Oracle

By Richard Govier

A collection of short essays and teachings on several topics. Includes some material never expanded or completed in full book form by the author.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Govier
• Release date: May 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463810255

Richard Govier

Richard O. Govier (1928-2018) was a Protestant pastor and missionary and travelled the world in that capacity. He planted a number of churches as well as training pastors who served in Brazil, Chile, Argentina and across the United States.After his marriage to his lifetime sweetheart, Christine Ann Golfis, at the Bethesda Missionary College in Portland, Oregon, he attended extension classes at Pierce College and the Portland State college. Touched by the Latter Rain revival that began in the Northwest, the call of God rested continually on their hearts and they were forever seeking means of preaching the Gospel to their generation. They bought a small trailer and began an evangelistic trek across the United States, preaching in small churches that were open to the work and moving of the Holy Spirit. They criss-crossed the United States from Los Angeles to New York and finally settled down in Los Angeles where they both got jobs and attended a church in Long Beach, California. While serving in that church their son, Jeffrey Lee, was born on November 4, 1963.God had spoken through prophetic words that they would be going to a land whose language they would not understand. Going through a dry period in their lives, Richard loaded up a small tent and made a trip to Mount Palomar, to wait on God. After a week of prayer and fasting, the Holy Spirit spoke to his heart that it was time to fulfill the call to a foreign land. Richard, Christine, and Jeff, set out for Brazil. They had no financial support for this until the night they boarded the ship. God sent a local Christian businessman who committed himself to their support for two years, just enough time to attend language school.It was while attending the Brazilian language school that a missionary visited and introduced Richard to one of Brazil's most notable guitar players, who had recently converted to Christianity. Richard played with him on the banjo and the two began a ministry together that took them to Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. Richard taught pastors in afternoon meetings, while accompanying his Brazilian friend in large city-wide evangelistic campaigns in the evenings.After serving for ten years in South America, Richard and Christine returned to the United States, primarily to get Jeff into an English-speaking school. Richard pastored churches in York, Pennsylvania, and later in Brooksville, New Jersey. The family eventually moved to Florida where Richard went to work for Piper Aircraft and Page Avjet.Richard loved studying the word of God and, in his retirement years, wrote over thirty books about the unfolding revelations of God in human history. His son, Jeff, published these books one year after his father passed away.

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ORACLE

And Other Essays

Richard O. Govier

Copyright © 2019 by Jeff Govier

Bible quotations unless otherwise identified are taken from

the King James Version with emendations by the author.

Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible®,

Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995

by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked RSV are taken from The Holy Bible : Revised Standard Version

Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America.

Nashville : Thomas Nelson Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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After reading this book and finding it of value to you, please consider sending a small donation for the the costs of advertising my father's work. Send all donations either by Paypal account name [e-mail] or by mail to:

Jeff Govier, 5511 Lorraine St., Lakeland, FL 33810.

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CONTENTS

How To Trust While In The Wilderness

For God So Loved the World

The Vision of St. John

The Will and Destiny

Two Ways

Oracles and Offerings

The Way of Deliverance

About the Author

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HOW TO TRUST WHEN IN THE WILDERNESS

Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way unto the Lord; trust also in Him, and He will do it. And He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your judgment as the noonday. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. (Psalm 37:4-7).

Introduction:

There will be a time in your Christian experience in which God will bring you into a wilderness. You will find yourself hemmed in on every side with seemingly no way out of your situation. You will begin to wonder if God has forsaken you; and the more you search for answers, the more they will elude you. You will then begin the process of introspection. In other words, you will put yourself on the witness stand in hopes of finding some bug in the rug that is destroying your joy and the peace of the good old days. You may even end up talking to your own heart like David did: Oh soul, why art thou cast down?

David had learned from experience what it meant to go through a wilderness in his life. That is why the Psalms are so edifying to the person going through a hard place.

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There is a purpose in why God takes us through these wilderness experiences. Even as a child is weaned away from the bottle, so a child of God must be weaned away from reliance on the arm of flesh. We will never learn the walk of faith as long as we are leaning on something else. We shall never know God's sufficiency unless we lose our own self-sufficiency. So there are times when God will actually kick the props out from under us. What seems to us to be a catastrophe is actually the love of God drawing us unto Himself. Be not discouraged. It will not last forever. Through it God will bring you into a new level of maturity.

▼▼▼

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you. I Peter 4:12

How much easier it is to go through a trial if we know what is happening. But Satan is always there to take advantage of the situation and to have us believe that we have committed some awful sin for which we are being judged. Poor old Job went through such a trial and yet God declared him to be a righteous man. He lost everything: his house, his kids, his health — while his wife was urging him to curse God and die.

While sitting on an ash heap scraping his boils, his friends gathered around to offer advice. Instead of trying to help lift his burden, they were all prescribing remedies. There are always plenty of people around to give free advice, but when it comes to help sharing a burden, they are never to be found. God deliver us from a condemning spirit.

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A person going through a trial will generally be in a state of shock and complete confusion. Their moorings have been loosed and they are grabbing at any straw in the wind. A person in the midst of a divorce will often grab any person they can find to even the score with their departed spouse. Or they will make hasty decisions financially and loose everything they have. It is never good to make a decision when you are discouraged. It will generally be the wrong one and will be motivated by unbelief instead of faith. Even the Patriarch Abraham made a bad decision when faced with a famine and made a hasty decision to go into Egypt.

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There are five things God's Word tells us to do:

1. Delight ourselves in the Lord

2. Commit our way unto the Lord

3. Trust in the Lord

4. Rest in the Lord

5. Wait patiently for Him

If you have no direct Word from God as to what you are to do, then do these five things and leave the rest to God. He has promised to direct our path. But to attempt to force the hand of God by our human striving only brings on frustration and unbelief. Remember, there is often a reason why God does not respond to our prayer immediately. He wants us to learn to trust Him. Our trust in God is similar to that of a child toward his parent. A child's mind is generally at perfect rest with no doubt of his parents' ability to meet his need. Have you ever noticed how free of anxiety a child is? This is the way God wants us to be.

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FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD

There are 350 million children in the developing countries of the world. Of the 100 children born every minute, 20 will die within one year. Of the 80 who survive, 60 will have no access to medical care in childhood. Of those who live to school age, only a few more than half will enter a classroom. Because of poor diet, most of these children will grow up semi-retarded. These are cold figures of what is happening this very moment in other parts of the world.

One of the first questions generally thrown by the unbeliever is, If God is a God of love, then why does He allow these things to happen? If God is who He says He is, then why does He not eradicate sickness and suffering from the face of the earth? An atheist doctor once made the statement, "If I ever see God face to face, then I am going to hold up a piece of cancerous bone and say why God?"

How do you say to a man dying with cancer God loves you? How do you stand before an audience of half starved people in Chile, or Argentina, or Brazil as I have done, and tell them God loves you? How do you tell