Latest / This Is That: Believe Again / Ep 2 - God Remembers Covenant
Transcript
- Yvonne Denise Hicks: why has God blessed America so mightily? And it's it's not because we've gotten everything right all the time. We've fallen short, but I have come to really understand that it's the Lord and He is God who makes and keeps covenant. Well I wanna welcome everyone to episode two of this is that believe again. So I hope you had an opportunity to actually celebrate Independence Day. as I watched the celebrations this year, I was watching online and I just loved it. the we honor the veterans, I mean the hundred year old veterans, the Gold Star families, the American flag from different eras, and the spectacular fireworks. that was amazing, even through and the crowd was huge, even through the storm and and all of that. So that was exciting. I hope you had a chance to to participate in something to celebrate. So I found myself as I was watching it, I just was reflecting, you know, many people, you know, probably ask this question, why has God blessed America so mightily? And it's it's not because we've gotten everything right all the time. We've fallen short, but I have come to really understand that it's the Lord and He is God who makes and keeps covenant. And so I'm going to share one of my God stories with you. It's a it's about Reverend Robert Hunt. And so I'm gonna just do a quick word of prayer. So, Father, I just thank you for this opportunity to share about the covenant that you made with us, every nation, and with America. And so, Father, I just thank you for just blowing wind on this testimony that I want to share this story. that I want to share, Lord God, and and help people catch catch it in in Jesus' name. Amen. So I want my God story. the year was two thousand and seven. my mom had just passed away and at the end of two thousand and six. So it was a difficult start to the year. I was an administrator of a Bible college that I helped start and I was working full time and just doing a lot of other stuff and there happened to be a conference in in the fall that it was someone else's conference we were a a church that did conferences regul regularly but this was someone else's conference and one of our senior pastors had been invited to speak and because of you know that would have been an the start of the a new school year for the for the Bible college, I decided I wasn't gonna go. And about two days before the event, I heard from the Lord and the Lord was like, I I I want you to go. And so I hadn't make any made any arrangements. So I quickly called someone and caught a ride, booked my hotel and I just simply, you know, called my job the next day and just say I I can't make it. And they I apparently they were good with that. I stayed with them for a little bit. But when I arrived at the conference site, just did what I typically would do, you know, just help set up, you know, book table, that type of thing. And I noticed in the corner there was a group of pastors, local pastors, and they they almost seemed giddy, right? And so, you know, I was sh sort of halfway through my setting things up, I just, you know, walked over and just greeted them and and and to say hello. And one of the pastors was like, Do you know where you are? And I was like, Virginia Beach. And he was like, You're near the first landing. And I, you know, Pondered like, you know, he's like, Have have you ever heard of the first landing? And I was like, No, I had never heard of of the first landing. And he said it's about Reverend Robert Hunt and there's a big celebration in all this and I was like, Okay, you know, and so I kinda went back and finished up, but I purposed in my heart that I I needed to find out what this first landing was about. So at the break time before the conference actually s started, I went and took a walk on the beach and I you know, I forgot what piece of technology I had, but I I was able to look up the first landing and he had mentioned Reverend Robert Hunt. And so I was looking up his story and I just was amazed. you know the the there there actually was this was the 400th year after he had first landed in that in that area and there had been a year long celebration of of that first landing and even later I found there was a movie that was made and just just all kinds of things. And so I just was just marveled at his story. And so I you know as I was walking I you know I took a a a look at his life story and and I saw in this story how he was led by the Lord to go across the ocean for the sake of the gospel. And in that season, along that coastline, colonies, people who came didn't survive. And so I I was just marveled at it. And so he was just thirty eight, ten years younger than I was at that time. And he died the next year after after the landing and he never saw his family again. And so I I I In those moments, as I stood there, the the scripture, Acts seventeen, was really burning in me. So I looked that up as well. And so I just want to read a a little bit of a passage of that. And so Acts seventeen, twenty-four. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth. And he does not live in temples made by human hands, nor is he served by by human hands as if he needed anything, because he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth. And he determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands. And God intended that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him. And though he is not far from each one of us For in him we live and move and we have our being. And as some of your own poets have said, we are his offspring. And I I I thought about it, I really pondered that because I I in that season there had been a stirring even in our church about Acts seventeen twenty six. And it came alive to me as I was walking the beach. So it meant that. I was not an American by accident. It meant that I wasn't born in Philadelphia on Flag Day by accident. And in those moments I knew God had a very specific plan for for my life. And I I was just sort of overwhelmed. And so the scripture tells me that God determines our appointed times and our boundaries where we live for one purpose that we would seek him. And so you know, think about it. So no matter where your family came from, no matter whether you your ancestors arrived at Cape Henry or with Reverend Hunt or or at Plymouth with via the Mayflower or whether they came later on Ellis Island or unfortunately were brought here in chains, or even we're already living here for generations. Acts 17 tells us that God knows where we are. He's inviting each of us to seek him and to know him. And so I let me tell you a little bit about how the inlet we're where Cape Henry relates even further. Many speak about you know, the first Dutch slave ship that that landed there. but I had an encounter with the Lord about Harriet Tubman. And so and I want to share that story. It was in twenty twelve. I was beginning to answer his call to release heaven on earth. And I took a brief trip to Hilton Head in Buford County in in South Carolina just to rest. And so I had another intercessor friend with me. so a day or so in I we took some time to pray and suddenly I kept seeing images. of the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman, and I couldn't understand why, because it was too far south. And so I did a quick computer search, right? And I discovered that yes indeed Harriet Tubman had actually been there on a military operation. she was not only rescuing slaves, but she was helping those newly freed families really learn how to live in Freeman. She had been called and and asked to to join that effort. And so I found out later because of the story of Reverend Robert Hunt, I made subsequent trips to Virginia Beach. there's a whole group of people that have followed his story and they they go there regularly. There there are there's a cross that's been erected there in in that place in at at Cape Henry. And so People go there d to pray. I I've gone several times and one of those trips took the whole team, our ministry team that we had formed and w one of those trips we went to the Hampton Roads Naval Museum and in that museum it talked about how you know the the different wars, right? And it talked about how there were ships that that left that area that that were deployed you know the during the Civil War. And so I in those moments I realized that that's how Harriet Tumman got so far down and that's why they sent for her because the Union Army the Union Navy They were freeing the slaves and they didn't know the slaves didn't know how to to survive. And Harriet Tubman kind of walked out of freedom and she was in the Merlin area, had a opportunity to go visit her home hometown and there's museums there and and all of that. So I I was just really struck by that of how the very inlet where that Dutch ship had come and it really had kind of wandered in there because it it was off course and and I think storms and things like that. And so that Dutch ship, you know, that that you know sixteen nineteen that that people talk about that was the first slave ship, out of that very inlet, the same inlet that Reverend Robert Hunt dedicated the the n this land to the Lord, out of that same area those ships, those union ships went to go rescue the slaves. And so the Lord is a redeemer. And so there's t parts of our history, parts of our story that we don't completely understand. That you know we're we're we're human, we falter and but the Lord has a plan and if we would just trust him. And so I just That is the fullness of of Acts 17. Like he's preappointed our times and our boundaries so that we would know him. And it doesn't matter. I had an opportunity early on in my walk with the Lord to actually visit Africa and actually go to to Ghana where some of my people are from and it's interesting how people would would look at you and you know be able to kind of tell your history or or where what what region you were in. And I remembered on that trip, it was like nineteen ninety three, that a group of the believers there took us to the caves where they held the slaves and they repented because they sold us into slavery. It it wasn't like the ships came. It was a un unfortunately a normal trading thing. There were many different enslaved people groups, even in the the United States. And so I just wanted to to to bring that up because there, you know, we're we w I I look at Reverend Robert Hunt's story and Harriet Tubman's story and they they were in different generations and and and different backgrounds but it was one God and one covenant and one purpose that people would seek and so Friends, I I know there's been a lot of division brewing in our nation for a long season. And but when I I read Acts seventeen, I I remembered Robert Hunt's prayer, remembered Harriet Tumblitz faith, and I and I don't see a division. I I see a God who determines our in our appointed times, the boundaries where we live, and so each of us, whatever nation you're from, each of us, no matter how and even no matter how we got here, that we would seek him in the land, in the boundaries that he's provided for us and and to know him, to experience his goodness. And so but we have a part to play. We have to have active faith. And so many people have visited Cape Henry And that cross and and prayed there. And I and I now have gone again several times and and people have petitioned President Trump and he's actually made a proclamation off of that testimony of of Reverend Robert Hunt and coming in and making covenant and planting the cross. And he released that proclamation and even during the this anniversary see the two hundred and fifty year he's President Trump has has repeated that and released that afresh and that proclamation was from twenty twenty five and and so again Dutch Sheets there was a gentleman another minister who talked about he felt compelled to go to the cross and and to make th those decrees again and so I you know I I've got some of that information in the show notes that we'll leave with you but The Department of Navy is actually commissioning a new ship for Harriet Tubman. So things like that. So I I wanted to take a moment to actually read that decree that Reverend Robert Hunt made. And it's this is called a covenant of dedication. And it says, We do hereby dedicate this land and ourselves. To reach the people within these shores with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to raise up godly generations after us, and with these generations take the kingdom of God to all the earth. May this covenant of dedication remain to all generations as long as the earth remains. And may this land, along with England, be evangelist to the world. May all who see this cross remember what we have done here. And may those who come here to inhabit join us in this covenant and this mo most noble work, that the holy scriptures may be fulfilled from these very shores, the gospel shall go forth, not only to this new world, but the entire world. And I I think about again how this young minister, 38, he didn't survive past the the next year, thirty nine. And I I And the Lord has honored that. He he pulled me into his story. I had again, there are gonna be some things that I'll share next time. There's been threads that I found out later about his story. And so even though he did not survive long, his story, his testimony, his act, because it was a covenantal act of dedicating this nation to the Lord, he's remembered. And so I know that some of us know that there's been t past seasons where loved ones, you know, d maybe life was was cut short. But God remembers and covenant and there there will be a time when we will all be together, but nothing is ever lost in the Lord. And so I I wanna thank you for joining me. and hearing about the story and so I want to stay with the story a little bit longer because there's more dots to connect. I I found out when I the Lord had me write these stories into a book that there were dots that I did not realize that were tied to Reverend Robert Hunt's story. So so next time we're gonna share a little bit about Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and the Moravians there. And we're gonna talk a little bit about the Waldisians who were based in Italy, but there's a small company. Of auditions that live off of I-40 in in North Carolina. And then we're going to talk about General Nathaniel Green and the Battle of Guildford Courthouse. So until then, please check the the great links on the with the backstory that's in the show notes. And and let's continue to dream again, hope again, believe again, because God He remembers covenant. He is a covenant keeping gods. So God bless you and we will see you next time.