to hear our praise, we must give Him the glory that is due Him by returning to His word and turn from our wicked ways. If we do, there is power available to defeat out enemies, but we must turn back and give Him our lives as praise. Then we can say Psalm 106:48 “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Let all the people say, “Amen!” Praise the Lord.” Psalm 113:1 “Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, you his servants; praise the name of the Lord. 2 Let the name of the Lord be praised, both now and forevermore.” 1 Timothy 1:17 “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.”