TV Transcripts

Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 1493 — taken from Closed Captioning Text

— Brother Phil Enlow: Well, good morning! I must confess this is one morning when I would be very happy if we had recorded the men’s meeting and simply played it back. The Lord blessed and an awful lot of what’s been on my heart was expressed there.

And I believe it’s from the burden of the Lord’s heart. He wants us to know something more of the reality of what He’s given to us, rather than us living on theology and theory, to the degree that we may. But I believe with all my heart, the Lord is coming forth in a way to stir up a hunger in His people.

You know, I had that burden Wednesday night that we needed Him and His presence, that it’s not enough to come and go through the form of what we do. And that’s all right, singing and worshipping and reading our Bibles and all that stuff is wonderful, but if the Lord’s not in the middle of it, it’s just a form. And we need Him.

( congregational amens ).

And I feel—I keenly feel my need this morning. And all I’m gonna do is just say, Lord, You’re gonna have to help me, You’re gonna have to help the people. That’s what this is for. If the Lord’s laid anything on my heart, it’s not for me, it’s for you, and it’s for everyone that may hear it.

But anyway, I’m gonna turn to a familiar scripture, as a jumping off point, in one of my favorite books, Colossians. Colossians was written by Paul the Apostle at a point in his life when he was in prison. He had suffered for the Lord. He had paid a high price to do what he did. And…but there he was.

He had heard about this church. It’s the one he’d never been to. It was founded by somebody who was in his circle of acquaintance in the ministry. But, anyway, he had heard of their faith and there just came into his heart a real burden to share the essence of what it meant to serve the Lord and encourage them, to instruct them.

But there’s one expression, toward the end of chapter 1 that just seems to come back to my mind, repeatedly. And, it’s found in…well, let’s see. Praise God! I’ll back up to verse 25. “I have become its servant…” the church, he’s talking about, “…by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness…” (NIV).

Then he refers to that as, “…the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” That’s the essence of what it means to be a part of God’s Kingdom, to be a part of His Church.

You know, the world is full of stuff…of organizations called churches. But I believe with all my heart, God has a Church. I’m not trying to say, we’re ‘it.’ I’m just trying to say, God has a people in the earth. And what distinguishes His work from everything else is this simple fact. It’s not Christ out there. It’s not the Christ of history, not the Christ who will come. It’s not the Christ of a book, although He is all of those things. It’s a Christ that literally comes into the heart of an individual.

Without that, that’s…that will be the dividing line of history. When everyone stands before the judgment seat of Christ, everyone will be divided by this issue. Everyone that Christ has literally come into their life, to take up residence, not just in the mind, but in the heart, to come in as Savior but also as Lord, as all that He is, everyone who has been begotten, literally, born by God’s Spirit, they will be standing on one side and they will be standing there in glory! There will be a brightness. There will be a purity that not one of us could ever think about deserving or achieving.

But everyone else, and it’s going to include a lot of religious people, will be standing there and some of them will be saying, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?” (KJV). We’ve preached! Think about…think about what He’s saying there. There are preachers, who’ve given their lives to talking about Jesus, who will stand there and say, Lord, didn’t we preach in Your name? Haven’t we done many wonderful works in Your name? Haven’t we done all this stuff? We’ve performed miracles! Lord, what’s the deal here?

And He said, “…depart from me, ye that work iniquity….” The original word is lawlessness. There’s a spirit of self that’s on the throne. This is not somebody who’s surrendered the heart to the lordship of Jesus Christ. This is somebody who has embraced religion, but they’ve never had Jesus Christ come in and possess their hearts. And he said, “…depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” “I never knew you.”

Boy, this is the essence of being the Church. And I believe with all my heart, God wants to bring us to a fresh reality of this.

( congregational response ).

The Kingdom of God is a supernatural thing! And that’s what He means it to be. I mean, you go back to the beginning. All that Adam and Eve received from God, in the beginning, was created life. It had no power in and of itself to endure. And they had a choice before them, didn’t they? Am I going to go my own rebellious way and seek my own godhood, take charge of this life that I have been given and use it for my benefit and for my, whatever? Am I gonna be in charge, or am I gonna surrender my life to Him?

And they made the choice that they made and this world has been plunged into darkness ever since. And the reality is, the life that became so corrupted by sin can never be changed! That’s what’s amazing! There is only one solution to this life and that’s to die!

That’s what’s wrong. There’s…I mean, you can’t come, for example, you can’t come to this church, or any church for that matter, and simply…come to church, talk about Jesus, sing about Jesus, and live a good life and expect to be received on that day. It’s not about that.

( congregational amens ).

Every one of us has been reduced to exactly the same level and the same level of need. I don’t care whether you came out of a gutter of sin. There will be people who will hear this, at some point, who are in prison for murder, and other terrible crimes. You are no worse…you have no greater need than I do! I was born into a world of sinners. I have a nature that I don’t care what I do, it will absolutely resist God. It will fight to the last breath for its own will and its own way.

I’ll tell you what, this is the issue that absolutely divides humankind. Jesus had some pretty pointed things to say about that, didn’t He? He said, he that loves his life, or he that will preserve his life, what’s the end result of that?

( congregational response ).

He’s gonna lose it! I mean, this world is full of people who value this life above everything and what they think they can get out of it, fulfilling their desires, pursuing their dreams—earthly dreams, and when they come to the end, what will they have? Jesus said, “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

I mean, suppose you could suddenly become the king of the world, in some fashion. You own every diamond, you own every piece of gold, you own every bit of wealth there is, any pleasure that comes into your heart and your mind, you have instant access to it, you can do whatever you want to gratify whatever desire arises.

In the first place, you’re gonna be chock-full of empty! Look at the people that this week have committed suicide, and they’re talking about suicide being an epidemic. What’s the problem? People are trying so hard to get what they think they want out of this life, gratifying its desires, and they’re winding up feeling the emptiness to the point where they say there’s no use going on, the best choice that I can make is to end my life.

And some of them are wealthy people who had seemed to have it all. And people would look up to them and say, oh, if I could only be like them. And yet, there they are, demonstrating the emptiness of this life.

But suppose you could come to the end of your life, and have it all and not even feel that. Somehow, you’re so immune to reality that you think you’ve got it all. Your life is gonna end!

God had a reason, when He created this world. You know, it’s something we’ve said so many times lately, and the Lord must want to emphasize it, God had a purpose in eternity to build a family, but it’s not gonna be a family peopled by folks who are possessed of human nature as we know it. These are gonna be people who are absolutely changed, born, literally living by His life! That’s what’s really at…that’s the issue with the Kingdom of God!

It’s interesting that Paul, earlier in this very passage, he describes a lot of the background that leads into that summary statement of, “…Christ in you, the hope of glory.” And he talks about how we have been delivered “…from the power of darkness.”

This world doesn’t know, for the most part, what in the world is going on or why things are the way they are. There is a kingdom ruled over by God’s enemy, the Devil. It’s real. His emissaries, demons, are real. We are seeing the effects in our society of the loosing of Satan—the last loosing before the end of all things. And we are…I’ll tell you, it takes divine power to deliver people. But there is power in Him!

( congregational amens ).

He has already won the victory at the cross. Thank God! But it’s a real war. It’s a real battle. Boy, there’s a lot of stuff…like I say, I could’ve just played this from the men’s meeting this morning. But Praise God! That was an encouragement. The Lord’s trying to remind me that…trying to encourage me because I’m…I’ll tell you, the Devil has battled this.

I’m in this battle with you. If you’re fighting battles in your mind and your heart right today, yeah, so am I. But the Lord is putting us through battles for a reason. He wants us to know that the enemy is real. He wants us to know that the issues are real. He wants us to know that we need Him. We need deliverance from what we are naturally. But He also wants to drive us to call upon Him and to open our hearts to the reality of who He is. He reigns!

( congregational response ).

He lives! He reigns! How little do we enter into that! What a low level of life that we accept as normal and natural and we’re just doing fine. Oh, God! It’s like I’ve said several times lately, the greatest danger I see and I can imagine if Brother Thomas were here he’d be saying a lot of the same things—the greatest danger is that we will simply take our history and the truths that the Lord has made real to us, and that they will simply become doctrine. They will simply become tradition. We will seek to indoctrinate the next generation in all of these wonderful things that we have learned, and imagine that they’re just gonna embrace them with their minds and go on and carry on and do ‘church’ just like we have taught them to do. My God, we need Christ!

( congregational amens ).

We need His living presence! It’s not Christ out there. It’s not Christ of history, like I’ve said, or Christ of doctrine. It’s a Christ in us! He literally lives in a people! Praise God! You know, in the Old Testament, God was doing a work of preparation, wasn’t He? He never meant for that to be the end game.

He gave them laws to follow, but He gave them laws knowing full well that they could not possible live up to them. But along with those laws, He gave them sacrifices. And so, when they failed and when they sinned they had a way to go to God and it was a sacrifice that involved death.

Oh, do you see the lessons that He was teaching in that? How sin…the consequence of sin is death! That’s the only answer. When something becomes truly infected with this disease called sin, there’s only one cure, and that’s death! But oh, there came One into the world—there came One, the very Son of God.

And again, you look back in this passage and you see who this was. Look at 15: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (NIV).

I mean, it goes on and on with who this is. This is amazing. This is the One who absolutely spoke the stars into existence. And here we were, worthy only to die and be destroyed, and just a blot on the universe. And yet, He came.

And He didn’t come as some grand monarch. He came as a little baby, born of human flesh, and He experienced everything that you and I experience. But by the grace of God, He never gave in to the principle of sin.

And so that time came when He, the Lamb of God, assumed the guilt for every sin, every lie you’ve ever told! Every evil thought, every evil word, every evil motive, every evil deed that’s ever proceeded from your life and your being, every one that’s ever happened in the world, He took it upon Himself, as though, I accept the guilt. I’m guilty, I plead guilty of all of it.

This is Somebody pretty amazing! And yet, He took it upon Himself. And they killed Him in the most painful, humiliating way possible. And they put Him in a grave and the demons danced. And three days later they shrieked as they realized what had happened, that God had turned what looked like absolute defeat into complete victory.

And it was through that that you and I have hope today. We don’t have hope because we’re anything. We’re nothing! I don’t care who you are today. We have the same need before God but we have the same Savior.

( congregational amens ).

You know, one thing kept coming back to my mind as I was thinking about when Jesus was talking to Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a man who was schooled in the Jews’ religion. They had taken the laws that God had given them and turned them into a man-made religion of self-righteousness. They imagined that if they did things the way they had learned to do them and followed their traditions that God would think highly of them and accept them.

And Jesus made the point very clear, you have to be born again. I don’t care what you do. I don’t care what religion you practice. I don’t care how you live your life, in one sense. I mean, obviously, we care, but you understand what I’m saying. It’s not a matter of how you live your life, it’s a matter of what kind of life you have. You have to be born again!

You can take flesh, somebody that’s simply born into Adam’s family and you can make him as religious as you want to! All you’ve got is a religious sinner, who’s gonna die in the end.

Oh, Nicodemus couldn’t understand that. You’ve got to be born again. You’ve got to have a literal birth, a miracle of God, because God’s new covenant is not about laws and do’s and don’ts and religious practices and all of that. It’s about a new heart and a new spirit that only God can put in us.

Do you know what the price of that is? See, Jesus doesn’t come in to enhance your earthly life. He doesn’t come in to fulfill your dream—your earthly dreams. He comes in as a replacement. You know the entry ‘rite,’ if you want to call it that, but the outward expression of somebody coming to Christ? You look in the New Testament. What was it? When somebody came to Christ, what did they do?

( congregational response ).

They were baptized! They didn’t have altars. They were baptized. What did that mean? What does baptism mean?

( congregational response ).

Yeah, it’s death, isn’t it? When I go into the water, I am literally laying down my life. I am giving it up. I’m saying, Lord, I embrace what Jesus did in my place on that cross. I deserve to die. I deserve what He got. And I am willingly laying down my life, but I’m doing so based upon your promise, the hope of His promise…what we were just singing about. The hope of His promise, that if I lay down my life and call upon the name of the Lord, that You will come and give me the life that came forth out of that tomb.

That’s been Your dream. That’s been Your plan from the beginning is to share Yourself with me! All that You are, the joy, the power, the freedom, all of that to come in and to literally live in me! That’s what it means to be His child! That’s what it means to be the Church of Jesus Christ.

Oh, the greatest danger for younger generations is to grow up and learn the truths, learn the doctrines, learn how to sing, but all you’ve got is up here. And you never come to the point where you realize what it means!

There’s one thing that really jumped out at me, among others, but one particular thing that jumps out at me right now is that Paul calls this a mystery. The NLT uses the word ‘secret.’ This is the kind of knowledge of what he’s talking about. You cannot posses this knowledge by…I don’t care who you are, how smart you are, how diligent you are to search out truth. If you’re simply going and looking for it with natural intelligence, you will never, ever discover this.

( congregational amens ).

It is so contrary to human nature to think that I live because I die, that I am…in myself I am a worthless sinner deserving death. But in Christ, I am loved as His child because I have received His life in my place…in its place.

I’ll tell you, it’s like I said recently, the Devil had no clue what was going on, what he’d got himself into when he crucified the Lord. He thought he was winning. But I’ll tell you, what does the scripture say? That, if they had known, if they’d understood these things, “…they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” (NIV). You see why it was kept a mystery? This is truth that can only be revealed by God’s Spirit.

And one thing that is interesting to me in Paul’s words of exhortation to these people. Look…go back and…let’s see, back in verse 9, there’s a thought here that needs to be expressed. Paul says…he’s writing to believers here, by the way. “For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.”

Now this is Christians he’s talking about. And basically, Paul is saying, I know you don’t really understand what you need to understand. You don’t fully appreciate what God has given you when He gave you His Son. And so, my prayer for you is, God, open your understanding.

Well, my God, if that’s true of Christians, how much more true is it of people that have never come to this! You can’t explain people into this. We need…my God, we need to pray that God will bring every person for whom this is not true, Christ is not your life…that God will bring you to such a point of conviction where you will know what you are! You will know who He is! You will know what’s needed and you’ll be moved by the grace of God to lay down your life and embrace His!

There’s got to be that point in time, whether it’s dramatic or quiet, there’s got to be a point of real divine revelation that goes to the heart! You think about Paul as the poster child of this. This was a guy who was so given to his religion that he used that as a pretext to go out and persecute Christians! That’s how blind he was! That’s how much of a mystery what he later came to understand was to Paul. Paul had no clue what was going on and what he was really doing until he met Jesus, rather dramatically, in his case.

But how does he describe that? He describes that as the revelation of the mystery, “…of the knowledge of…God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (KJV). And where did it come to? Was it just his mind? Did somebody sit him down and say, let me explain this doctrine to you? No! This was something that God used to penetrate his heart!

Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 1486 — taken from Closed Captioning Text

— Brother Phil Enlow: I just have this sense in my heart. I haven’t even got this organized. It seems like the Lord, so many times, He won’t let me organize it, and that’s all right. But we need to have a heart that says, God, there ain’t no ‘quit.’ There’s no going back. I’m going on. There are songs about some of that, about that theme. There’s no going back. Folks, if you’ve got something less than that, you don’t have what you need.

( congregational amens ).

I just pray that God will help every one of His children to wake up and realize what we need.

You know, one of the things that I thought about was…of course, coming up to Hebrews 12, we said that the faith chapter leads into that, but there’s something that leads into that. The whole book was written to a group of Jews, who had heard of Christ and perhaps, in varying degrees, had embraced the Gospel and the hope of the Gospel, but yet, the writer was concerned. He saw in them too much of a tendency not to let go of the past and their traditions, because after all, God spoke to Moses. We can’t just leave that alone. We’re just adding Jesus to that.

And over and over again, he goes through in tremendous detail showing how God did something back then. It was temporary. Now, we have what is permanent. We leave that behind. It’s Jesus and Him alone! That’s our hope. All that the Old Testament Law pictured was fulfilled in Christ! There’s no more sacrifice, but One, and that’s for all time. And so, we leave that behind, and we lay hold of the hope of the Gospel, 100 percent, and trust in Him to be able to bring us all the way through. Okay?

So, on the heels of that, in chapter 10, what is the conclusion of that? Verse 23, “Let us hold unswervingly…” (NIV). That sounds like what we’ve been talking about, doesn’t it? “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess….” It’s something that we don’t possess at the moment, but it’s there. It’s before us. We have enough of a conviction to give our lives to that hope, for that to become more real than this world in which we live. That’s what the Gospel is about. It has to be that real.

“…Unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he…” Why? “…For he who promised is faithful.” Over and over again, you have this sense of a God who cannot lie, who has promised. He has had a purpose from all eternity. You read that in chapter 6, and that’s the reason we’re here this morning, because there is a God who has made you and me and…and me, all of us. He’s made us a promise of something that we can participate in. He’s called us to it. Praise God! Do we want to take that lightly, or just try to mix it in with our life and our will? No, you don’t.

You know, I’ll just interject this. Back in Romans, Paul talks about…unlocking the Gospel, trying to lay it all it all out. And early on, he deals with why the world is in the condition it’s in, and it’s because people have known truth but rejected it. Okay?

But then, he comes, in chapter 2, he talks about two classes of people. One of them seeks for glory and honor and immortality, and they do it with a persevering spirit. They go against the grain. They go against the flow. But, their whole life is defined by that quest. And everybody else goes on in sin and self-will, married to their lusts, their earthly desires, and they reject that.

Boy, do you think that’s a diametrically opposed destiny involved there? But it’s interesting that he actually uses the word ‘perseverance’ in that passage. That’s how we pursue life and immortality. Is that something that we can achieve? Through Christ, we can, certainly not any other way. So anyway, we’re told to hold unswervingly to this hope.

“And let us consider….” Now, here’s another dimension that we need to recognize, and that’s that we’re not alone on this journey. Yes, we may have an individual journey, but God has woven our journeys together, so that you and I, we will, every one, come to places where we are discouraged, we are struggling. We have battles that we need to fight, but thank God we’re not alone.

Yes, we always have Him, but I’ll tell you, we have one another, and that’s what God wants to bring to pass, to make a functional thing. I’ll tell you, the church of Jesus Christ is not just a bunch of people who come together, have a religious service and go on with their lives. It’s a family, that loves one another, that watches out for one another.

“Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.” Let’s encourage each other. That’s what it says in the next one. “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

Does anybody here see the day approaching? Do you see the trend? I don’t know the dates. I’m not gonna worry about that. That’s in God’s hands, but I know where this world is going. And so, here is the Word of God to us today. We need to be in a place to encourage each other.

The Devil is gonna do everything in his power to divide, to give us a self-righteous, critical spirit, if we trend that way, to make us super sensitive to one another. There are a thousand and one ways that self-will and our old nature rises up to divide us. We need to recognize it! We need to say, go back to hell where you came from, Satan.

God wants us to rise up and say, we are one in Him. We will walk of the unity that He gave His life for to provide. And when we see a brother and a sister struggling, we’ll pray, we’ll stand with them, we’ll encourage them, because that’s part of the battle that we fight. That’s part of winning the battle.

“Let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Boy, here’s something that…I’m gonna throw this in, because this needs to go out. We don’t need to have this mealy-mouthed Gospel that just kind of embraces everybody with this this happy, happy, lovey-dovey thing, that doesn’t really confront the problem.

“If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left.” Now, I will not…don’t ask me about people, specifically people, or specific people. God knows. I pray that God will be merciful to every one that might come to your mind when I read something like that.

I don’t know when someone has reached that point, but this is something to think about. Man, you don’t mess with this. Your eternity hangs on what you do with Jesus. What’s left? “…No sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.” Man, that’s the world in which we live, and the world that opposes us and hates us, that’s the destiny they are choosing.

If you and I serve God, we’re gonna have to go against that. We’re gonna have to swim against the tide, and be willing to do it and not give up, and not hold back, because there’s a God who’s gonna take us through. But man, it’s that serious.

And he goes down and he encourages his people. He’s saying, look, when you came to the Lord, look at all you went through. You were persecuted. You suffered things that we haven’t ever even suffered here. These people had already stood up under that for a time.

Verse 35: “So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere….” Ah, there’s that word again. “…You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.”

That is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s not just, believe in Jesus and go to heaven. This is, put your faith in Jesus Christ, turn your life around into His care and for His purposes, and you’re gonna serve God until you die, until this life is over. Your life becomes defined by the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His claim upon your soul.

I’ll tell you, if you don’t have that, if you don’t have the reality, cry out to God until it’s real, until He reveals Himself to you! This is…I mean, do you see how serious this is? I don’t know why I’m emphasizing this, but there’s got to be a reason. People need to know that this is serious.

But I’ll tell you, there’s a call of God to every child of God to face the facts that we’re gonna have to fight, and we’re gonna have to walk together, and lay hold of what He has given to us.

“For in just a very little while…” he goes on, “…He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him.” See, that was the issue here. It was people who were coming up to it. They learned about the Gospel, and then, they kind of drew back and went back to their old ways.

Man, we’re gonna have to press in. We’re gonna have to be among those who have turned our back, burned our bridges, and said, I am His, come hell or high water. If they line me up and shoot me, I’m still His. There’s nothing in this world worth clinging to when He offers me that.

You know, like Jim Elliot the missionary said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” But that conviction can only be planted in the heart by the Word of God, that we open our hearts to and say, yes, Lord. I humble, I yield my life, I yield my everything to You.

But oh, I’m thankful that the writer has more confidence in the people to whom he’s writing. He feels the need to say these things to show them how serious it is. But he says, “But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.” And then, he launches into chapter 11. Praise God!

We have every reason in the world, looking back at these examples, to know that there is a faithful God. We might find ourselves this year in the same place that David did when he said, “How long, O Lord?”

How many of you have ever been in that place? It’s not only that what I’m facing is difficult, it just doesn’t stop! It goes on and on and on, and I’m crying, and You’re not answering me…it doesn’t feel like You’re answering me. Oh God, what’s going on? How long, oh Lord, am I gonna have to put up with this, and on and on?

I’m so glad that we can find a perfect balance between being reverent and respectful of God, and at the same time, having a hope and a confidence that we can come to Him with an honest heart. I don’t believe that when David said how long, oh Lord, he was being irreverent, but he sure was telling how he felt.

You know, you’re gonna feel that way sometimes. Don’t be dismayed by that. Don’t say, something’s wrong! Look at Brother so-and-so or Sister so-and-so, and they’re just happy, happy. They might have a pasted smile and going through something worse than you are, for all you know. Oh, I’ll tell you, God wants to bring us to a place where we’re willing to fight, and we’re willing to stand up.

So, of course, when you start talking like this, the question naturally arises, okay, I’ve got to find that somewhere. I’ve got to dig down deep and find this ability somehow to persevere. How’s that gonna happen? I’m just a weakling. I’ve failed so many times before. How in the world is this gonna happen? Well, I guess we probably better look at some scripture, hadn’t we?

How about Romans 15? Romans 15. Let’s see. Well, I’ll begin with the first verse, “We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.” That’s a pretty good exhortation, isn’t it? You don’t come to a place where you say, well, man, I’m handling it, What’s the matter with you? We need to help one another along.

If you’re one that the Lord has taught, and you’re experiencing some victory, then you just humbly say, thank You, Lord, and you help and encourage somebody else. God didn’t do that just for you. How many times did Paul say that the things that He has done in me and allowed me to go through where I was in over my head, and all I could do was cry out to God, God did that so I could help you! Everything God does is not just for you, it’s for the entirety of the Body of Christ and His Kingdom. All right?

“Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.” Now, he goes back to the scriptures, because this is one of those things. We’re gonna have to go back to the Word of God. It’s not just for correct theology, it’s for God…it’s a vehicle for God to speak to us according to a present need. That’s what I need.

( congregational amens ).

It’s great to be…and to learn about it and to get it in my head and know what’s true and all of that, but oh, there are times that I have a deep need. Anybody else here?

And, I need to be able to go, and I’ll find something, and it’s like God shines a light on that scripture, and suddenly, it jumps off the page, and it feeds me, and it helps me, or it’s an example of somebody who went through something, and God brought them through, and I can learn from that and be encouraged.

So, Paul says, “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us…” Okay, why? What’s that going to accomplish? “So that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” See the place of the Word of God in this thing? The Devil is gonna fill your mind and mine with every lie that we will accept…and God help us to learn how to identify those things, and not just say…but it’s true!

We need to look at what God says, and not live by feelings, not live by past experiences. We talked, Wednesday night, about how we leave things behind. We forget things that are behind, we reach forth for what’s before. It’s a good time to do that, isn’t it? We’re reminded it’s a brand-new year.

You don’t have to carry all those past failures. We need to learn from them. But we need to come to God and say, God, let this be the year when I grow, when this issue…I gain ground and I learn from You. But help me to devour Your Word and lean upon it and learn that this is how You speak to me, oh God.

They’re, “…written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” Now, that word endurance, by the way, I believe, is that same word that we’ve been talking about. Okay? But there’s a sense where you’re gonna have to push through, not give up. All right, so, “…encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

All right, here I am again! Lord, I’ve got to have courage, I’ve got to do all this stuff. How do I do that? “May the God who gives endurance….” Ah, now, that puts a different light on it, doesn’t it? He’s not just dumping all this stuff on me and saying, come on, dufus, be strong. What’s the matter with you, you weakling? I’ve called you to fight. Get up off your duff, and fight.

Wait a minute…He’s not calling us to dig deep and find this in the inside. This is a word that is meant to encourage the weakest of the weak, who have put their trust in Christ. My hope does not lie in one single thing that I can find in here. Every time I’ve tried to lean on this and figure I’ve got it handled, I fall like Peter did. It doesn’t work. Of course, even when I do that, the Lord helps me to learn from it.

But listen to these words. “May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity…” So, it pulls it all together, doesn’t it? “…Among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” That’s where it comes from. Every bit of the ability to do everything we’ve been talking about this morning has got to come from Him. That’s why he says, looking to Jesus.

Now, if you’re like me, when I run into a wall, whether it’s an experience, whether it’s something on the inside or it’s something on the outside, whatever it is, and I run into a spiritual wall, or I’m just worn out, and don’t feel like fighting anymore, where am I looking, typically? Inside.

You see what the Lord wants us to learn to do? Every time we hit the wall…Lord, You’ve allowed me to hit this wall so that I can look up. You have everything that I need. It’s those who wait or those who hope in the Lord who do what? Renew their strength, because we all get weary.

The question is not that we come to a place where we don’t ever get tired, don’t ever get weary, never tempted to feel that way. You will. We all do. The question is, do we give into that and say, well, that’s just the way it is. I’m just a weakling. Poor me.

God, help us to learn to lift up our eyes and to know that there is a God who has more than you can ask or imagine. He longs to show up and lift you up and bring you through something you could never possibly handle in any other way. You don’t have the wisdom. You do not have it in you to love somebody that just really rubs you the wrong way, pushes your buttons, a situation…a thousand and one things that constantly will pull on your old nature and cause you to try to move in that.

God will give us, if we will open our hearts and believe His promise, God will give us what we need to put one foot in front of another and say, God, I’m Yours. I’m going forward. I will not be beat down or defeated by this thing. I don’t know, this has been kind of scattered this morning, but I just feel like this is the Lord’s Word to me. Is it to you?

( congregational amens ).

We are facing another year. We will face many things. Don’t you go into this world or into this year and just say, oh man, this is gonna be a year of great victory and feelings and wonderful…you go to a lot of places, that’s what they’ll tell you.

You’re gonna have a lot of battles. But every battle that God send your way, He has designed so you can experience a victory that you would never experience any other way, and what He wants is to come to the end of the year and be stronger, have a deeper hope, a deeper, more experienced faith than we have right now, looking forward into this year.

God wants us to be able to look back and say, look what He’s done. Thank God! Yeah, there are still battles, there are still battles to fight as long as we’re here, but God has brought me down the road, because when I face those things, I didn’t just look inside. I just didn’t boo-hoo and feel sorry for myself. I looked up, and Jesus gave me His strength, not just His example, but His life and His strength, the only way I could handle it. Anybody here need any of this?

( congregational response ).

Yeah. See, there’s nothing new here this morning, but this is a Word that we need. The world we live in, we need to take an honest look at what the Christian life involves. It is a battle. Some of you may lay down your life, literally for Jesus. Is that worth it? Is there anything here that’s worth rejecting Him so that you can have this? A lot of people think there is.

But I’ll tell you, it’s worth everything to serve Him. There’s no place to grow weary and give up. I mean, we get weary, but there’s no place to give up because of it. There’s always that call from heaven to lay aside the things that we need to lay aside, as God puts His hand upon them, and say, Lord, give me the strength today.

I don’t have to think about next month and all those kinds of things. I can just think of today. Lord, help me today just to put one foot in front of another, and trust You for the strength to be able to do it, and to know that You are faithful. That’s the reason.

That’s what I stand upon. I don’t stand upon my ability to be faithful. Good luck. You don’t have what it takes, and I don’t either. We are in a battle that is way over our heads, but it’s not over His. And He has promised to finish what He has started.

So, let’s go forward into this year with a realistic look at what we face but with a realistic look at the resource that we have to draw upon and where it’s taking us. It’s taking every single one that has put their trust in Him to a better place, and we will look back and have reason to give Him the praise and the glory.

We won’t be able the look in the mirror and say, look what you did. We’ll say, God, in spite of what I am, look at what You did. Praise Your Name! To God be the glory. Praise God!

Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 1483 — taken from Closed Captioning Text

— Brother Phil Enlow: I have had one thought come to me a number of times…oh, over the past weeks, I guess. And then, Brother Ben actually referred to it specifically Wednesday night, and so, I’m gonna kind of pick up on some of the things he talked about.

And he mentioned the fact that right before Jesus went to the cross, if my memory serves correctly…can you imagine this…that Jesus made this statement about the Devil: He said, “…the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on Me.” (NIV).

And there’s a powerful truth locked up in that, that I believe every one of us here needs in one form or another, because the Devil, obviously has a tremendous stronghold on the world and he has a lot of influence, certainly on everyone that doesn’t know the Lord, but I mean, on every one of us, there are holds that he has.

And there’s a reason for that. And I think one thing we need to understand is that the holds that Satan has, don’t just come out of the ether waves. It’s not like he has unbridled power to just take over anybody he wants to. Rather, he takes advantage of things that are in us. And if those things were not there, then he would have…it would be like Jesus. He would have no hold, nothing he could take a hold of. If Satan does not have something in our nature that he can appeal to, that we tend to run to, then he is in a world of hurt.

And, I know we’ve used this subject before, but I feel like…I just pray the Lord will make it fresh and apply it to where we’re at right now in our journey. That’s what we need. We just don’t need a doctrinal lecture, we need something that’s gonna help us.

And, you know, many of you will remember the illustration that comes from some part of the world…I don’t know all the details, but you’ve heard about how monkeys are caught in some places. And the trick is to hollow…take a hollow gourd, drill a hole that’s just big enough for the monkey’s hand to get through, his paw to get through, and then put something in there that rattles around. And…but what you do, you chain the gourd to a tree, or to something.

And so, the monkey, his nature is to be relentlessly curious, to the point where he won’t let go. And so, he comes along and wonders what that is, and he picks it up and rattles it, and there’s something inside. And he wonders what that is, and he sticks his paw in there and he grabs it. But the hole is just such that he can’t get his hand back out. And so, the monkey is trapped, not by something that clutches his hand and puts him…he’s not in a cage, he’s not any of the ways that we normally think of trapping animals. He traps himself, by simply following his nature.

And that is the truth with every single one of us. And we have, again, the perfect example is our Lord and Savior. And of course, we’ve talked many times about how, when it came time for His ministry, what was the first step? He went into the Devil…into the Devil…into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil…spent 40 days, was in a place of great weakness and great need. He didn’t eat for 40 days. And so, He came to the end and, of course, His body began to react to that, and He began to be hungry.

And so, the Devil came and tempted Him in three particular areas that we’re told. Now I’m certain that that was not the whole of the temptation while He was out there. But basically, it was a temptation between following human nature, the desires that we are born into this world with, or following God’s will.

And so, He was tempted to satisfy His hunger. Well, He was out there in the will of God, and putting His own hunger and His own personal, physical needs ahead of God’s will was not right, and so He said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (KJV). There was a humbling of Himself in a time of real need, when His nature cried out to do one thing, yet He chose the will of God.

Was not that the pattern of His life? And is that not the pattern that He sets for us to live in this world. And so, then he appealed to His…okay, You want to do God’s will, let’s…why don’t you go prove to everybody…you say You’re the Son of God, go prove it. Let’s take You up on the pinnacle of the Temple and throw Yourself down. After all, doesn’t the Word say that if You cast Yourself down, if You fall down, His angels will catch You, and then everybody will know who You are, and it’ll be wonderful.

Well, that wasn’t God’s plan. And what’s behind that is kind of…what he was appealing to was human pride, that wants to do what we think is God’s will, our way. Now nobody here has ever done that…I get that. But if you ever run into anybody that has that problem, you’ll know what to tell them, right? We would never get in God’s way, we would never try to do a good thing a bad way, or in a self-willed way. But see that was what Jesus was being appealed to on the basis…that was the basis of the appeal.

But there was another thing that had to do with human pride, as well. And that was…You worship me. I’ve got control over the world, right? This is my world. You’re invading my world. But I have the power to give You authority over everything. But the condition is, You have to bow down and worship me. And so, obviously that’s not God’s plan, that’s not God’s heart or will.

But there is a heart of trust that God desires to bring us to, where we are able and willing to let go of everything that flows out of human nature, that attaches us to this world, because to the extent that we hold on to anything, it holds on to us. We are the prisoner. We’re not holding anything. And if you think you are, you just wait until the days comes when you’re in Dan’s position…and there ain’t no holding on. And we come to a point where we have to let go of everything that has to do with this world.

Well, thank God, this is not all there is! Now, the way human nature reacts, we would think that this is all there is. But…we know intellectually that it isn’t, but emotionally we have a problem with that. And so, as God deals with us in our lives, virtually every situation that we run into that gives us any trouble at all, where the Devil has any influence over us, the root cause of it, is that we are attached to something, that is of this world, in a way that is contrary to what God’s plan and God’s heart is, and God wants to cut us free from that.

But that involves, not some magic miracle, that involves us letting go of something to which we are attached. Now, you think about what it says that we’ve read many times in Philippians chapter 2, the perfect example that we have in our Savior. And this is what Paul is appealing to, wanting the disciples to be like him, and having the same love, and not just living for self, because human nature, as we’ve said many times, is all about self. It’s what pleases me, what makes me happy, what makes me secure, what…you know, whatever it is, there’s something that we get so attached to that we can’t let go.

I mean, you think about a little child. You know, we have ways to sort of disguise it, but a little child…you give them something that they feel very attached to, don’t you dare try to take it! That’s mine! We have this sense of, that’s mine, this possessiveness. And boy, I’ll tell you, you get a doll or something that a child has a hold of, that could be a stronghold in their minds and their hearts. Their emotional welfare is wrapped up in a piece of material.

But are we any different? We just have ways to make it more sophisticated, more grownup, but it all comes from the same thing.

So, here’s Jesus, and remember that He was with the Father before the world was, something we’ve pointed out many times. This is the One who spoke the worlds into existence. This was the One who was a glorious being before everything happened, was privy to God’s plans, knew from the start what was gonna happen, what was gonna be involved for Him.

And think about human nature versus the nature that was displayed in Him. He took all that glory and laid it aside and said, I am going to become a single cell in a human being’s womb, a human mother. At one point in my existence, I am going to be reduced to a single cell in a woman and then grow into a fetus, grow into a baby and be born and live in a broken world.

But I’m not gonna live like everybody else. I’m gonna show them what God is like, because I’m gonna let Him live in Me and I am not gonna live the way people do. And I am gonna do it so that I can set people free. I’m gonna show them the way out. I’m gonna provide the way out.

It’s not a matter of me educating them and saying, if you do it this way, then you’ll be okay. It’s…I’ve got to go to a cross. There are sins that separate human beings from a holy God, and the only way I can deal with that, the only solution to that, I’m gonna have to come down and be their sin-bearer. I’m gonna have to step in the gap for every human being that will put their trust in Me, because their sins stand in the way. But for someone to be willing to do that, how utterly contrary, different from human nature is that? Praise God!

Oh, how self-centered we are! Oh, how our happiness is invested in so many things that mean nothing. When we come to the end, we look back and we say, my God, that was so important to me! I just couldn’t let it go! My whole happiness was bound up in some stupid thing that I’ve got to totally let go of now. What does it mean, in the grand scheme of things? About nothing.

And so, here He was, “…made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant…” in Philippians 2, “…being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (NIV).

Boy, the idea of being obedient to death, it kind of runs counter to human nature, doesn’t it? There’s nothing we fear more than letting go and dying. And here’s Jesus, “…he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!”

But thank God, the message of the Gospel is to remind us that’s not the end! That is a pathway to the beginning! How many times have we said, we’ve inherited a life we can’t keep? And God has a life you can’t lose! And Jesus is the One who went to that cross to open that gateway so that we would have a way to live with Him forever free from all of this! He became sin for us, that we might, “…become the righteousness of God,” in him.” What a trade! Praise God!

But how do you become the righteousness of God without laying hold of the reality of what we are, and coming and just laying ourselves at His feet, and saying, oh God, I let go. I have no hope in myself. Lord, I’m nothing but a sinner. I have the guilt of my sins and the power that they hold over me! Lord, You are the only one that has the power to set me free! But it means I’ve got to let go.

There are so many things that hold men captive! You know, it could be simply the material things of this world. We have, certainly, many examples of that. The rich young ruler is the obvious one. There was only one thing that stood between him and this Kingdom that we’re talking about! Only one thing! What do you think he thinks about all this now?

I mean, you stand back and look at anything from a standpoint of eternity. What does anything that pertains to this world…what’s it worth? Absolutely nothing, but that’s not how we feel about it when we’re in the middle of it.

And you take a rich man, who is really used to his place of privilege. There’s pride, there’s a sense of possession…that’s mine. I can do as I please. I’m not like those poor beggars out there! And Jesus said, you only lack one thing. “Sell everything you have and give it to the poor…then come, follow Me.” Well, that was a bridge too far for that fellow.

But do you see what the barrier was? Was God keeping him out? Did the Devil have…did the Devil just absolutely prevent him…he had no possibility of getting in because the Devil had such a hold? No. He made a choice. There was something here in this world that was more important to him than the Kingdom of God.

I wouldn’t want to be that guy on the Day of Judgment, who was so close to the Kingdom of God. And Jesus wasn’t mad at him. It says, Jesus loved him in one of the accounts of that story.

I’ll tell you what, it’s…this is the price of admission. And it’s…and we think about it in terms of getting into the kingdom, and getting born again, and even getting our foot in the door…and that’s a critical thing. It was obvious it was a critical issue for him.

But our problem is, once we get in there are still areas…with every single one of us, of things that we’re not able to let go. I mean, it gets right down to stupid stuff. There are a whole lot of people who just get all bent out of shape if the toothpaste is rolled instead of squeezed. I mean, their welfare depends on how you handle the toothpaste! And it’s a silly example, but it’s a real one.

Our emotions get so invested in the smallest, most inconsequential things of life! Oh, how we long for…just happiness, whatever that is. Happiness is related to the word ‘happening.’ It’s trying to find pleasure in circumstances. Good luck…in this world!

If you and I suddenly acquired divine power to do whatever we wanted to do to please ourselves, how do you think that would actually work? We would be miserable in short order! There is nothing to be gained from investing our affections in this world. Those that are Christ’s have crucified the world, with the affections and the lusts thereof. God wants to set us free. He gives us, He blesses us in so many ways in this world!

But I’ll tell you, it’s like Jesus said. I mean, look at Matthew chapter 6, familiar scripture. The more I started to think about this, the more scriptures I thought of, and I said, whoa, there’s a lot to get through here. But I’m not gonna worry about any of that. I’m not gonna get emotionally invested in that. I mean, I’m serious! This is a real issue with all of us. The silliest little thing. I wrestle with stuff getting up here that the Lord wants me to let go! Anybody else have that issue in your life?

Yeah, because Jesus was talking about the reality, in chapter 6, of how we don’t store up treasures on earth, because everything spoils here. What sense does it make to invest all of your life’s energy into something that you will walk away from? You will die. It will go bad. Something will happen. There is absolutely no way to hang onto it. And yet, the world is invested in such things that cannot last, have no power to last!

My God, do we need, as Christians, to not put our hope in the ‘stuff’ that God blesses us with? We’ve got brothers and sisters in this world who have nothing. And yet, we are so full of pride in the car we drive, the house we live in, the job we’ve got, the career, the thousand and one things…the size of our TV. Every little thing has got to be just so to please ourselves and feel comfortable and like everything’s okay. God’s blessing me!

Sometimes it’s just self wanting to have its way, wanting to please itself. And then something comes along and messes with a little of that and our whole life…oh God…like that’s our…that’s where our security, our happiness comes from. God wants to set His people free.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

And I’ll tell you what, am I the only one that gets to issues in my life and suddenly I realize my heart’s a little too invested in this thing or that thing? It isn’t just things, either, but issues. All the kinds of things that are so important to us that we just cannot let go!

And we’re just being a monkey, when it comes right down to it, because Satan is on the other end of that chain, and here we’re trying to be free, but we won’t let go of this in order to be free.

Satan has no power over us that we don’t give him. Christ has set His people free! We need to walk in that freedom and find grace to do so.

“The eye….” What we look at, I mean, in the sense of…beyond just the physical eyes, but I mean the eyes of the heart He’s talking about here. “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”

See, that’s just one issue. But I’ll tell you what, if there is a person here or listens to this anywhere, if there is something in your life that is so important that you cannot let it go, that’s in this realm, I pray to God that He will do whatever it takes. If He has to destroy your wealth, your earthly wealth, to give you eternal life, you will look back and fall down and praise Him! Oh, praise God!

Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 1481 — taken from Closed Captioning Text

— Brother Phil Enlow: I’ll tell you, by nature, we’re nothing like Jesus. But he came down to show us what Kingdom nature is like. He walked among us, not through any strength of His own, but through the power of His Father that lived and expressed His life through Him. May God give us the grace to let that happen in our midst.

How many people are in places of spiritual bondage, and it has to do with our relationships one with another? Because we’re just not like Him. We expect Him to forgive us, we expect people to be tolerant of us…after all, we’re not perfect. But let somebody else do something, say something, look at us cross-eyed…and it just, there’s something that rises up in us, that reacts to that in a way that is very much like the world—it is the world. It’s human nature.

And God is looking for a people who are able to see beyond what’s wrong. My God, we’re all sinners! My God, the best of us come short! We don’t need condemnation, we don’t so many things that are dished out, that we dish out to one another, in one way or another. We don’t need all these things. We need the heart of the Father toward us, who reaches out so willingly to show us mercy.

What is mercy? Is mercy some sort of favor that we earn? No, it’s entirely underserved! It’s a favor that is completely undeserved! And here’s a Father who just longs to reach down and say, I know where you’re at. Come to me as you are. There’s a foundation for mercy, because Jesus died in your place. There’s a place where you can come and find peace.

But what did Jesus say on more than one occasion? I think it’s mentioned in the Sermon on the Mount, but other occasions too, about somebody who won’t forgive. You know, Steve referred to this the other night, about the man who owed a huge debt to this guy he worked for, and was about to be thrown into prison for it. And he got down on his knees and he begged, ‘oh forgive me,’ and the man forgave him.

And so, he went to a fellow servant who owed him lunch money, basically. And the guy couldn’t pay and he threw him in prison…had him thrown in prison…that was part of their culture, I guess, in that day. And what did Jesus say here? It’s so plain. If you won’t forgive….

There’s a load of debt…of guilt that people carry that they don’t have to carry. And a lot of times it’s because you haven’t forgiven somebody. Somebody did something, maybe it was years ago, maybe you’re carrying something buried in your system, and you’ve never let it go. And the Lord is longing to fill your heart with His peace, and there you are struggling, trying to feel forgiven, but you won’t forgive somebody who basically owes you lunch money, compared to what you owe Him.

These are pretty central principles of the Kingdom, aren’t they? These are things that affect every one of us, because we just default to human nature and human reactions so much of the time. And the Lord wants us to see that’s not how His Kingdom works.

I’ll tell you, we need more of God’s presence. I thank God for the degree that He comes in our midst, but there’s so much more that He longs to flow, but the flow is all blocked up, because we’re not walking in some of these simple things. I’ll tell you, if somebody has done something, and somebody may have genuinely done something, but if your reaction is one of anger, bitterness, the unforgiveness, you’re the sinner! You’re the one that God needs to deal with about that!

Don’t you go looking at them and say, well if they’ll get straight I will, then I’ll be good. What did Jesus say when they crucified Him? What did He pray on the cross? Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing. Now who was the one who was free? Did that free Him, you think?

Oh, how many of us so easily just lay hold of something and say, they deserve it, it’s only right that I feel this way, and I’m justified because of what they did. But you’re the one in bondage! And Satan has wrapped chains around your heart, and you won’t be merciful to somebody else, but you expect God to be merciful to you.

Do you see why this is not something you’re gonna get out of your human nature? Human nature is the problem, not the solution. I need Jesus! I need Kingdom nature! I need to first of all have it, but I need to walk in it! I need to say, oh God, fill me with You right now, in this. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.

You see, there are so many things that have been related to what we’re talking about today. What we’re talking about today, in Kingdom nature, is totally impossible for human nature! It takes a miracle! It takes God birthing a brand-new life, but now we need to learn to walk in that and live in that. And as we do, we’re gonna experience the same thing that Jesus did, the peace that He had, the rest, the certainty.

God wants to bring us into a larger place. Are you willing? Are we willing to search our hearts and say, God, help me? But don’t let the Devil take any of this and turn it into condemnation, turn it into ‘oh poor me, I can just never measure up.’

Well, that’s the point. But if you can come to a place where you feel your need and you want Him to change you, this Kingdom is for you. It’s not for the other kind of people. It’s for you, this morning, right now. There is a Lord who wants to come in and fill you with His peace and His rest. Do you want it? It’s there! Is there anything He hasn’t provided? Everything has been provided.

You know, I think about Peter. I can’t remember if I mentioned this specifically, but, when Peter asked the Lord how many times should I forgive my brother when he comes and repents…up to seven times? And, of course, the Lord said, up to seventy times seven.

( laughter ).

What did he say? What was Peter’s response to that? Lord, increase our faith.

( laughter ).

Isn’t that revealing, about how we look at things? Peter was looking at this from a human point of view, okay I know I’m supposed to forgive but I’m getting tired of this.

Do we want the Lord to get tired of forgiving us? Do you see His heart revealed in all of this? He wants to reproduce that heart in every one of us. Oh, there’s a rest that comes with all of that. This is not about exhilaration and all the things that religion tries to generate. This is a place of…this is a walk with the Lord, where we can have His rest and His peace on the inside. We can be free from the things that human nature drives us to crave, and fight for, and all that stuff. That’s what we need to be delivered from and He’s able to do it! And willing to do it, if we’re willing.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” (NIV). Obviously, he’s not talking about seeing an image. God is not some old man sitting in a chair somewhere. He’s a Spirit that fills eternity. He’s called the Invisible God. There’s no way you’ll ever see Him.

But what do we see? We see His image. Jesus Christ is the image of the Invisible God, He is the perfect representation of what this immense, unfathomable God is. You want to see what He’s like, you look at Jesus. That’s the expression.

But isn’t that the life that He longs to express in us? But now we’re talking about living in a world in which bad stuff happens. And many times, we’re called to experience things that we don’t get, we don’t understand. Why is this way, why isn’t it that way, what’s wrong?

And, how many times when we say that, or feel that, are we looking from a human point of view? If God really loved me, everything would be wonderful. I would have plenty of money in the bank! I’d have perfect health…you know, a thousand and one natural considerations.

And many times, it needs to be just the opposite, because God is setting us free from the craving for those very things! God knows what He is doing! God may allow one person to accumulate a lot of money and use it for His glory, somebody else may be poor. People have all kinds of circumstances, but the ability to see God in that, is a supernatural thing.

And it’s a supernatural thing for those who are willing say, oh God, my life is not mine to direct. It’s not be lived for selfish considerations. My life here is Yours to direct as You will, to lead me down the path of Your choosing, whether it follows earthly values or not. I want my life to follow heavenly values and You’re the only one that can make that possible. But You’re the only one that can give me the ability to see that You really are in charge, and You really still love me even when bad stuff happens.

How did Moses, for example, endure all that he went through? We’re told specifically in Hebrews 11…how did he put up with all that…all the stuff, the rejection…getting kicked out of Egypt, chased away for his life, living the way he did? “He endured, as seeing him who is invisible.” (KJV).

Isn’t that an interesting way to put that? Seeing Him who is invisible. That doesn’t sound right, does it? But there is a seeing, with the heart, that says, God, I know You love me. I know You’re in charge. I know that no matter what the pathway may lead through, I know that in the end, I know how this comes out, because You’re in charge. And I’m gonna find my rest in that.

Oh, I’ll tell you, we have so much unrest because, again, the fleshly nature strives for something that is earthly based. We want our security. We want our pleasure. We want what we want here!

And how many people try to use God to get that? Instead of saying, God, my life is…You’ve called me into a kingdom that is not of this world. It’s not based upon its values, it’s gonna live when this world is done away with. This is a kingdom that’s eternal. But it is powered by Your life. You didn’t call me because I was somebody special, from an earthly standpoint. You called me because of my need, because You love me, because it’s Your nature to love.

But oh, I’ll tell you, are you in a place right now where you resent your situation? You’re mad about it…a thousand and one human reactions to things instead of saying, God, I rest my case in Your hands. I’m gonna see past all my circumstances and I’m gonna see You, loving me and supporting me, and walking with me through whatever You choose. You are God and I am not, and You love me. I’ll tell you, that’s what real faith does. This is real faith.

“Blessed are the peacemakers…” (NIV). Now you’re coming down to human relations again, aren’t you? Oh, how easy it is for us to add fuel to the fire of problems that separate people. It’s been real quiet this morning. Is this stuff true?

( congregational response ).

Does it affect us?

( congregational inaudible ).

Yeah. But where we value self in trying to exert self and trying to protect self and advance self, Jesus and His Father value peace, and harmony between people and promoting that…and being an instrument where, instead of trying to create strife and advance it, we try to bring people together, we’re trying to solve and resolve. God, give us that kind of a heart.

Gossip comes into this, doesn’t it? There are so many things that the enemy provokes human nature to do, that run exactly counter to what Jesus said. And yet, here’s a blessing. Oh, this is a blessed thing to be a peacemaker—someone whose heart is always wanting to bring together, to remove barriers, to bring about unity. Doesn’t God prize unity? Isn’t that where He commands the blessing?

( congregational inaudible ).

Yeah. Do you see where some of these things come into play right here? God longs for His Spirit to flow in a greater way in our midst. The problem is not with Him. The issues are with us. May God give us the hunger to live by Kingdom nature. It’s freely available to everyone who will humble themselves and say, yes, I’m a candidate. I want to be part of Your Kingdom. I want to be like You, Lord. We sing about it. Do we mean it? Do we understand what that means? Jesus is kind of just giving you a birds-eye view of some of these issues.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.” Does that matter? Does that matter to you? Do these blessings that He pronounces matter to you? And of course, He goes on…you could go on and on in this. That’s the main thing. But I’ll tell you, it comes down to our relationship to the world and there are two main things that He talks about here that are very relevant to us.

This one not so much yet, but it will be, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

We haven’t gotten quite to this point yet, but it’s coming. May God give us a heart, instead of one that’s out there fighting. There’s so much anger, there’s so much fighting in our society. God, give us a heart that sees past that.

Yes, the Devil is doing everything he can to destroy everything…every value that America has ever held, particularly when it comes to God! That’s the spirit that is doing everything it can to take over. This world, human nature, hates God. And if we are His children and we’re living by Him…I mean, we could be the most wonderful, peaceable people in the world, and they will hate you! And they will persecute you! And God says, you’re blessed!

And I’ll drop this thing in, where Peter warns, he talks about…persecution and things happening. He says, but when you’re persecuted let it not be because you, you know, you did bad stuff basically, you’re a murderer or you’re something. If you do something wrong and somebody says something against you or the law comes down on you, you don’t say, I’m being persecuted for Jesus. That’s not what he’s talking about.

But this is somebody whose heart is driven by the Spirit…by Kingdom nature, by the Spirit of God. And because of that, the Devil makes you his target, that’s where the blessing comes. Those are the ones who are blessed.

And I don’t want to spend a lot of time, but just to mention what he follows up with, because this…this is a critical part of Kingdom life in this world. How do we influence this world? What do they see when they see us? What do our young people see in the older ones? Do they see Kingdom life? Or do they just see a kind of ‘church-y religion’? What does the world see when they see us?

Do you see the issues that come to play here? How we can’t just be external practitioners of a religion, we need Jesus to live in us in a practical way, because He compares us to salt. He compares us to light. God wants to set His people in a place where they can be a light to this world. Does this world need some light?

( congregational inaudible ).

Yeah, it does. It’s not gonna just come out of the ether waves, it’s gonna come through His people. God’s gonna create situations where they see us and they see something in us that they don’t see in the world. And it won’t be us acting out the part that we’re supposed to play, it’ll be real life like it was in Jesus.

There were those who saw who He was, they recognized there was something in Him that they couldn’t get out of their religion. And I’ll tell you, when the Lord inhabited His church on the Day of Pentecost, and then the message began to go out and people began to come in…I’ll tell you, God…do you think the people saw something in those people that was not like the world? That’s what He’s looking for from you and from me.

And I don’t want to stop with, oh poor me, I’m not like that, or I just can’t be that way. Well, that’s the point. But God’s promise to people who will just come to Him as they are, and say, Lord, I do not have what it takes to participate in this Kingdom but You do and You’ve promised, and so, I open my heart and say, come, help me to be the kind of person You want me to be.

Help me in my relationships with others. Help me to let go of every bit of baggage that I have held onto that is weighing me down, and keeping me from being able to serve you with freedom. Lord, just come and dwell in me, and bring me to that place that Jesus promised, where I would learn from Him. His yoke is easy, His burden is light, and we will find, what? Rest for our souls. Anybody here a candidate for some rest in your soul?

( congregational inaudible ).

Yeah. It’s there! That’s His heart for you. He doesn’t look down and despise you because you’re needy. That’s why Jesus came. What He can’t put up with is human pride that says, I’m gonna fix it, I’ve got to be…and there are a thousand and one ways that we react with human pride. Let it go! Trust Him! Just let Him have your heart and lay your life.

Look at the positive promises that follow every one of these blessings! Blessed are they, for they ‘will be’…over and over again you have God’s heart revealed in this. We can be that people, if we want it, because His promise stands today. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” He is as real today as He has ever been. And He longs to change us into His image.

And I believe He’s doing it, don’t you? I want to be positive about it. I don’t want to just paint such a picture and say, oh my God, I could never be that. Well no, if you’re looking within, trying to find the resources, you never will. Neither will I. But He has everything that we need to be His people.

That’s the message of the Gospel. That’s the hope of the Gospel. It isn’t better rules to live by. It isn’t, you better do this, or I’ll get you or I’ll punish you. It’s, I love you with an everlasting love. And I have provided My Son to demonstrate that love. And all that you need, comes not from your resources but from the life that I want to give you, if you’d just open your heart and surrender. That’s the hope of the Gospel. To Him be the glory!

Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 1475 — taken from Closed Captioning Text

— Brother Phil Enlow: I know that there are people right here that struggle with fear in a special way. But I’ll tell you, God wants you to lift up your eyes, He did not give you that. He may allow it, but He wants you to rise up and recognize where it’s coming from! God did not send that to you because it represents His heart toward you!

How many times in the scriptures do we see somebody with some kind of a divine encounter, it’s an angel, or they see Jesus, or they see something, and all of a sudden you see heaven’s glory and you know, oh my God! This is real. This is supernatural. This is power beyond anything I’ve ever known. And what’s the natural human reaction? Fear, terror.

You know, somebody read recently, I think Steve read recently about how John saw Jesus in this vision. And his reaction was to fall over like a dead man. But do you notice, every time there’s some servant of the Lord who was literally overcome with fear because of the presence of a heavenly being…what is His reaction to that? Don’t be afraid!

God does not give us the spirit of fear. He gives us His spirit of power. Isn’t that what He says? Have courage! Be strong! Does that not mean I can go to God and based upon His heart and His provision and His promise, I can partake of strength that I don’t have? Strength is available!

Do I feel weak? Is that all I’m left with, my own resources? No. I have the right to go to God. I don’t have to earn His favor. He did all the earning that’s ever necessary! Jesus went to the cross in my place. He took my sins. He took me with Him into that grave, to set me free so that I could share with Him forever and ever.

Don’t be terrified, don’t be discouraged…dismayed is the word the King James uses. Discouraged…that’s when you look at the circumstance, and you start measuring what you’re up against, against your own capabilities, your own expectations, your own experience, your track record, whatever it is. And basically, your conclusion is, it’s hopeless!

Now I imagine, if somebody put one of us in a wrestling ring, with somebody who was 7’4” and 400 pounds and said, go for it, I think we would have reason to feel dismayed. But you know, the reality was, when Joshua was leading the people into the land, there’s a lot to look at! There was a lot to take in and to realize what they were up against.

They were up against bigger armies, walled cities, and among the people were some giants! They weren’t all giants but there were some. And they weren’t about to just walk away and give up their homes. They were gonna dig in and fight with everything they had! And so, if they had simply gone by what they could see, how do you think they would have felt about it?

( congregation inaudible ).

Yeah. They would have said, okay, I’m supposed to fight. How many of us fight spiritual battles that way? Well, I’m supposed to fight, but I ain’t expecting anything. Nothing’s gonna change. I’ve been down this road before, been up this mountain before. I know how this turns out. You know, where is our faith? What we having a faith in? We’re having more faith in the problem and the insurmountability of whatever it is we’re facing, than we are in the promise of God!

( congregational amens ).

And God’s saying, wake up! Look to me! Let’s not just sit here and sing about and rejoice and affirm in all that Christ has given us, I want you to experience more of Me in your everyday life. I want real life to be able to lay hold of some of those things and get out of our stuck position.

Am I the only one that’s feeling some of these things? Am I the only one where you get geared up and your mind is sort of engaged in some of these things and all of a sudden, the Devil knows exactly what button to push, and the next thing you know…

( blowing ).

( congregational response ).

Yeah. We need to learn to recognize how the Devil works, and where this opposition is coming from. And don’t ever take opposition as a sign that God is not with you and doesn’t want to give you everything that Jesus bought…paid for! It is simply how the Christian life works! Those who enter into the Kingdom of God will enter through much tribulation. There is going to be opposition.

But I’ll tell you, it’s worth everything to put our hope in the promise and simply learn to look past everything, including the stuff that’s in here. This is the greatest obstacle…it’s what’s in here. But God is gonna bring us to the place where the promise outweighs everything else.

And this is what they faced. And so, you know, we see kind of a mixed bag as they did go in. But every single time, every single time, when they looked to God, got their instructions from Him, and then did what He said, even when it didn’t make a lot of sense naturally…think of Jericho, God came on the scene!

And the reality is that the people of Jericho are the ones that had no chance, because they weren’t just up against a bunch of people. It didn’t matter what their resources were. I mean, you know, the stories we refer to over and over again…Gideon, and how God delivered the whole nation from a huge army with 300, using only 300 men. But 300 men plus God…they didn’t have a chance! They just didn’t know it…until the time came.

Folks, you know, this is one thing I sense. Why do you think when we begin to get geared up, sometimes it’s just emotional, but when we begin to get geared up and say, God, I know there’s more, God, I want to experience it, I want to lay hold of it, and the Devil begins to oppose that by every means possible, why do you think he’s doing that? He is scared to death!

( congregational response ).

He is scared to death that there will be a people who will actually believe what’s in this book! And not just relegate it to some other part of the world, some other time in history, some special person way back there. But will say, wait a minute, this is written to me—this is written to me. I have every right because I don’t come based upon my own righteousness. I come based upon His promise.

And that is the hope that…that’s the thing that levels the playing field. You can’t look at somebody and say, well, it’s just not for me, it’s for the special one over there. We are everyone on the same level. We have the same need. Yes, there are personal differences. But I’ll tell you, salvation isn’t based upon personal differences. It’s based upon what Jesus did, 100 percent!

And how many times, we’ve referred to the stories in the scriptures…David, obviously, the example. But think about what David had going for him…David, when he came to face Goliath. Now here’s the problem. All the people there of this army, were looking at this how? Were they looking at it spiritually or through the eyes of the promises of God, and who God was? All they could see was somebody that they had no chance to beat. This guy was a whole lot bigger than 7’ 4”. And there he was, mocking their God, and they weren’t ready.

Folks, I believe God wants to get us ready for earth’s darkest hour. I believe He is getting us ready! I believe He’s faithful! I believe He’s going to bring us through, one way or the other. But I believe He longs for a people who will, like a harvest, they will ripen in the midst of this darkness, that He will become real! Folks, it’s not about who we are, and what we are. It’s about Jesus!

( congregational amens ).

And the more Jesus has of us, the better things are gonna be! It’s not our movement, our church, our doctrines, our ways of doing stuff, it’s the presence of Jesus in His body.

( congregational amens ).

And how much of that is expressed, depends on how much of our lives He has. And so, here’s David…he comes on the scene and looks out there, and basically, what’s the problem? And everybody else is going crazy. But see, David had already cultivated a relationship with the Lord, hadn’t he? He knew something about his God. Isn’t that what the Lord is seeking to bring us to?

What about the scripture in Daniel! Those who, “…know their God…be strong and do exploits,” will be the ones that’re able…those people will be the ones who will be able to take action in the face of what the Devil is gonna throw at the Church. (KJV). And he’s gonna throw everything he can possibly throw at the Church.

Of course, the Lord said, I’ll be with you ‘til the end of the age. There’s no one that can pluck any one of His out of the Lord’s hand. Praise God! Whether we go by way of the bullet or the sword, or by whatever means, or by the upper-taker…under-taker or the upper taker. The end result is gonna be glory!

But you know, the Lord wants us to experience more of it here. You go on in Peter and you’ll see what Peter’s getting at, is I want you to be able to arrive on the other end…I want you to have an abundant entrance into the Kingdom. I don’t want you just to sort of sneak in…and say, well, I got here, I didn’t avail myself of very much that was provided but I got here.

Peter says, you lay hold, you take hold of the promises in every situation, you grow. When you struggle with brotherly love, you lay hold of my promise regarding that, and I will love through you. I will be your strength and your help! Grow in these things! I’ve provided for you! I want you to grow up, and when you get there, you’re gonna able to get there with abundance.

But here’s David, and there he is, and he recognized the nature of the battle. It’s not flesh and blood here we’re dealing with. It’s somebody who’s challenging the very promise of God. And the one who doesn’t have a prayer is that giant over there. He doesn’t know what’s going on. He doesn’t know what’s about to hit him! And so, in the strength of a simple faith in God’s power and God’s promise, David went out there and killed the giant.

I’ll tell you, there are giants in our pathway. Every single one of us has got a giant. It looks just as scary as old Goliath. What do you think the Lord desires out of all of this? Do you think He wants us just to experience the fear and to give up under it? Or do you think He longs to say, I’ve got the answer to this! I have allowed this so that you can grow. Look to Me! Believe My promises!

You think about Jehoshaphat, and certainly an obvious example that we use many times. They were minding their own business and all of sudden about a million-man army comes marching in to take, to lay waste to the land and take it over. What did they do? They did the right thing, didn’t they? They called together everybody to pray and seek the Lord, to fast, and to just call upon God.

But…read it sometime, about how they called upon God. They didn’t just say, pretty please God, we’re in trouble here, help us out. They went right to the covenant. He absolutely recited back to the Lord, God, this is what You said, this is what You promised, this is why we are looking to You. Do you think just maybe that God would be pleased if we would do that sometimes? All the time!

But when we’re facing an issue that we cannot defeat, which is kind of like all the time, that we learn to say, God, you said. And we spend time with the Lord and we look to Him and we ask Him for understanding, we ask Him to breathe life into the words. And we determine to take hold of them because they’re for us, they’re the only thing standing between us and defeat!

Do you not know that’s what the Christian life is about? It’s God putting us in places where there is nothing standing between us and defeat except what He promised, which is kind of like enough!

( congregational amens ).

That’s more than enough! When a God who doesn’t lie and can do everything, gives us His promise. This is the way by which we take hold of what we need in that hour of need. It’s to say, God, I’m praying back to you what You said. I’m coming to you, not on the basis of self-will, wanting things my way, I’m coming to You on the basis of Your promise to me in Your word and I’m gonna stand on that until You answer.

Sometimes it takes time. Daniel prayed for what, 21 days, that one particular time. And he just continually went to the Lord and said, Lord, you said…and the answer came exactly at the right time. Of course, the right time for us is, ‘now!’ But God knows exactly what He’s doing. Thank God! He knows exactly what He’s doing.

So, here’s Jehoshaphat just lifting his heart to the Lord and calling out to God, and God gave the answer, didn’t have to even lift a sword that particular day…send the choir out, we all know the story.

I’ll tell you, ‘that’ God is our God. That was a time when an actual people and a king, and a literal kingdom were facing an army they had no hope of defeating. Every single one of us is facing something in our pathway today, that we have no hope of defeating unless we get help from on High.

And God is looking for a people, not who are gonna try to get emotionally worked up, and do something in the strength of that, but who are going to come to Him and say, Lord…the future will take care of itself. Excuse me while I stutter a bit! The future will take care of itself. But right now, this is where I’m at, and I need help. And I need You to breathe life into Your promises. Lord, I need You to speak to me.

Do you believe we can wait on God and God can quicken something that is…do you know what quicken means? It means to breathe life into it. It means to bring the words off the page and speak them to our hearts. We have the right to this covenant! We never earned it but He earned it for us! But this is how we take hold of what He has given to us.

But I guess it comes back to what started me down this road, is that there are times in our lives when we get geared up. Do we know what I’m talking about? You get geared up, ok, I’m gonna do it this time! And then, all of a sudden, before you know it, you’re right back where you started, and nothing has changed.

And God wants to get us off of dead center, and show us that there is a road that we can walk. Stop looking for the feeling. Stop looking for the experience. Stop looking for anything except the raw promise of God. Isn’t that all Abraham had to go on? He’s the very example, the Father of Faith, the example of how God deals with humanity. It’s on the basis of believing Him, that He takes care of everything else.

And so here we are, living in the time that we live in, and the Devil is loose as he has never been before. And we’re gonna see that power increase. God wants to build a people that He can express Himself through. It will happen as we believe His Word and it’s gonna be a day-by-day-by-day-by-day thing.

And a lot of times, there ain’t gonna be no feelings. It’s not even gonna make sense. But God wants people who will take hold of His word, not just get geared up and say, I’m gonna do it this time! If you’re trying to do it that way, you won’t. I never have. I don’t think I’m any different than you are. But there is a God who will honor faith.

And he says in verse 6, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” (NIV). That’s what it comes down to. God is gonna reward a people who look to him and come to him on the basis of what He has promised, what Jesus purposed, and purchased for us. We could never earn, could never deserve it.

But, I mean, we sing about what we own and how rich we are in Christ and we live like paupers. And so has the church down through the ages except for these individuals that suddenly seemed to be able to tap into this, but it’s not just for the special ones. It’s for you, and it’s for me. God wants to take us deeper and higher. And I believe with all my heart He’s doing it. I believe He’s going to do it!

But He wants us…He would say the same thing to us that He said to Joshua, “…be strong and courageous….” Don’t be afraid. I forget the exact words, but don’t be dismayed, don’t be afraid, don’t be discouraged. Don’t give into that side of it. Take hold of what God has said, and trust Him for the strength to even be strong. I mean, it all comes from Him.

Don’t ever fall into the trap and say, I’ve got to. If by ‘I’ve got to’ you mean somehow, it’s got to be in me. I mean, the resources have got to come from me. They always are gonna come from Him. See, if you’re one that thinks it’s got to come from you, the first thing God’s got to do for you is to show you that ain’t so.

That’s what He did for Paul. God, I love you! I’m gonna keep Your law. I can do this now! And he ran smack into his own nature, that was stronger than he was, until he realized that God’s plan is not for me to keep the law and earn my way, it’s to let His spirit come and live in me, and give me what I don’t have so that I can live, I can produce the righteousness of the law by His indwelling presence.

Boy, that’s why we need Him, isn’t it? This is Christianity 101, folks. But I sense God wanting to alert us to the reality. Don’t be surprised when you…that there’s a part of you that begins to reach out and want more, that it gets tough. Don’t be surprised! Why should that surprise us? That’s the Devil’s business.

But I’ll tell you, God is gonna give us victories over that, and in the winning of those victories we’re gonna grow stronger, our faith is gonna get more, we’re gonna see this gradual growth into being more and more mature sons and daughters of the Living God. God’s gonna have a people in this hour.

I want to be one of those people. I don’t have it in me to be that, not in myself. But we have everything in Him. His promises, by His promises, we can lay hold of the divine nature and that which is ‘up there’ in a sense, can be in here, and actually begin to make a difference. Do you believe that?

( congregational response ).

Do we really believe it? See, that’s where the Lord has us right now. And I want to be one of those that really believes it! When everything else says, no, I’m gonna say, this is what You’ve said, Lord, and I’m trusting in You. Praise God!

Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 1466 — taken from Closed Captioning Text

— Brother Phil Enlow: God will do with His own whatever it takes to bring us to that place where we can say, oh God, I cannot possibly look at me, I cannot possibly begin to think of myself as adequate. But, oh God, the only thing that can possibly make me any different than anybody else on the face of this planet is You, and I want You.

See, this wasn’t just acknowledging a fact. This is, oh God, please come! I’ve got to have You! Do you ever feel that kind of a…almost a desperation? You’ve been in a situation where you just feel so desolate and so weak, you just cry, oh God, help me! By the way, didn’t Jesus do that? Ah! “…Strong crying and tears…” (KJV). He prayed and God heard Him.

You know, I believe with all my heart that’s what God is looking for from a lot of us. We, so easily, get complacent and even proud. And God wants to bring us to this place where He can come and just…He longs to take us in His arms and show us how incredible He is and what His purpose is for our existence! And we’re just so…things are cool, got my life, I know how to handle stuff.

Oh God, we need You! God, we need You! Come, do what only You have the power to do. There are situations that He’s the only one that can fix. And all we can do is just lift up our hands, and say, Lord, help us.

But what an expression of a heart here, that Moses just doesn’t say, come and take care of my problems, help me do my job. He says, show me Your ways. Lord, I want You to continue to be pleased with me and to find my service to You acceptable, but I can’t do that unless You teach me. Oh God, my ways are not right and I need You to deliver me from them. Oh God, come and help me, and bring me up short when I need to be brought up short, Lord, so that I can come.

Oh, I thank God that there’s a place when He does that that we can go. We don’t have to wallow and think we can win Him back by grovelling. We win Him back by confessing and saying, Lord, you see what I am, you see my need. But Lord, Jesus paid it all! Jesus went to the cross in my place.

This thing that I’ve just been wrestling with, this failure, whatever it is, this manifestation of human nature that I’ve encountered, I don’t have to sit here and wallow in that and try to convince You to be merciful to me. You already were merciful at the cross! So, I look away from that, I look to Him and I pin all of my hope in Him and I believe Your promise, that I can stand in your presence, right now, as if I had never sinned.

Do you think we need Him? Oh my, do we need Him! But how merciful, how amazing He is, knowing what we are, that He is willing to come down, right down to where we live, and love us.

So he says, “…teach me your ways so I may know you…” (NIV). There’s this cry! Don’t we hear that from the apostle Paul? Paul wasn’t just interested in correcting his theology. He wanted to know the One that he had encountered on that Damascus Road. Oh God, I want to know You! I want to get close to You. I want to….

I’ll tell you, God is gonna put us in situations where that’s the only answer. Where we’re going to either harden our hearts and push away and pull away or we’re gonna say, oh God, I surrender. God, I come. I need You right now.

I don’t who is here this morning that has that sense of need in your heart. I don’t even know how long this is gonna go on. Somebody else may need to jump in. But, I just had this sense…I mean, you could go all over the scripture with our need of His presence. That’s a given. You could easily write a sermon on that, but the Lord wouldn’t let me, thank God. Because you don’t need a sermon, you need His Word.

“…Teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you.” But look what he does next. How easily do we fall into the trap of thinking of our spiritual lives as all about me, and where I’m at, and what I’m experiencing? Do I feel like I’m on solid ground and things are going great and I’m happy, happy, and enjoying your presence?

Is your spiritual life wrapped up in you? Here is Moses praying, not just for himself, God help me, but God remember, this people is Your people! There’s a sense of urgency in praying for others. He’s not just content to say, oh God, I want to know You and I want to have this personal, private little thing…but, oh God, I’m not alone in this.

I’ll tell you, there are needs in our midst and we need to pray. There are needs in our midst that will not be met without the prayers of God’s people. We need to cry out. If you know about something, we need to lay hold of heaven and say, oh God, change the situation. We don’t need to go through a meeting, and walk through our traditions, and hug everybody that we haven’t seen, sing happy songs, hear truth we’re comfortable with, and then go on and feel like…

( snapping fingers ).

Man, that was a wonderful meeting…and nothing has really changed. Moses was looking for some real, something that was going to change the situation. And so how did the Lord answer this prayer? “…Teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.”

This is the cry of his heart. I don’t think these were casual words. I believe there was a…sense of desperation, don’t you? I mean, put this in the historical context. See what’s going on there. He’s just been on the mountain. He’s come down. The people are already going crazy. They wind up having to kill a bunch of them, and then the Lord said, I ain’t going with you. Now, he’s got to deal with this. Do you think maybe there was just a little bit of that sense of desperation? Oh God, what’s going on here? Oh God come.

And the Lord said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” I believe there are many of us that are in situations in our lives that we’re struggling with, there’s anxiety, there’s fear. But I believe with all my heart there’s a God who longs for us to come to Him, and to come to Him with a sense of urgency, and say, oh God, help me to come, help me to learn from this, help me to come into the center of your heart and your will in this situation!

It may be an internal need! It usually involves that. It may be a situation. It may be a loved one that just needs the Lord. But, oh God, come.

But you know, there has to come a time when we see in Him, Someone who’s not looking for us to qualify ourselves to get our prayers answered. Think about that one. You know, I made that point the other night when we were praying for people and Joel had read something. And you see the people in the first century praying and God answering a prayer, and how easy it is to read something like that, and sort of think that they’re different, there was a purity about them, there was this, there was that. I’m not like that. So, I can’t go to God and expect Him to do stuff.

Do you really, in your heart of hearts, or at least in your mind, do you really think that they were that different from us? Really? Seriously? Which is it? Every single child of God is a sinner saved by grace. These were ordinary people. They probably didn’t know half the stuff God has helped us to understand. But they went to God from their hearts and they cried out and God, in this case, Peter was delivered from prison.

But I believe that God wants us to come on the foundation, not of our ability, not on the foundation of anything that’s in us, but to come and say, oh God, cleanse me. But God, this isn’t just about me. Lord come in power and change hearts and change lives!

Do you really believe God is reluctant, that He’s holding out, or that we haven’t held our mouth right exactly when we prayed that? Or do we have the privilege of coming to Him in faith, knowing the kind of God, knowing that this is the very thing He wants? He’s not mad at us, trying to hold out on us and say…when you get it right.

This is a God who longs to be with His people. He longs for people who want to know Him and want to learn His ways! He knows that we’re not there! He knows everything that’s wrong with us, everything that’s lacking. But He also knows that He has everything that we need, that we have the right to come to Him and expect Him to answer the cries of our hearts.

This isn’t just about Moses. You know, in the Old Testament, God did work through special people. You had prophets, you had priests, you had people that, in a sense, stood between the people and God.

But we are living in a Covenant that has changed all of that! This covenant, the Lord said through the prophets…He looked ahead and said, I’m gonna make a New Covenant. It’s not like the covenant you have now. This is one where everybody’s gonna know me, from the least to the greatest! They will all know me!

Every single person in the Body of Christ is a priest. Every one of us can go to God on behalf of somebody else. Every one of us can come to Him on the basis of the cross, for ourselves, and cry out and say, oh God, I need Your presence right now in my life. I don’t want to do what I’m doing alone. In fact, I’m gonna say like Moses, God, if You don’t go with me, don’t make me go. I ain’t going.

I pray the Lord will answer this prayer, but I have prayed that many times about ministry. God, if You’re not gonna get up here, if You’re not gonna minister, don’t ask me to preach. I don’t have any special need to be up here. I would have gladly have sat there this morning and listened to someone else. That’s the truth. I argued with the Lord about it. Do you ever do that?

( laughter ).

Do you ever argue with the Lord? And He just keeps very patiently, making it evident that this is where you’re supposed to be, this is where you’re supposed to go. And you say, all right Lord, it’s on You. But you know, that’s what He wants. He doesn’t want us to have this kind of reluctant relationship with Him. He wants us to get to where we know His ways and we’re willing to stretch forth our hands, like He told Peter. “…When you are old…” when you’re more mature, “…you will stretch out your hands…” Another will gird you and carry you, where?

( congregational response )

“…Where you do not want to go.”

( laughing ).

Because if we went the way our human nature would take us, it wouldn’t be God’s way. But I’ll tell you, God calls us out of the path that the world is walking, He calls us to be somebody different. But what is it that makes us different? We have better traditions? We have a better history? We have better, what? There’s only one possible factor that could make us any different than anybody else in the world, and that’s when He’s here.

Do you think maybe we need to be crying out? Or should we just perhaps assume? Don’t we do that a lot? We just come and do the same things we’ve been doing and assume He’s going to show up? And how merciful He is.

But there is no substitute for a heart that reaches out and says, oh God, without You I can’t do anything. And I don’t want to be without You, Lord. I feel my need. I feel the desolation of my situation. You have allowed this, Lord, so I can know that I’m in need. It’s Your love that’s shown me my need, because You long to be the One to come and to fill it.

What an awesome promise that the Lord gave him. He just told him, I ain’t going with you. Now he says, “…My Presence will go with you….” He looked for a man out of that whole nation that really wanted to know Him.

You know, is it any wonder that David wrote in one of the Psalms, “He made known his ways to Moses…” But His acts, “…his deeds to the people of Israel”? They never understood His ways, remember that? It says that in the scriptures. The Israelites as a whole never understood what was going on. They never learned His ways.

And you think about what Moses was facing. He knew, he knew he had a bunch of people that just…here’s God who said, I’m not going with you, and we’re on our own, and we’re in a bunch of nations that have these supernatural powers! It’s not just that they’re giants, or they’re this or they’re that, but…we’re hopelessly surrounded by powers that are greater than we are. Does that not apply to us today? You and I live in a world that is rapidly being overtaken by darkness.

( congregational amens ).

And the spirit of the age will do everything in its power to bring us to a place where we just rock along, and don’t have this deep sense of, oh God, we’ve got to have Your presence! Lord, we will not…we won’t even come together if You don’t show up. We’re not interested in playing church. We’re not interested in anything except Your presence.

I don’t know what else to say…but do you not see what Moses’ heart was and how God brought him to that place and how this simple promise, “…My Presence will go with you, and I will give you…” What?

( congregational response ).

Oh, how many of you are candidates for some rest in your heart and your spirit this morning? Has He not promised “Take my yoke…learn from me…”? The same sense of the stuff I don’t know, I don’t know how to live. “…Learn from me…” And…I’ll give you rest. “Take my yoke…and learn from me…and you will find rest for your souls.”

There are two different things there. But I don’t know, I just feel like coming into a meeting we need the Lord in a way we perhaps haven’t. I’m so thankful for things that happened 50 plus years ago. That’s great! That was then. What about now? Do we not need the Lord now, to invade lives and to change hearts and change lives?

Are we just gonna come and say, that was wonderful, that’s great truth? You’re reiterating all the stuff that we know and we were encouraged by it. That’s wonderful! We need more than that. That’s the danger. You can go on in that kind of a form, and all it becomes is a dead form and the Lord’s not in it.

( congregational amens ).

We need Him! Do you sense that at all?

( congregational response ).

We need to cry out to the Lord. I don’t know what else to say. It may be just that we need to stop and pray, and ask the Lord to help us to pray, so it’s not just a little form we go through. Ask the Lord to bring something to your own needs to your mind. Ask Him to bring the needs for somebody that you’re concerned about…that God will just go before and break up soil and do whatever it takes to change someone’s heart and someone’s life.

How else is it gonna happen? Do we just come and think, oh, there’s anointed preaching here, it’ll take care of everything? That’s not how the Kingdom of God works! God works through every member, and prayer is the undergirding force that releases God’s power to actually work.

So, praise God! I’m thankful the Lord has just let me ramble on this morning. But, that’s all right. I believe there’s a burden. It’s not information you need today. It’s not information I need. These are the things we know. We need Him! But do you think if we ask Him, He’ll actually answer? Do we have to qualify ourselves or has Jesus already qualified us? So, what does the scripture say? “…Ye have not, because ye ask not.” (KJV). Well, how about let’s ask?