Heller, John: The Glory Of God 08 ~ Phil 4;13

Yeah, you can tell me, you know, you just go like that if you've heard it. I don't want to bore you to death with the story you've heard, but this little girl was talking to her teacher about Jonah, and the teacher said, well, now, look here, Missy, that's, you know, whales are big, but their throats aren't that big. They can't swallow human beings. And she said, ah, it happened? It sure did. It happened. And and I know it did. As a matter of fact, when I get to heaven, I'm going to talk to Jonah about that whole thing. Teacher looked at her pretty cynically and says, what happened if Jonah went to hell? And then she said, well, you ask him when you get there. Ooh. Well, the reason I use that is just because, don't you see the beauty of just simple childlike faith? Boy, I tell you, there's nothing sometimes more refreshing than to see a young heart who believes what they've been told and they bank on it. I mean, it's just that's the truth. And I think as we grow and we experience fresh dealings from the Lord, and you know, again, uh, there's no desire to paint a Pollyanna picture of what it means to walk by faith. Walking by faith is, is, is tough stuff sometimes, and uh, it, it is a, it is a godly exercise that the believer has been called to for his enjoyment of God's presence and his glory. And as we've been, uh, reading and just considering a bit of the life of, um, Abraham in this area and learning from his, uh, experiences in life, may I just again, uh, go back and, and, uh, just cover again the first point that, uh, Abraham learned, and that was simply this: the road from faith to fear doesn't take long to get on. And I'm thinking about the aspect of, for a believer, walking with the Lord is twenty four seven. I am so grateful to the Lord that he doesn't shelve me when I get, uh, absentminded about my communication to him. He doesn't, uh, move away from me in the sense of not desiring for me to be close to him. He doesn't have so many goes at me, and then I, I hardball and stonewall and re- reject him to the point to where, uh, I, I can't find favor and blessing with him ever again. And I think this is sometimes part of the old flesh thinking that, uh, we're going to run him off somehow, and he's, he's going to exit and be gone, and we're not going to enjoy him. I don't mean to confuse this with the obvious, uh, warning that we have from scripture that we are careful as believers to not participate in things that, uh, would grieve his spirit and, uh, remove the lampstand of the, the anointing of his blessing in our midst. Uh, but he is so precious, as we'll see in a moment, to continually draw us back to himself. I love Philippians four thirteen. When I think about this matter of learning to walk twenty four seven, I, I, maybe you're anticipating this, maybe this thought has come to you. You know, John, that's awfully, you're asking a believer to do something that is tremendously, uh, mind intensive. I mean, you're saying a believer walks with the Lord twenty four seven. Well, listen, you don't understand the job I have. I can't have my mind on the Lord twenty four seven. And I want to be careful here because in this sense, I understand the, the need and the times there are in our lives when we have to engage ourselves in a, in an exercise, some occupation. The Lord understands that, and he knows those things. But when we are able to have times when our mind drifts, when we're tempted to just sort of, uh, let things kind of go, and we, we, we, we relax a little bit, or in some of us, our minds are very, very active, and we're constantly thinking about something else, and that's not necessarily wrong, but the, the, the important thing for us is to understand there are moments when the Holy Spirit of God is tapping us quietly, saying, I'd like, I'd like your attention. And we alone know when those times are, and they're the times, I mean, it's not like, you know, I'd like your attention, please. But it is an awareness that the Holy Spirit works within us. And I like so much, uh, this verse in Philippians two thirteen, for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. I tell you, that to me is tremendous stuff, because that tells me that as a child of God, I know I can rely upon the faithfulness of God to be prompting and working and bringing to my heart and to my mind the things that are going to be important for me as a believer. That's a great promise, and I would just simply like to say, if you don't have that verse memorized, I encourage you, memorize that verse, Philippians two thirteen, For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. And then I also like Philippians four thirteen, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I take that from this perspective, and I realize these are subjective thoughts, and I offer them as such, uh, not trying to overemphasize them beyond measure, but I recognize that as an individual, it is not on the merit of how much I exercise myself to walk with the Lord. It is that he longs to walk with me, and in that longing to walk with me in a wholesome way, he is going to provide the resources I need to stay in communion with him. He will provide that mindset. And so these are some of the lessons that, uh, as we think about Abraham and we think about how quickly he turned and he had that wonderful opportunity to be right in the very presence of the Lord, the Lord appearing to him, encouraging his heart, and not thereafter very long, it turned in discouragement and was running in the opposite direction. So the road from faith to fear doesn't take long to get on, and God has given us great encouragement that we learn as we have, as Paul said, I discipline my body and keep it under, lest when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway. Now, I'm extrapolating a little bit out of that verse, but the principle is, is this, godly alertness. Godly alertness. Next, the road of greatest spiritual testings comes immediately following great spiritual blessings. I've always appreciated this little statement. The height of the wave that comes determines the depth of the valley that follows. Think about that for a moment. When you look at a surfer, you know, they, they don't want to be down in the valley. I mean, they have to do the valley to get to the top. They want to ride that top as long as they possibly can, or right close to it, or right in the tunnel of that, uh, that wave. They don't want to be down at the bottom. But the laws of nature give us a little window on a spiritual principle that is very, very true as we examine the lives of different individuals in the Old Testament. We find that when there are times there's been great blessing, that immediately following those times of great blessing, there is corresponding senses in which there's a dip or a valley. And isn't because we're losing the perspective of God necessarily, that may be the case, but more often than not, the valley is a normal cycle of things, in the sense of us learning to be strengthened when there aren't a whole lot of things around that we can lay our physical abilities, our human abilities, onto and say I draw resource from it. Now, I want to stop for a moment. I wanted to say this in the sense, in the practical sense. This is what the world does all the time. Their joy is based primarily on their sensual perceptions, and I don't mean sensual in the evil sense, but in the sense of what they're able to glean out of their mortality and their surroundings. And one of the things that sets the people of God apart is the fact that they now have new life, and they have a relationship with the very creator of this universe that defies human logic. And that when we as his people are learning that there are times when we can take the crest and wave the, uh, ride the wave of blessing in a good sense, that we're also able to understand that right after those times generally are times of real, um, I don't want to call them barrenness or lowness, but there's just a real valley there. You see it in the time of, uh, Hezekiah after there was a great exercise. I like the scripture just from the, the informative aspect of it, in the sense of it alerts us as his people what to anticipate after we've enjoyed some great spiritual blessing. And that was this little statement, I think it's in second Chronicles chapter three and verse three. it says, and after these deeds of faithfulness, the next word is Sennacherib. Interesting how that just, I mean, after these deeds of faithfulness, Sennacherib. You know what Sennacherib was? He was one of the chief henchmen in the Assyrian army that was seeking to attack Jerusalem. How about Peter? Right after he had made that great confession, thou art the Christ. What happened? When the Lord Jesus said, I'm going down to Jerusalem, Peter rushed in and said, oh Lord, far be it from you. And the Lord looked at Peter and said, get thee behind me, Satan. You do not mind the things of God, but rather you mind the things of men. And I don't know what there is, all I can say is, is that this is a tried and true, uh, revelation from scripture that instructs us as his people to be very careful that, uh, we're alert right after the times of, uh, refreshment and blessing. It's, it's sort of a time when our guards are naturally down. Now, to show you the dynamic of this so that it isn't just a matter of us that's involved in this thing, there is real, genuine satanic attack. And the reason I say that is, is that, uh, again, I, sometimes in America, we, we, we, I've heard it, there, there tends to be an overbalance. Sometimes we tend to over overload and minister too much on one aspect, and then because it's been overloaded, we tend to run to the other side of the spectrum, and we don't say anything about it at all. Folks, we are in a extremely intense spiritual battle. It's just horrific, and we're not going to fare well if we're not connected and we're not reaching out in our, in our hearts by faith and receiving the encouragement of the Lord by faith. Um, and in this principle, you see it in Matthew chapter three. Remember after the Lord was baptized, and then the Holy Spirit of God descended upon him, and we heard those words, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. And then preceding that, uh, proceeding that rather, in Matthew chapter four, notice the word here as you look at it when you, you read this, it says, and then the Spirit take, took him up into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. And uh, here to me is a little bit of a, of a, of a window on what happens after a great sense of, of uh, spiritual uh, victory, spiritual blessing, spiritual revelation. There is the principle that the evil one loves to come in and attack. Now, we know there's nothing in the Lord Jesus that could have even responded to the temptations that were brought to him on this planet. But the great lesson in this was to illustrate to us the tactic of the enemy. And he's there, and he knows it's our tendency, and he thought he could do the same to the Lord Jesus, and he thought wrong. The second beautiful principle in that is, is that Christ, as our new federal head, stands in for us and shows us that the only way we're going to stand against the attack of the enemy is, is that we are in him, and as we've been learning, that there is active participation within us as children walking by faith, present, active, indicative. So we see this principle, and we recognize it, and uh, we learn to take the encouragement of it. Next, the road to our greatest strength could also be the road to our greatest weakness. I know you've probably, uh, heard and thought and studied a little bit maybe recently. Uh, there's, uh, out our way we have an Omnimax theater, and once in a while they'll have something in that really captures my interest. And, and I think about two months ago they did a, they did a beautiful, uh, little excerpt on Lewis and Clark. I don't know what, maybe some of you were able to see that. Uh, very educational, very good, well done, tasteful. Uh, one of the few things I could publicly recommend without having to, to say, you know, and by the way, and this disclaimer and that disclaimer, and don't, you know, and cover and, you know, and do this, and well, maybe you shouldn't go. But anyway, any, this was a great, uh, work, and uh, the bottom line of it is, is that it went through and chronicled the great excitement that there was between Lewis and Clark and the adventures that they went through and some of the discoveries and some of the things that they learned and brought back. And I thought, uh, in this, uh, both of these points here, there's a lesson to be learned. Uh, Clark, after he got back, uh, for s- with, with, with, uh, a little period of rest and some, uh, other things he wanted to do, he, he was hired on by the US government to take everything that he learned and, uh, put it to use and chronicle all that he had, uh, uh, discovered out there in a, in a way that we could get a hold of it. Three months after Lewis came back, he committed suicide, ended his life. And I thought as I was looking at that, I said, boy, what, what an illustration. Even though probably these men didn't know the Lord, there was still a principle at work in Lewis's life, and the danger was there was a great opportunity for him to achieve, and then right after that achievement, he felt he could do no more and hit a low spot and felt he was worthless. And I thought, boy, you know, there's a lot of similarities there into the sense that sometimes what we look at, and and both of these points have an applicable, uh, little, uh, door to this, uh, truth, and that is simply this, we've got to be careful in the sense of being alert to those those downtimes after blessing, but also that in our strength also lies our greatest weakness. And you see that, don't you, in the life of Abraham. What is he known as? The father of faith. And I know of at least two occasions where he blew it so big when it came down to faith, you kind of wonder, well, you know, one time, all right, I can give you that one, but two times, and you're a spiritual leader? Bye-bye. And when you go back in scripture, you look at, uh, the most humblest man in the Old Testament, what comes to mind? Moses. What happened to Moses? He had quite a unhumble explosion, didn't he? There was a tremendous sense in which, uh, Moses' opportunity to go into the Promised Land at that particular point, uh, was ended. Um, you look at the life of David, tremendous heart for the things of the Lord, and yet a tremendous fall. You look at all these men in scripture that have great strengths, and and in a rounded out sort of way, if the strength is the thing in the human individual that's relied upon, then that then becomes the greatest opportunity for weakness in that person's life. We also understand that the road that has the shortest detours, if taken, can lead to the worst disasters for others. I think sometimes we're afraid to come to this area because we quite, we just have a hard time, uh, wanting to really realize that, you know, sometimes my actions have adverse effects on other people. Now, thank the Lord and be thankful that the preacher tonight is a mere man and that his observations are not always set in granite, but there are some several biblical things that we want to bear in mind here. God is so gracious with us, and uh, we don't have to worry about every time we uh, don't read our Bible that the Bible Chapel's gonna close, okay? Or every time we don't dot every uh, I or cross every T that uh, somebody's gonna fall into calamitous disaster. But there is, conversely, a very important principle that sometimes I think as, as people of God, it's just healthy for us to be very much aware of that our spiritual vitality goes into the closet hole of the meeting. Very important. It doesn't mean we don't have downtimes. It doesn't mean we don't have struggles. It doesn't mean that there aren't areas in our lives that we're very, very distraught with as believers or very frustrated with from time to time. But it is those periods and those seasons in life when we set ourselves to do something that we know better in our spirits, and we try to act like we're doing it, uh, and uh, pushing on in the faith, and it doesn't really, uh, it's there's nothing really going on. And you see this in the life and the principle of Joshua and Achan. But I don't think there's really, for me, any better illustration of that than the life of Abram. And I just want you to follow with me a couple of things quickly. You'll notice that, uh, when Abram went down into Egypt, and you see this also again with Abimelech and his family, that, that Abram's disobedience was something that had effect, even though it was a quiet thing, and it didn't really have a lot of external press to it. It was something that really did affect other people. Uh, you, you, you'll see that, uh, as you look down in the, in the latter part of Genesis chapter twelve especially, that Pharaoh, uh, became very, very concerned when the knowledge came to him that, uh, uh, Sarah was really not, uh, uh, a sister, solely a sister to Abraham, but rather that, uh, Sarah was his wife. And, uh, you can read from about verse fifteen, then the princes of Pharaoh saw her and commanded her to Pharaoh, and the woman was taken to Pharaoh's house, and he treated Abraham well for her sake. He had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male and female servants, donkeys and camels. But the Lord plagued Pharaoh's house with great plagues because of Sarai. Now we, again, I don't want to be, uh, over, uh, balanced in this, and this is not the point, but the point here that we want to take as, as people of God in this is, is that oftentimes when we take a spiritual detour and we take a spiritual shortcut that we know really is not proper, whether it's a moral issue or a practice issue or some, something that we know really isn't right, and we pers- persist in it. We really, um, we have to be careful. And again, I know this is speaking about those that are in leadership and in positions of responsibility, and Abraham was certainly in that capacity. But we look at the lives, uh, as we go through scripture. You look at Achan, he was just another fellow in the camp, and he affected the whole of, of that camp, as if to remind all of us that our spiritual well-being and our walk with the Lord is a good thing. Now, this isn't license for us to say, I'm not doing well spiritually, so I guess I shouldn't come. That's wrong. We know that. But there's just a real, uh, in this, I just want to say we have a stewardship of responsibility. I think as a child of God, one of the things that sometimes I, I want to be very careful with as a child of God is, is that I am not a vehicle by which there would come unnecessary judgment upon my brothers and sisters. I don't, don't worry, don't lay at night waking, uh, worrying about it. I don't think that's the, that's the point. But when we are in persistent disobedience or we've done something we know we shouldn't do, there is a reminder to us that it doesn't just affect us. There's ramifications for other people, and you see that. You see Pharaoh's house is made sick. You have to wonder in, in your heart of hearts what it was that, that, uh, Sarah went through, Sarai. Uh, you have to wonder at what happened to Lot, uh, and you see that situation unfolding in the next chapter. Really, uh, because of the whole thing, uh, Pharaoh loaded up, uh, Abram with all kinds of livestock, and when they got back into the land, their livestock was so plenteous and so full, there wasn't enough land for them to live close together in, and there was a tremendous conflict that came as a result of it. And you'll also find, and I believe, um, look down in verse nine of chapter thirteen of Genesis, you'll find, is not the whole land before you? Please separate from me. If you take the left, then I will go to the right, or if you go to the right, then I will go to the left. And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw the plain of Jordan, all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as you go towards Zoar. And there were certain things there that, uh, in Lot's mind and in his heart had been planted in there, and some of it was reinforced, not all of it, but some of it was reinforced in their journey going into Egypt. One of the other things that I think is kind of interesting, and we talked about this last night, you know where Hagar was picked up. If you read Genesis chapter sixteen and verse one, Hagar was picked up when they were in Egypt during this journey. So, uh, when you read about these things and you think about them and you look at the reality of, of our, our lives having a trem- tremendous, uh, avenue of blessing and opportunity, doesn't mean we need to all go around, I am super Christian. Okay? It's just that simple, quiet, humble dependence upon the Lord that the Lord's looking for, and that we would be careful to not respond like Abraham did, and that is choose a shortcut that would circumvent the beauty of God getting all the glory. See, Abraham was trying to meet a need in the way of his human wisdom, and in the process, even though no mortal man can take any essential glory away from God, but the glory that should have been out of Abram's life that could have been given to the Lord, Abram had robbed God of that aspect of glory out of his own life. Very serious. And it's the mercy of God, really, in all this that teaches Abram to repent of this sin and turn back to the Lord, and I think that's the, the great joy in this lesson, uh, as we see it finishing up here, and that is simply this: the road forward is backward. And the way that, uh, God calls his people is to go back, go back, go back. And this is exactly what Abram did. He went back to that altar. You don't have any mention of it.