— Brother Phil Enlow: I’ll tell you, we’re gonna have to be a people who are willing, and looking, and expecting that we’re going to be put in all kinds of situations, where we’re gonna need the Lord. We’re gonna need to have a willing heart that never just sits back and says, I can’t!
I mean, sometimes it’s an emotional issue, sometimes it’s a physical issue, it’s fear. We’re so much a product of what we’ve been through in our lives. You grew up and there was a bully and you were always the one that was being beat on, and you were the one made feel worthless. And somehow it helps to form your vision of yourself. And you just want to sit there and get through life.
I’ll tell you, the way the world is going, there are people right here, God’s gonna call you, and He’s gonna put His Spirit upon you, in some fashion for something. And your initial reaction is going to be, who me? I can’t do that.
But I’ll tell you, if God has called you…God could take somebody here…I don’t know that this is going to happen. God could take somebody here and put you on a world stage with a word of authority and it won’t be because of who you are and what you are. It’ll be because it’s the purpose and the heart of God.
I’ll tell you…Christ’s church in this hour, we’re going to be called upon to be something we have never imagined in situations. We have mentioned this so many times, we have brothers and sisters, and this was mentioned this morning, that have had to serve God in situations they would never had asked for. They live in prison, they suffer, they suffer the deprivations that Paul talked about.
You know, when Paul talked about this particular issue, you know, whether I have a lot or whether I don’t have a lot, that’s the smallest of issues. When the Lord called him, and when He talked to, was it Ananias? I can’t even remember now, my old brain here isn’t working. But the guy that went and talked to him and baptized him, the Lord revealed to him, that this guy is my chosen vessel and I’m gonna show him how many things he’s gonna suffer for my name’s sake.
How’s that for an introduction to the Christian life? That’s how it was for Paul. So, when Paul talked about, I can do all things through Him who strengthens me, he had some real experience of things that you and I have never experienced…stoned, left for dead, in danger, in prison, beaten.
We sang about it this morning. Had to go against feelings, had to say, Lord, You have called me to this and if You have put me in a situation, number one, You’re the author, You’re the one who’s with me in it. But, it’s not my strength that is going to carry me through, it is Your strength!
There is a long list of things, if we were to sit down and just consider what we might have to face in the future, I’ll guarantee you, we could list a lot of things and say, I’m not ready for that, I couldn’t do that.
And if it came to ministry, if God put a burden that’s genuinely from Him upon somebody’s heart, to reach out to somebody in this hour, I don’t know what He has. I appreciate the burden that the Lord gave Kaitlyn. I believe others. God wants us to respond and to do it prayerfully and not pridefully seeking a place. But to say, Lord, I’m a servant, make me a servant.
We sang that this morning. Lord, make me a servant, I just want to do Your will. I don’t care about the adulation of the crowd. I don’t care about making a name for myself. Lord, You put me here to serve You. And if You’ve called me to do something, it will be done with Your ability, not with anything that’s in me. You don’t call me because I’m qualified, You qualify the called.
( congregational amens ).
Praise God! So, God brought Peter down to that place, and said what He did, and Peter became a mighty apostle, not because he had the strength and the zeal. He put all that aside and said, oh God, it’s in You. God made him a mighty servant.
God can do that with every…I don’t care what your place is. You may be somebody that nobody ever hears about. But God’s gonna put you in a place, where if you thought about it right now, you’d say, I can never do that. No way could I ever do that. But when the time comes, you will.
And of course, so many examples out there, but the one that we’ve used so many times, is relatively modern, and that’s Corrie ten Boom. I mean, those of you who know her story…a middle-aged lady, she was 50 something I think, who was just living a quiet life, as a watchmaker in her father’s watch shop.
And she did have a little ministry to some people on the side…and she didn’t even have a real strong faith. Her sister was the one who was the mature person. She was full of questions…and all kinds of objections, and fussing and fighting and struggling with her circumstances.
But all of a sudden, the Nazis began to come in. And you remember the story, of how they began to round up the Jews, and God put it on her heart and the hearts of some others to form an underground, to do something about it. And they took their lives in their hands to hide Jews and to protect them and to do all those things that she was enabled to do.
And somehow, if you had told her, even that much, before any of this happened, what do you think her reaction would have been? No way. I’m just a watchmaker, Lord. Who am I? I’m nobody.
And then…finally they caught her, and was arrested. And she’s thrown in a dark prison cell by herself. I don’t remember the time frame, seems like it was weeks, certainly, if not months. Just living on next to nothing, struggling, lonely, pain, rats for company. I don’t remember all the details, but it wasn’t pleasant. Having to live with uncertainty, cruelty. Every sort of discouragement was brought her way. In the process, she and her sister survived that, but her dad did not. So now he’s gone, he’s dead.
And they’re rounded up and they’re taking them off to a horrible place. And you remember some of the miracles the Lord did…actually make her sick at one point and used that to help her get a Bible smuggled in there. I mean, God can do all kinds of amazing things if we’ll just pay attention and say, Lord, I’m yours, just do whatever You’re gonna do, and do it Your way. And I am trusting You in this circumstance to give me the strength, because I don’t have it. It’s not in me.
And this lady, in writing about it was honest about her own feelings, and the things she struggled against, the anger at the people that were doing these terrible things. Then, she winds up in a place she describes, all her life, as ‘hell.’ I mean, it was a women’s prison. They were forced into hard labor. People who were older, had no strength, they mistreated them horribly.
And she’s in a bunk house, and the bunk house is full of fleas! And her sister says, you know the Lord said we’re supposed to thank Him in all things. Let’s thank God for the fleas. And she says, you’ve got to be kidding me! Well, that would have been every one of our reactions. We’re not the spiritual one, like her sister. Every one of us would have said, wait a minute. What’s going on here? Is God really in charge? We’re in way over our heads here!
Until later on, they discover that, because of the fleas, the Germans wouldn’t come in there! So, they had perfect freedom inside that barracks to hold meetings and prayer meetings and to reach people, to minister Christ to people that never would have heard under any other circumstances!
I mean, isn’t that what we’re seeing unfold in our world? We’re gonna see it unfold more. God’s got a people He is still going to reach in the midst of this. Yes, the world is headed for catastrophe, but God has a people and He has a kingdom He’s building, too!
And His Kingdom will not fail. I just want to be a part of that. I don’t want to sit there and say, I can’t, just leave me alone, Lord, I want to be comfortable. God is gonna call people to a life that is beyond all of that. As I say, look at people around the world and what they’re going through.
But anyway, time goes on, she’s struggling, and she watches her sister get sick and die! Now she’s alone! And her sister had actually had a vision of what was going to happen after the war. She saw a place, a home, and she said, we’re both gonna be free before Christmas, or something, something around Christmas, anyway.
Well, her sister that had that vision, died, so she was free. And then through a clerical error, Corrie ten Boom is released! I tell you, we’ve got a God who can do all kinds of stuff. Do you think the devil would have liked to have kept her? But the Lord just sort of mixed up their paperwork. All of a sudden, she’s out, doesn’t hardly know how to behave herself, it’s been such a horrific experience.
And God brings her through it and in all these things she begins to learn about God in ways that you don’t learn just sitting in a pew in church. Her message…she began to minister to people and her message was, there is no pit so deep, that God is not deeper still.
And this powerful message of God’s faithfulness, but the fact that He gave her the ability to put up with that and to deal with it and to come through that and to trust Him, even when at times she was fussing about it. She didn’t like it! She was complaining, like Jeremiah. But God’s mercy continued to reach out to her. He knew that underneath all that there was a heart that said, yes, Lord, I want You. Aren’t you glad God is patient and merciful with His children?
( congregational amens ).
Every one of us here has had those kinds of complaints. Just be honest, I certainly have. But we’ve got a God who is so merciful to His children! Don’t you love Him this morning? Praise God!
But how many times have we mentioned this one other incident? Here she is, experiencing the triumph of God bringing her through something that was unthinkable. If you had told her ahead of time what she was going through, she would have thrown up her hands.
In fact, how many of you remember the other incident that we talked about, that we mentioned in the past, where before all this really got that bad, and it was evident things were gonna get tough, she was talking to her father, Lord, I’m not ready, I can’t do that. I don’t have what it takes to live under those conditions and to be able to experience persecution.
And her father reminded her of something they did from time to time. They didn’t have the internet where they could synchronize watches and do all the kind of stuff you can do today. So, in order to synchronize all of the clocks and to correct them in the shop, periodically they would ride to wherever the national standard clock was. They would take a train trip, and absolutely synchronize their watches with that, and then take that back, and that was the reason for the trip.
But the point her father made was, when do I give you the ticket? This was when she was young. I think this happened…yeah, when she was young. When do I give you the ticket for that? She said, well, when we’re about to get on the train. He said, that’s how it is with the Lord.
We don’t have to sit here this morning and just feel like, I can do anything. Bring it on Lord, prison, torture, you name it. I can speak like a prophet. I can do whatever. No, you can’t. Neither can I. But if the Lord brings the train and we’re supposed to be on it, He has the ticket. We get it when we need it. He is faithful who promised. And I’ll tell you, God is gonna bring us through.
But the other thing that I’ve mentioned so many times before, brings up another issue, and that’s trauma and feelings and those kinds of things where we just can’t because of that. She was having this glorious ministry of going around, telling people what God had done for them in that prison house! And oh, don’t be afraid of anything! God will be with you! He is in the deepest pit! His love is deeper still. Wonderful ministry!
And then she comes to the end of a meeting, and a man walks up. And she recognizes the man as one of the cruelest guards that had been in that prison, had beaten her sister, just had a merciless spirit toward those women, treated them like garbage, had no conscience, abuse them, kill them, whatever.
And he’s walking up, and he says, God’s touched my heart, He’s changed my life. And I know the terrible things that I did, but I want you to forgive me. Of all of the things that she had been able to do, and now she’s standing there saying, oh God, I can’t! I can’t!
Ever been in that situation? It’s not a matter of, I can’t be a prophet or I can’t do this, or I can’t…you know. Or I can’t put up with this kind of situation. But now we’ve got something that is a trauma from the past and, I just can’t forgive him!
Well…the reality is, you probably couldn’t! Every one of us has circumstances like that, where our emotions run so deep, that that’s the bondage that holds us captive and we just can’t break it.
But you remember what she did. Somehow the Lord dropped a simple thought in her mind about what she could do just as a simple act of faith. Well, I can reach out my hand. She’s not saying, I can forgive him. She’s saying, I can reach out my hand, and as she did, God’s love flowed into her heart, and there was a complete reconciliation.
That’s the kind of a God that we serve, folks. I’ll come back to what the Lord told Jeremiah. Basically, like we’ve said before, you ain’t seen nothing yet. But God wants every one of us to face what we have right now, to face the future, not with fear, but with an expectation that God has a reason, He has a purpose why you and I are here.
( congregational amens ).
It may be some great thing in the eyes of the world. It may be just to be a quiet voice. You might be in a prison cell with somebody someday, and instead of laying there feeling sorry for yourself, and angry at God, and angry at the people who did this to you, God can give you the grace to say, Lord, you have put me in this place and I’m gonna praise You. That’s what Paul did, Paul and Silas. We sing about it. But how many of us would so readily do that? We need the Lord, don’t we?
( congregational amens ).
But one reason for talking about this, on an occasion like this, is God wants to get us ready. And a lot of that readiness is mental. If we suddenly get thrown into the deep end of the pool and we’re totally unprepared for it, that’s a challenge.
But God is so faithful to talk to us, and to say, I have not put you in a world that loves you. You’re gonna be hated by everybody before it’s over. A lot of people hate you right now. There are people trying to totally upend our society and take it over, and they hate you, and they hate me. They hate everything we stand for.
We’re gonna have choices ahead of us. We’re gonna need the Lord! But what God is looking for us to do right now, is to say, God, prepare us, help us to have a relationship with You, and help us to make up our mind now that when the time comes, we’re gonna lift up our hearts and look to You and believe that You’re gonna give us the strength to do whatever You call us to do!
( congregational amens ).
Whether it’s a ministry, whether it is just enduring to the end. He said those who endure to the end will be saved. God’s strength is what makes that possible. Do we really believe that in all things, not only does He work for the good of those who love Him, but in all things that His strength will carry us through?
Well, God is putting you and me through things right now, that are beginning to teach us that principle, because we rely on our own strength a lot more than we believe, than we think. We believe more in our limitations than we would like to admit. Aren’t you glad that God sees past all of that and He knows everything about us and loves us anyway?
( congregational amens ).
And He’s so patient and so kind and so merciful! But He knows how to bring us through, how to nurture us and how to teach us His ways. I just…I pray for the next generation. I pray for this generation. I pray for whatever God may call us to endure, however He would call us to stand for Him in a dark hour, that He will impart to us the same faith we read about in the scriptures.
These passages that we read, these accounts of lives, we’re gonna be living many of them before it’s over. But the same God that brought them through will bring us through.
( congregational amens ).
And we will stand together with Him one day and cast our crowns at the feet of the only one who’s worthy, whose name is Jesus!
( congregational amens ).
To Him be glory and praise!
( congregational praise ).
I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. God wants to make that truth real in our lives and He will! I just want to be one that listens and cooperates with Him! Praise God!
