A STORY OF GOD'S PROVIDENCE
Sunday, January 9, 2022
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Today I will tell you a story of God’s providential care in control of all the personal details of our lives.
It is story about Missionary Sherrel Muckleroy (1949-2022).
The Providence of God means that God is in control of all the details of the physical universe, our lives, and everything in the universe. Conditional providence for believers depends on our obedience.
Even though Sherrel has been in the battle against cancer the past two years, she is part of the foundation of our new building. Her gift to the ministry brought me the first Word from the LORD about this building. The LORD spoke to me, “Carolyn a $5,000.00 check is coming in the mail. Open a building account and deposit the $5,000.00 check into the building account.” Within two days, an envelope from Sherrel Muckleroy came in the mail. It was a $5K check. I didn’t waste any time. I went direct to the bank and opened a new account. We were having meetings at the Willow Fork C.C. I knew then for a certainty that the LORD would provide for a new building. If we needed a building fund, that meant we were going to build a church building. I waited patiently for His next directive.
A couple of years later, Sherrel came to see me. She had been diagnosed with cancer. She was very worried about her funeral expenses. By the Spirit of the LORD, I told her that I would pay for her funeral that she would never have to worry about her funeral expenses being paid. She came to me again and told me she had purchased burial insurance. I said, whatever it doesn’t pay will be paid. I will take care of it.
Saturday, January 8, 2022, I had just finished reading 1 Samuel 9 when the call came that Sherrel had passed to her heavenly reward.
This is the story of David honoring the covenant he had made with Jonathan and his descendants forever (1 Sa. 20:42). 2 Sa. 9:3: The king said, “Is there not still someone of the house of Saul, to whom I may show the kindness of God?” Ziba (Saul’s servant) said, there is still a son of Jonathan. David restored to Mephibosheth, David’s son, all the personal estates of his grandfather, King Saul.
Jesus Christ and Father God cut the everlasting covenant with us. It was planned in eternity past, cut at Calvary, and ratified by the Resurrection! Like Mephibosheth, we were blessed before we were born! (Eph. 1:1-4).
I have known Sherrel Muckleroy before I knew any of you who are now part of the Eastgate Church Fellowship. She first visited Little White Church in 1999. I was having Sunday afternoon meetings. She told me of her vision to start a home for troubled women in what was then the Mark’s homestead house. Of course, we know the house was torn down and was inhabitable.
During the next few years, Sherrel was doing missionary work in Mexico and Romania. In 2001, she was visiting at Little White Church. I was preaching the message on “The Plate of Pure Gold.” The message was from a vision I had in 2001 which I preached at the conference, “A Feast of Fat Things.”
Vision: I saw a plate of gold, a cobalt blue cup, a cluster of grapes and a loaf of bread on a blue scarf.
The Plate of Pure Gold (Mitre/crown of the High Priest) – Holiness to the Lord is the same principle as Feast of Tabernacles; the rest of God; God tabernacles in a people; the Coming of the Lord. Everything is washed and burnt by fire. The Shekinah Glory, perfection, the adoption and the redemption of the Body. The plate of pure gold then is symbolic of the perfection and maturity of the Church.
It is a detailed teaching which is not the purpose of today’s message.
However, that day, when I finished the teaching, I prayed for the people to receive the blessing of “The Plate of Pure Gold.” When I prayed for Sherrel, the LORD spoke to me to give her the blue, crystal goblet. It is this same goblet here today. When she left to move to Belize for two years, she brought the goblet back to me. She felt the leading of the LORD to do so. I have taken care of the goblet because it has been used by the LORD as a sign and a message.
The fruit and the cup represent God’s first fruit Company, feasting at the King’s table, but also drinking from the cup of the LORD. Sherrel’s ministry in Belize was very fruitful, but as with all ministry, it also came at great cost.
The Plate is called the Holy Crown in Exodus 39:30. The word Crown means, “set apart, dedication, Nazarite, royalty.”
Peter describes this in 1 Peter 5:4: When the Chief Shepherd shall appear, you shall receive a crown of Glory that fades not away.
In the next five verses, Peter tells us how to live that we may receive this Crown:
- You younger submit yourselves to the elder.
- All of you be subject one to another.
- Be clothed with humility.
- God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.
- Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you in due time.
- Casting all your cares upon Him; for He cares for you.
- Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour.
- Whom (Satan) resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.
The MITRE and Plate were joined by a blue lace. The Mind of Christ is a heavenly Mind (1 Cor. 15: 44-49 – Amplified).
The forehead speaks of purpose, will, mind (sealed with the Mind of Christ). The very word for Crown (revealing the King-Priest ministry of Melchisedec) shows a separation unto holiness. The reward (or crown) of holiness is life and immortality (Rom. 1:4).
Aaron fully dressed pictures Jesus Christ in all His glorious perfection as High Priest. He also typifies man in glorification, having put on Christ in fullness (fully clothed as in 2 Cor. 5: 1-5).
My story today is about the providence of God and his providential care in each of our lives. I wanted you to see how God sent Sherrel to Eastgate, and providentially sustained the relationship over 23 years. We were both following the call of God on our lives individually, but corporately our ministries intertwined because of the providence of God.
During those 23-years, we both drank from the “CUP OF THE LORD,” in fruitfulness, in heartache, loss, and gain. This is the cost and price of following wholly after the LORD. Sherrel has gone to her eternal reward.
The providence of God, concerns God’s control and care of things He originally created and now sustains. God designs all things and guides events according to His perfect purpose. It is not the same as fate, neither is providence the same as the laws of God. God is behind and above every law in the universe. The laws are the tools that God has made. They are not God Himself. It is God’s intervention in our personal lives and well as the affairs of the universe to complete His plan. There is a difference between God creating the universe, His sustaining the universe and God’s providence in the universe.
I tell you this story today to affirm to you the building of this church is part of the providence of God. Sherrel Muckleroy was used as an instrument of God to reveal his supernatural intervention. I could not tell you the story while she lived, but I can tell it to you as part of her seed sown into the earth as she has now gone to her eternal reward.
Can we do any less than to give God our best? When she went to Belize, she gave God her all. I remember the cost of the sacrifice of giving up her home, finances, and comforts she had here. I also know that she counted it all joy!
We met Casian Measner, a son of the fruit of her ministry from Romania. We met his mother and others that we were blessed to have passed through Eastgate Church. We met and ministered in the churches in Belize. Sherrel enlarged the tent pegs of Eastgate Church by including us in her international missionary ministry.
I haven’t paid the “cost” Sherrel Muckleroy paid. I do not covet her exceedingly, great reward.
In Richard Sigmund’s book, “My Time in Heaven,” he describes the missionaries’ mansions: “I saw this avenue which appeared to be made of diamonds or maybe one big diamond of some kind. You could see through this diamond; it had layers of gold and silver, and there were precious stones everywhere. There were mansions beyond compare. They mansions were for missionaries. Everything they’d given, they’d given to the LORD. I believe that in heaven, God rewards everything that we can’t receive here on earth. I saw people who had died recently. I saw one coming who was dressed in a beautiful robe. One of the first things he did was to grab his clothes and say, “Oh how beautiful, I am not in rags anymore.” His robe was made of spun gold. Thousands of people were greeting him. The rewards of missionaries are great, and God loves missions-minded people. I was takin t one house. It was a single mansion carved out of a single, giant pearl. The house seemed to be two hundred fifty to three hundred feet across with one hundred feet tall. The furniture inside had been formed by angels who had molded and carved the pearl into shape. Even the chandelier had been carved out of the pearl, and it was lit. It glowed from within. The house made of Pearl belonged to a woman named Pearl, and the angels told me her story. The house of pearl was a reward for a pure heart” (Richard Sigmund).
The difference between innocence and purity is, in the Garden was innocence. New Jerusalem is Purity. Innocence has never been subjected to good and evil. Purity has overcome both good and evil.
Life flows after we have suffered, been tempted and overcame the temptations. The “Tree of Life” speaks of the partaking of Divine Life. The “River” speaks of the out-flowing of giving forth of Divine Life. The plate of pure gold speaks of Divine nature. The Divine nature and son-ship of (Christ in us coming to maturity) will ultimately result in the reward of Life. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.
Have we arrived in that place of perfection and maturity? No, but there are those who have been brought forth in these past 23-years as first fruits of the Harvest. Why did the Holy Spirit direct me to give the cup to Sherrell? I think that is clear as we watched her life for the past 23-years.
Today, I prophetically honor her with the “crown of glory.”
We will receive communion from her “cup.”
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church
Scripture from N.K.J.V. – I entered into the labors of Richard Sigmund, My Time in Heaven; Sermon and vision by Pastor Carolyn Sissom (2001); Principles of Present Truth by Kelly Varner.