Creating An Atmosphere

By Dr. Martin G Tharp PhD

The church must create an atmosphere in which the Word of God is honored and surrendered to, in which human opinion is never used to judge or qualify revelation, and where Christians are under submission to the teaching of Scripture and illumination of the Holy Spirit. It is when we are open to the wisdom of God that we are able to truly become wise and create an atmosphere for the Holy Spirit!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dr. Martin G Tharp PhD
• Release date: Mar 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301118670

Dr. Martin G Tharp PhD

Dr. Martin Tharp has been an avid student of the Bible for many years and holds a Bachelor, Master and eight Doctorates, one honorary and seven earned, including a Doctor. of Literature and two PhDs. He has been in full time ministry for over fifty-seven years and has authored forty-nine books to date, many of which are being used as curriculum in Bible colleges around the United States and abroad. He has also penned a number of gospel songs and recorded thirty-three albums as well as being actively involved in a school ministry to Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom for the past thirty-eight years, and Dr. Tharp has been honored twice by members of parliament in Ireland for their work in the Protestant and Catholic schools. He and his wife, Sharon, along with Maranda Howells, travel extensively across the USA and the whole of the British Isles holding evangelistic crusades in the churches of both countries.

Book preview

Creating An Atmosphere

By Martin G. Tharp, Ph.D.

Copyright 2013 Martin Tharp Ph.D.

Smashwords edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes; This ebook is licensed for your own personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.. Scripture quotations identified KJV are from the Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible, King James Version. Copyright 1984, 1991 by AMG International, INC and the Living Bible Copyright 1971, 1986 by Tyndale House Publishers INC

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Taking The Precious From The Vile

2. Creating An Atmosphere; The Need and Reception Of A Miracle

3. Sing O Barren; Everything Happens In An Atmosphere

4. Creating An Atmosphere Of Purity

5. John The Baptist; Predestinated To Create An Atmosphere

6. Creating An Atmosphere For Giving

7. Creating An Atmosphere; For the Cloud, The Presence Of God

8. The Potter’s House; An Atmosphere for Creating

9. Creating An Atmosphere In A Jail Cell

10. Creating An Atmosphere; Wind, Earthquake, And Fire!

Bibliography

About The Author

Introduction

If there is one single thing that we are well aware of and very comfortable with, is the knowledge of the benefits of creating an atmosphere. In our Ministry we have been involved in free school concerts for more than forty years. It doesn’t sound like very much until you are the one on the stage in front of crowds of two hundred to over one thousand school kids from six years old in the primary schools to seventeen years of age in the high schools. Sound like fun? THINK AGAIN! If it is not a definite, distinct calling of God, don’t even consider it! I have made this statements on many occasions; I would rather be thrown into a den of hungry lions than in front of a thousand teenagers without the anointing! The lions will be kinder!

Our ministry has placed us in some of the larger churches in America, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland, while at the same time we have been heavily involved in prison Ministry, from minimum security prisons and Y.D.C’s (Youth Development Centers) in the State of Georgia (where we reside), to the maximum security prisons like Attica in New York State or Muddy Bottom Prison in Missouri.

Although the venues where we have ministered are at times as different as night and day, we have learned this valuable lesson; it makes little difference if we are ministering to a Mega-Church or a handful of people, it is still imperative that we create an atmosphere! If it is at a State Fair, prisons, or an outdoor concert, it takes the anointing to creates, an atmosphere.

Since I am completely convinced that everything happens in an atmosphere, why not write a book about it?

Chapter One

The Precious From The Vile

Creating An Atmosphere!

"Therefore thus saith the LORD, If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them" (Jeremiah 15:19-22).

To begin this chapter, I assure you that I am well aware of the overt and conspicuous meaning of this passage of Scripture as it deals with the nation of Israel, however there is a secondary application to these passages which we will deal with before the completion of this particular chapter.

The primary application deals with the words which are spoken in regard to the Prophet Jeremiah in reference to his ministry. It was actually his desperation as well as his incessant complaining that was responsible for the strong response from the Lord in response to these words;

"Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?" (Jeremiah 15:18).

Jeremiah had dared to suggest that God had lied to him and placed him in a place of dryness without sustenance simply because the Israelites had refused to listen to his prophesies, but in view of his accusing statement, the opening passages of Scriptures at the outset of this chapter tell us that the Lord is reprimanding him and threatening to revoke his Prophetic gift! The Lord first exhorts him to learn to take the precious from the vile, in other words, not to consider the deceitful words of the people, but boldly declare the message which had been given to him!

Jeremiah is clearly told not to seek reconciliation with the people, nor attempt to gain their favor, but let the anointing create an atmosphere that would encourage the people to come seeking his Prophetic gifting from the Lord and then he would once again carry the authority of one speaking as the mouth of God. His words would carry the force of authenticity because they would carry the force of the genuine words of God. The people would at that time feel the obligation to acknowledge them as genuine.

In two things he must be faithful;

1. He must distinguish between those he had preached to, deciding who was the precious and who qualified as the vile.

The righteous are always the precious regardless of their station in life, while the wicked are always the vile whether they are rich and famous or the seemingly elite of our society. In most congregations these are mixed and it is difficult to distinguish the difference, especially when they are like wheat and chaff on the same floor.

2. Although we might not be able to distinguish them by name or position, we must by character!

The primary purpose of Jeremiah was to speak comfort to the precious saints and terror to the vileness of sinners! A minister must do their absolute best in their preaching, in order to bring people into the position of knowing the mind of Christ. They should not revert to complimenting or attempt to surrender their Biblical standards in order to placate them.

God was simply urging Jeremiah not to attempt to make the predestinated plan of God easier or more sympathetic to their lifestyle than the Prophetic Word of God has made it. The hearts and lives of men must rise to comply with the laws of God, for His laws will never condescend in order to comply with theirs.

Jeremiah was to separate within himself, what was Divine and Holy from the dross of human nature, in order to abandon his mistrust and sensitivity, he must abandon the idea that God did not deal righteously with him. It would be then and only then that he would once again be as the mouth, or the organ, by which God speaks.

Having dealt with the highlights of the passage of Scripture which opens this chapter, shall we consider another concept?

This is my fiftieth year in the ministry, ten of those years serving as the Pastor of local Churches and forty years in full time Evangelism. The main thrust of that portion of our lives has been in full time Evangelism, but the lion’s share of our income from that Evangelistic thrust has been invested in providing free concerts for the public school systems.

In the first few years of our evangelistic endeavors we were heavily involved in providing free concerts for schools across America, but for three and a half to four months each year for the past thirty years, we have dedicated the major portion of our income to the school systems of the United Kingdom, with the predominant portion of that time dedicated to Northern Ireland.

With that background in mind, perhaps you will understand the reasoning behind my explanation of the very important secondary application of this Scripture.

For years, we have given away free albums of Gospel music, first giving away cassette tapes until CD’s became popular. On every single occasion when we are involved in an assembly with school children, we were inundated with kids begging for their personal copy. Until four years ago we only managed to give some one to two hundred albums to crowds of four to eight hundred students.

In each assembly our single-minded goal was and still is, to create an atmosphere in which highlighting our personalities is not the primary goal. Instead, we are totally dependant on the anointing of the Holy Spirit to help with the message we bring of;

1. Honor

2. Personal discipline,

3. Respect for parents,

4. Respect for authority.

In each assembly we encourage the students to participate in the dance routines which are incorporated into the songs we sing. It has proven to be a method which helps us forever seal the message we deliver in their minds and hearts.

On our third visit to a high school which is located in one the worst, most dangerous areas of Belfast, Northern Ireland, the headmaster (a woman) pulled me aside after the one hour concert, indicating that something had been bothering her and she wanted an answer!

Along with three other teachers, she directed me to the privacy of her office, offered me a chair, and posed this question to me;

"Mr. Tharp, this is the third year I have watched you and your family mesmerize nearly a thousand students with your music and personal testimony, but each year my attention has been drawn to question the methods you use to decide which individuals in our assembly will be the recipient of one of your albums."

Before I could respond she continued;

"All of our students are in school uniforms, so there is no way on earth you could make a decision based on the way they dress or look, yet each of these past three years in the assemblies, you have consistently picked the teenagers whose parents are either drug addicts, involved in the paramilitaries, caught in the middle of divorces or live in a home where the mother is involved in prostitution, and are responsible for giving us the greatest test of our patience with their incorrigible behavior! Many of these children have been forced to witness either their fathers, brothers or uncles being capped by the I.R.A. or other paramilitary groups.

(Capping is a common means of instilling fear or administering retribution for presumed disobedience to their authority. Three men break into the home in balaclavas at breakfast time, two with automatic weapons and one with a sawed off shotgun, who will either blow off an elbow, knee or both right in front of the entire family, thereby enforcing their perceived authority over them.)

"The first year, I just figured it was a coincidence or an accident, but you did it again last year, then once again this year! Don’t misunderstand me Mr. Tharp, I am not complaining, far from it, because nearly everyone whose lives were in such turmoil, their attitudes have been totally changed by your singling them out for the privilege of receiving one of your albums, which every student in this school longs for, and my curiosity is killing me!"

"Ma’am, I don’t think you will understand."

"Try me!"

"Well, alright! Have you ever heard of a thing called the anointing?"

The blank look on her face told me she certainly had not!

"Ma’am, it is actually difficult to explain, but when I look at the crowd in any of our assemblies, I am drawn to faces in the audience by an anointing from God, and my choices are not based on looks or gender, but those I feel directed to which are chosen by the God we serve and talk about in the assemblies."

Her response to my explanation came as a total, but welcome surprise!

"I KNEW IT! She exclaimed. I knew it had to be something like that, for you have never failed to pick out all of my worst cases! May God continue to bless you and your family, keep up the good work!"

Over the past forty one years of active involvement in the schools ministry in the U.S.A. as well as our thirty years in the United Kingdom, incidents like the one I have just described are not at all unusual. We have discovered over and over again, that any school system in the world is indeed a mission field! The battle for the minds of each new generation has raged for hundreds of years, but in these perilous times we now live in, that warfare has largely been abandoned by the Church and their spiritual responsibility has been abrogated!

In every assembly we have participated in, high school or primary, our total dependence, is on the Lord to help us create an anointed atmosphere. Under the anointing, the age of the students or the location of the school is of little importance.

Unless we are able to change the atmosphere of the culture that has been introduced by secular humanism and unchecked for over sixty years in American and eighty-five in the U.K. we are simply spinning our wheels!

Without the ability to change the atmosphere by the anointing, it matters little whether the schools are in America, England, Ireland, Scotland or Erin (Southern Ireland) which we are ministering to we have wasted our time, our resources and our energy!

The words which God spoke to Jeremiah has perhaps been one of the loudest voices in my ears as well as those who have dedicated their lives over the years to help us either physically or financially to continue looking at the vile, but by the anointing of God be able to see the precious!

"If thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth."

In the years we served as Pastors, we applied the very same concept to every person who either walked through our doors or we came into contact with in various ways. We determined early in our ministry that we would never be put off by the apparent vileness of a person’s life, but would rather choose to believe that God would bring forth the precious from the vile!

In our last Pastorate, there were several former drug addicts as well as former drug pushers who had been transformed from the vileness of their previous lives by a salvation experience. Upon their conversion, they became choir members, musicians in our orchestra and workers on our bus ministry, going back into areas where they once had well-deserved reputations as the vile, but came back to