Kenneth J. Spangler Ministries
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“Check Me
Out!”
Kenneth loves to tell folks,
“Don’t just take my word for it. Go to the Word of God and see for yourself
if these things are so!” In over 27 years of searching
the scriptures, Kenneth has found his love for them continues to grow along
with his desire is to share the Word of God with you. KJSM Encourages You!
Through Video, CD and Cassette you will be encouraged to seek after God’s very best for you, your family and your own ministry ~ whatever God has called you to do. Click on the list here and check out some of Kenneth’s favorites:
“I
Have Come that You Might have Life and have it more abundantly.” ~ Jesus
Windows of Heaven Blessing
Gadamus Windows of Blessing
Introduction Please turn
in your Bibles with me to Malachi 3:10,
“Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may
be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if
I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that
there shall not be room enough to receive it.”
The title
of my message today is, “The Windows of Heaven”. As I was driving to work last week, God began to reveal to me
a powerful truth that I am excited about and I want to share with you this
morning. Every morning, as I drive to
work, I consider this time to be my prayer time and a portion of my prayer
each day includes believing that I have received the windows of heaven
blessing. I do this in accordance
with Mark 11:24 where Jesus says,
“Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when
ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” (KJV)
Recently, I have
been troubled because Mark 11:24 says I am to believe that I have received it
and I shall have it, however Mal 3:10 states that there shall not be room
enough to receive it. This seems to
be a contradiction! Please note God
did not say that I could not receive it but there would not be room enough to
receive it. I decided I needed to
know more about the “Windows of Heaven Blessing”. 2. The Flood First, I looked
in my concordance and found that the words “windows of heaven” were mentioned
in Gen. 7:11-20. So let’s read Gen.
7:11-20: 11 In the six
hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of
the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up,
and the windows of heaven were opened. 12 And
the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. 13 In
the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of
Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the
ark; 14 They,
and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and
every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every
fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort. 15 And
they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the
breath of life. 16 And
they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded
him: and the LORD shut him in. 17 And
the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare
up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. 18 And
the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark
went upon the face of the waters. 19 And
the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that
were under the whole heaven, were covered. 20
Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the
mountains were covered. In verse 11 it says, “and the windows of
heaven were opened” and verse 12 says, “and the rain was upon the earth 40
days and 40 nights.” Therefore, the
windows of heaven poured forth rain for 40 days and 40 nights. Now in order to get an idea of the
magnitude of this event let’s look at verse 20. It says, “the waters prevailed 15 cubits upwards and the
mountains were covered.” Now the
highest mountain on earth is Mt. Everest.
Its summit is 29,035 ft. above sea level. 15 cubits are approximately 7.5 yards or 22.5 feet. So the face of the water was approximately
20,057.5 feet above sea level. This
was accomplished over a period of 40 days.
Therefore, the average daily rainfall was about 726 feet per day or
30.5 per hour or about 6 inches per minute!
Or one inch every 10 seconds or a 10th of an inch every
second. This is pretty awesome! 3. The Flood In Current Times To help illustrate how fast the waters were
increasing, let’s say you are at the stoplight in Spring Green. You need to get to the Water Tower in
Arena, which is approximately 9.6 miles away. You travel at a speed of 60 miles per hour or one mile per
minute. When you leave the stoplight
it begins to rain at a rate of 6 inches per minute. By the time you get to Rainbow Road, which is one mile, you
would be driving in 6” of water. How many of you have ever driven down the
road and driven through a puddle of water?
The car slows down noticeably and the steering wheel tugs and pulls at
your hands. Then suddenly you come
out of the puddle and control is restored to you. That’s just a small puddle!
But in this case, you will not be driving through the puddle and
coming out the other side. You will
be driving into the water and staying in the water! You’re driving in a 6” deep puddle that is getting deeper every
second! Continuing on…when you reach the Bridge,
crossing the WI River, another mile away, there will be more than one-foot of
water on the ground slowing your car even more! And by the time you reach Pecks Food Stand, which is 4 miles
from the stoplight, there would be about 2 feet of water on the ground! At this point, if your car’s engine is
still running, progress would be extremely slow due to resistance of the
water. Have you ever watched someone running down
the beach and into the water? While
running on the beach, the person picks up a great deal of speed but when he
hits the water he is slowed way down!
In the sport of sculling, where you’ve probably seen on TV the
athletes sit in a long thin boat. In
this boat each athlete operates one oar.
The front of the boat is very pointed; this is done to lower the water
resistance to facilitate fast movement through the water by decreasing the
amount of resistance. The front of your car is not designed for fast travel
through water, therefore offers a great deal of resistance. You could actually walk faster than your
car could travel in two feet of water. The deeper you go the slower you go. And you could not maintain the 60-mile per
hour speed due to all the water resistance. You would have to walk or swim
for the remaining five miles. If you
were able to walk one mile every 20 minutes, it would take you one hour and
40 minutes to get to the water tower in Arena. In that amount of time another 50 feet of rain would have
accumulated. In other words, you
would have two chances of making it to the water tower in Arena – slim and
none! Now remember, the flood in the time of Noah
was not just in the Spring Green area, it covered the entire world and, as I
said before, the face of the water was 29,057.5 feet above sea level. This
means that the face of the water was about 5.5 miles above sea level. 4. Show The Immense Blessing With this in mind, let’s go back to the
Windows of Heaven blessing. When God
opened the windows of heaven in Genesis, the water flooded the whole
earth. A flood cannot be
contained. When God opens the windows
of heaven to pour out a blessing on us “such as there is not enough room to
receive it” then it would be much like to flood of Genesis. Our blessing would cover the entire earth
and prevail over the highest mountains.
Another factor to consider is the word pour
in Mal. 3:10. According to Strong’s
Exhaustive Concordance the word pour in the Hebrew is ruwq (rook); meaning a
primitive root; to pour out (literally or figuratively), i.e. empty: cast
out, draw (out), (make) empty, pour forth (out). Therefore, whenever God opens the windows of heaven to pour
out a blessing, He empties all the blessings of heaven pouring them out to
you. 5. How Do We Make Room In Our Faith? Mal. 3:10 also states, “There shall not be
room enough to receive it.” Then, how
do we give? By faith. How do we receive? By faith.
Therefore, it must be our faith where there is not enough room to
receive our blessing. How do we make
more room in our faith? Do we need
more faith?, Bigger Faith?, Increase the mass of our faith? (like building
muscle)? We often think of the term’s
big faith, medium faith, little faith, but we are deceived by the devil. Faith is not about building mass. We’ve got all the faith we need, but we
need to use what we’ve got. When I
first became a Christian, I was a member of the Christian denomination. This denomination did not believe the
gifts of the spirit being for today.
When it came to speaking with other tongues their motto was “speak not
– forbid not”. In this same church,
an elderly lady named, Alma Fisher was also a member. Alma was regarded as being somewhat
eccentric because she believed in the gifts of the Spirit for today. This was not a popular belief in the
Christian denomination and it scarred many folks including me. However, Alma, bless her heart, had a
vision. In her vision, she described
the members of our church as being in front of the church, trying to prepare
the ground to receive a new parking lot, where all the members were digging
with shovels trying to clear and level the land. Off to the side was a huge bulldozer with the motor running
but it was not being used. She
likened the bulldozer to the Holy Spirit – great power available but not
being used. 6. Mustard Seed Faith Let’s look at what the Bible says about a
similar event. Turn with me to Luke 17:5-6: 5 And the
apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. 6 And the Lord
said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this
sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the
sea; and it should obey you. Notice first of all the apostles asked Jesus
to increase their faith. And Jesus
goes right the heart of the problem saying, “If you have the faith of a
mustard seed say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and
be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.” We do not have to increase our faith. God tells us size makes no difference as
illustrated by Jesus’ example of the mustard seed. We have the measure of
faith. Have we moved mountains
today? Have we cast out demons? Have we raised the dead? Have we healed the sick? Have we planted a sycamine tree in the
sea? Have we made the lame to
walk? 7. Peter Walks On The Water Let’s look a Biblical example of faith in
action. Turn to Matt. 14:25-31. Let’s read, Matt
14:25-31 25 And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus
went unto them, walking on the sea. 26 And when the disciples saw him walking on the
sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear. 27 But straightway Jesus spake unto them,
saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid. 28 And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it
be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. 29 And he said, Come. And when Peter was come
down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was
afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. 31 And immediately Jesus stretched forth his
hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore
didst thou doubt? Take a look at Peter just before he walks on
the water. This was not a man well
versed in faith. ~ He was not a man who had spent years exercising and
building his faith to get to the level of walking on water. Yet Peter, used the faith he had to
actually walk on the water! HE HAD
WATER WALKING FAITH! 8. Peter Had Same Faith Jesus Had When Peter saw the wind boisterous, he was
afraid; and beginning to sink he called to Jesus. Did Peter’s faith begin to diminish in size? Is that why he began to sink? Because Jesus said to him, “Oh ye of little
faith.” Peter had the same faith as
Jesus ~ the same faith that is given unto every man, Rom 12:3 3 For I say, through the grace given unto me,
to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he
ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every
man the measure of faith. Therefore
if Peter’s faith was the same measure as Jesus’ faith why did Peter sink into
the water? 9. The Super Gas Grill At this point, let’s freeze Peter in the
water, so we can take a little side trip, to look at another aspect of faith.
Matt
19:29 29 And every one that hath forsaken houses, or
brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands,
for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit
everlasting life. Matt
13:23 23 But he that received seed into the good
ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth
fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. What I would like us to see is that these
verses are not trying to give us a number to multiply by in order to figure
out what our blessing will be. For
example, if I give one hundred dollars do I multiply by 30 or 60 or 100 fold
to find out what my return will be?
No. This is talking about
degrees of potential. In this
instance, 100 fold is using full potential.
An apple tree bears fruit and produces many apples in one year but has
it reached its full potential? No,
because it continues to bear fruit year after year bringing many harvests and
much potential. With this in mind, let’s go back and
unfreeze Peter so he can continue to sink!
The Bible says, “When Peter saw the winds boisterous”. When Peter saw the winds he began to limit
his faith based on input from the circumstances ~ his current environment ~
whereas Jesus kept using his faith to its full potential. Peter’s “little faith” still had the
potential to walk on water. But
Peter was no longer using his faith to its full potential. Peter did not drop to the bottom! He was only slowly sinking. Peter was still using a portion of his
faith. When he was walking on the water, Peter had 100 fold return on his
faith. When he began to sink he had
about 50 fold then 30 fold when he asked Jesus for help. Let’s look at Matt. 9-27-30 to expound on
this further: 27 And when Jesus departed thence, two blind men
followed him, crying, and saying, Thou Son of David, have mercy on us. 28 And when he was come into the house, the
blind men came to him: and Jesus saith unto them, Believe ye that I am able
to do this? They said unto him, Yea, Lord. 29 Then touched he their eyes, saying, According
to your faith be it unto you. 30 And their eyes were opened; and Jesus
straitly charged them, saying, See that no man know it. The key verse here is vs. 29 “According to
your faith be it unto you.” When
Peter was using his faith to it’s full potential he was getting 100 fold
return. As he began to limit his
faith he began to get the corresponding limited return, perhaps 60 fold. To further illustrate this let’s bring
Peter into modern day times. And
since one of our favorite pastimes is grilling out let’s give Peter a brand
new super gas grill. This grill has
2000 cubic inches of grilling space; it has two side burners on the left side
and a warming oven on the right side.
It has storage space underneath and racks to hold condiments with four
burners for better temperature control.
It’s an awesome grill! This
grill was designed and is capable of cooking 30 steaks at one time. Peter puts 30 steaks on the grill and
starts cooking them. Now the devil
comes to Peter and says, “Peter I need to warn you about this grill. It is very unstable. It flares up very
easily if over loaded with too many steaks.
You shouldn’t cook so many steaks at one time.” Then Peter, like most of us, doesn’t
bother to check the manual to see if the grill can handle that many steaks
but instead believes the devil and takes 20 of the steaks off the grill and
only cooks 10. The grill was designed
and capable of cooking all 30 steaks all at the same time. Peter wound up with only 10 steaks cooked,
not because the grill was too small or incapable of handling 30 steaks but
because Peter limited the grill’s ability.
Why? Because Peter believed
what the devil said and removed the other 20 steaks so Peter still got a
return but it was not the 100 fold or full potential return. It was unto him according to his faith. Let’s not just pick on Peter. Let’s admit it. We’ve done this same thing.
In a way, we have seen the winds boisterous, we have gotten our eyes
off of Jesus, we have failed to keep our eyes on the big picture and instead
we have seen the problem and have begun to sink. Let me illustrate it this way. I will paint a yellow line on the floor. It will be one foot wide and 10 feet
long. Then I will ask you to walk the
full 10-foot length of the line without stepping off the line. You confidently walk one foot in front of
the other the whole length of the line and never once stepped off the
line. Now I ask that you walk back
the same way you came. Only this
time the floor on either side of the line draws back and reveals a 1000 ft.
drop off on either side of the line.
Would you walk back across that line? It’s the same line you walked across so confidently just a
moment ago but now you see the danger lurking on either side of the line,
suddenly the possibilities of falling flood your mind! You start to sweat! You get shaky! Your confidence is gone.
You try to walk up to the line to start but your feet will not
move. You’ve seen the winds
boisterous. Now we are in the same
boat as Peter was or wasn’t in this case!!!!! Satan tries to make our problems bigger than
our goals. But if we start to see the
big picture and keep our eyes on the big picture our problems will become so
small we will be able to overcome them.
Another reason we limit our faith or do not
make room for our faith to receive blessings is because of a lack of
knowledge. To illustrate this, let’s
go back to the gas grill. If we get
this brand new gas grill and do not read the instruction manual, we have no
idea what the grill is capable of. We
could cook 30 steaks but we’d only cooked a hamburger and a hot dog because
we did not know it could cook 30 steaks.
Many times we do not read our Faith Manual, the Bible, the Sword, The
Word of God, so we do not know what our faith is capable of. In Prov 9:10 we read: 10
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the
knowledge of the holy is understanding. We make our faith room bigger by tearing
down the walls of limitation, by tearing down the walls of unbelief, by
tearing down the walls of doubt, by tearing down the walls of fear, and by
tearing down the walls of a lack of knowledge. Let’s be like Jesus and see the big picture. Let’s know and realize our blessings have
come in like a flood that cannot be contained and are filling the earth! And all the mountains are covered! When we do this the devil is mad. God is happy. We are happy. Psalm
24:5 promises, 5 He shall
receive the blessing from the LORD, and
righteousness from the God of his salvation. And we have
received the windows of heaven blessing. |
Fighting The Good Fight of Faith Ken’s Trivia
Question For You! On what day did God create Man? You’ll find your answer in these scriptures.
What did God do when creating the earth? The answer is in
Gen. 1:9 Are you right? Press the picture and Ken will get back to you! Teaching The Teacher History reveals
the theologians and great minds, that man has deemed authoritative, to
typically hold the steadfast and unquestioning last word when it comes to
understanding a “call of God.” To realize that each of us has a call on
our lives to serve the Lord is both wonderful and awesome. Naturally, taking God’s call seriously is
a powerful responsibility no matter who you are! To begin your journey, it is wise to set yourself in a body of
believers where the leadership will encourage you in every aspect of your
walk with our Father God. While there are a number of wonderful men and women
from every denomination that professes Jesus as Lord, be sure to seek the
Lord in the path He would have you go and be sure to have your studies
include the works of men and women like:
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