TV Transcripts

Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 1540 — taken from Closed Captioning Text

— Brother Phil Enlow: Isn’t it interesting, and I think significant, that after He deals with me as an individual, after He deals with me in this broad sense, now we’re gonna come down to where the rubber really meets the road? Because, as I say, it’s so easy to be one thing in here and another thing at home. And God wants us to be real there.

And I’ll tell you, if we have homes where Christ is at home, the presence of God is able to dwell there because we’re honoring Him and walking in the path that He has set out for us, man, we come in here, we’re not gonna have to work anything up! We’re gonna bring it with us. We’re gonna bring His presence with us.

But oh, I’ll tell you, the condition of a home is so critical to everything that God is seeking to do. It’s such a barometer. Let’s put it that way. It really tells us where we’re at, and that’s a sobering thing, isn’t it? It’s pretty sobering when you think about it.

And so, the first thing you look at it on this one level. Okay, there is an order. There is a divine order. The husband is the head of the home. Now, you take human nature and look at that principle and pretty soon it’s pretty easy for dad to be the boss and to make that a purely self-centered thing. I’m the boss, you’ve got to do what I say. Look what it says in the Bible. You’re disobeying God if you disobey me.

What kind of a spirit is that? Oh, my God! Think about Jesus and His nature. Did He come to be served? He didn’t, did He? He said it in so many words. I didn’t come to be served, I came to serve. I came to give my, “…life as a ransom for many.” (NLT). I came for the benefit of those to whom I was sent.

Look it over in the Ephesians passage in chapter 5. See, Paul has gone through this exact, same progression of, here’s the foundation, here’s the kind of person you ought to be, you need to relate to one another this way and now let’s get to the real crux of the matter.

Verse 21, “And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.”

That sounds pretty rough if you’d think in terms of human nature and a husband ruled by human nature. Boy! But now what does that mean for the guys? “For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church.” Boy that sounds like a whole lot tougher deal to me than the other!

But here’s the thing. If you’re a man, and you’re called to be married, God has the equipment you need to be a godly husband, to be the leader of your home without being a dictator, to be a giver, a server without being self-centered, and making everybody in your household your servant and making everybody miserable when they don’t serve you.

God wants a people…and the thing is, if you look at this from the natural, people are born into broken situations. They come out of dysfunctional families, trying to form their own family and it’s a royal mess!

The devil has attacked the family because he understands! This is the fundamental relationship in the unfolding of God’s pattern, God’s purpose! Yes, the assembly! But it gets right down into the home. If you get the home in the order that God has laid out, it’s not a set of laws and rules for us to follow, it is a prescription for how God wants to relate Himself to us and share His presence with us!

And I’ll tell you, you have a man who’s committed to serving God and saying, oh God, work this in me. I have no power to be what You’re describing here. It’s just not in me. But the thing is, I don’t care what background you’ve come out of, there is a God who is able to take you from where you’re at, just as you are now, and lead you to a place where you can be what He’s designed you to be. Do you believe that?

( congregational response ).

Are you willing? Do you want God to fit you to be what He’s describing here? “…Love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy…” It’s not about Him, is it? “…To make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word.He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault.

“In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself.” Boy, what a mystery He’s unfolding here about how Christ sees us! You could certainly say on one level, yeah, Christ is the boss! He tells us what to do. But is He anything like a human boss? Not in the slightest! Everything is about pouring Himself into us so that we can be everything we were meant to be.

And that is the role of a godly husband. God help us! Just saying the words, I feel so utterly unable because I am, in myself! But I know that God wants to begin to set the order of a home with a man who gets this and says, God, make me what You want me to be in my home! Not just in church when I smile and say, hi, to everybody and then go home and I’m grumpy, and everybody has to walk on eggs around me.

Oh, God! Do what’s needed to make me what You want me to be, so that the atmosphere of my home is one where You are at home! I don’t bring devils because of my attitudes. I need You to come!

You know, you have a place like that, and you’ve got half the battle, because I’ll tell you, you ladies, God has fitted you with certain abilities, with qualities that don’t exist in the man. We’re different. It’s only together that we are in the image of God! It’s not like, I’m in the image of God and she’s just something else. We share His attributes. God apportions some of the attributes to me, and some to my wife. And they’re special.

And it’s not a matter of one being better than another or more worthy or something. It’s all these value systems that we bring to it from our brokenness. God sees us together! In fact, one of the words that came to my mind as I was thinking about all of this that God is looking for is a simple word, respect.

I mean love, yes! Obviously love where my main interest is in their welfare, and you get two people that feel that way about each other and man you’ve got something where needs are gonna be met. But how about simple respect? Husbands, do you respect your wife? Do you value her? Does she know that you value her, that you respect her? Do we show that? It gets quiet, doesn’t it? Am I telling you the truth?

( congregational response ).

Yeah! You know, you have a passage that I’ll just refer to and you can go read it, but it’s over in 1 Peter chapter 3 where Peter’s dealing with a situation where there’s a godly wife and she’s married to somebody that doesn’t know the Lord. How is she supposed to handle that one? Well, she’s supposed to live as a godly, submissive wife, showing forth by her very way of life that she belongs to Him, where…He can actually…the Lord could actually get in the home through her and make Himself known to the husband.

Now, if she takes his ungodliness as an excuse to get mad and react on a human level, what good is that? But here is an opportunity for the Lord to absolutely open a door of mercy to that ungodly husband. Whether it happens or not, that’s her place.

But even then, it talks about husbands to dwell with your wife according to knowledge…different translations. Show her, gentleness and respect. “…So your prayers will not be hindered.” (NLT). There is a…and he uses the word partnership, in one of the translations. You’re partners together.

And we need to see ourselves, not like this, or one way up here and one down here, being a slave of some sort. We need to see ourselves as partners together in the Kingdom of God. And I’ll tell you, you get that relationship going the way it’s meant to be, and you’ve got a foundation for something. If it isn’t, there are needs.

You know, you bring the kids into it. I’ll refer to something that I’ve referred to a number of times over the years, but those of you who are in the homeschool community will particularly remember a message that was…a recorded message that was being passed around a lot, a number of years ago. And I believe it was recorded at one of the conferences.

And it was called, “The Curse of the Standard Bearers,” and it was talking about raising children. And, so often the pattern, and no doubt it’s been learned from previous generations, which you see this problem goes back.

You can’t…kids, you can’t look at your parents and say, oh, I see all these things wrong with them. What about previous generations? They were kids and they went through a whole lot of stuff, and they weren’t necessarily prepared by their parents to be what all they ought to be.

That’s why we need to put up with one another, and recognize that we all have faults, and be very tolerant and forgiving. See, all those qualities he talks about…man, it’s not just that they need to work on the level of the Body of Christ in a general…in the assembly sense, but man do they need to work in the house! Because every one of us has things that we need to be forgiven for and tolerated as God works on us. God’s still working on me…to make me all He wants me to be.

Anyway…okay, I’m trying to remember where I was now. Oh yeah! “The Curse of the Standard Bearers.” A standard bearer is somebody who just makes up rules. These are the rules and the guidelines for how we expect our children to behave in our home. And they’re basically just “rules to live by.” In the first place, if you approach any human being based upon rules and laws, what do you get?

( congregational response ).

Rebellion! Read Romans 7 and you discover how effective Paul, trying to serve God, even knowing what the Law said and wanting to do it, let alone being…not wanting. He wanted to do it. It’s the ideal situation. I want to be what You want me to be. I know what the Law says, but something is wrong here. I’ve got something that automatically just kicks into gear. You tell me to do something, and I say, no! My nature rises right up.

And the worst thing is, if you raise kids with nothing but rules to live by, and you don’t live by them…how does that work? Kids aren’t stupid. And so, you’ve got a real problem. And the answer that was proposed in that message was we don’t need “standard bearers,” we need “image bearers.”

I’ll tell you, you want to be godly parents in this world? Ask God to change you and to conform you to His image. It’s gonna take a lot of renewing of your mind. It’s gonna take a whole lot of changes that have to happen for you to be actually modeling the life of Christ, so you are bringing His presence into the home.

And now you have a situation where kids see an example and they want…it’s attractive to them. They want to be like them. How many of you girls want to be married to a husband one day that’s like your dad? That’s how much you love him and respect him and think about him.

How many of you guys, you want, one day, a wife that’s just like your mom? She is just so special, and you’ve been spoiled. You just want one that’s like her. You see in her the qualities that make a godly wife.

We need to be asking God, oh, God, we need Your presence in our home. Are we image bearers or are we just standard bearers? I think we’ve got the essence of what the Lord desires for us in the home. We don’t need to be in a situation where we have to walk on eggs around one another, where people feel afraid, feel all kinds of negative things that just mean the devil’s at home there. We need the Lord to be in our home.

( congregational amens ).

And every member of…every member of that household needs to be looking to the Lord saying God, I want to be what You want me to be.

( congregational amens ).

Young people, do you really want to grow up and know the Lord? This is the time in your life when His plan for you has more to do with your character than what you want. And many times that means submitting to imperfect parents, and just humbling yourself and saying, Lord, I’m in Your hands. And I’ll tell you, there’s a God who pays attention to that kind of a person.

And husbands and wives, I believe God longs to have healthier homes where His presence reigns. God wants to be so real in our homes where people want to be there because they feel emotionally safe and fed and peaceable and respected in their various roles and they’re willing to fill those roles, willing to do it God’s way. I’ll tell you, God’s blessing dwells there in a special in a special way. Praise the Lord!

Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 1535 — taken from Closed Captioning Text

— Brother Phil Enlow: It seems like that the things that I have on my heart…on one level they seem rather repetitive, and yet, I feel, very strongly, that the Lord wants to layer truth in such a way that it becomes real and not just theology that we know. How many of you understand that we need to have, not just theology and not correct knowledge of the Bible, but we need to have it translated into our lives.

( congregational response ).

And I think that’s something we all struggle with more than we might care to admit even to ourselves. I was thinking of…something came back to me. You remember…many of you remember when Brother Thomas returned here in ‘76, and there was a need, wasn’t there? The church had sunk into a lot of legalism. And, there was a lot of bondage.

And do you remember what Brother Thomas told us that the Lord told him? He said, I want you to spend one solid year preaching nothing but foundational truth, because if we try to build on anything other than the one foundation that God has laid, which is Jesus Christ, then we’re gonna build something other than what He wants, and it won’t stand up. And so, thank God, he did that.

And, you know, we spoke last week, about Paul’s worldview, which is another way of saying the framework within which he laid that foundation, because he saw the world, not through the eyes of a Pharisee, but through the eyes of one that had been redeemed by that blood that we sang about this morning. He understood there’s a God who has set eternity in our hearts, whose plan is for it to have a people and a family and He’s made full provision for that.

And so, you notice this pattern, like we said last week that…in every, nearly every one of his letters, in one way or another in every one, he lays the foundation before he ever gets to Christian living and how we’re supposed live and what we’re supposed to do and not do.

You notice before he ever gets to that, he spends chapters, the way it’s been arranged for us, just laying out the basis upon which any of that can possibly happen. I mean, I know that we know, as we’ve said many times, there ain’t no way we can live a real, genuine, from-the-heart Christian life unless we get the foundation.

And…but you know, there does come a time when the foundation is there, but you don’t say, whoopee, I’ve got a great foundation, onto the next project. The foundation is there for a reason, and God wants us to build on that foundation. And that’s when it gets down to you and me in our everyday lives actually taking advantage of what God has done, entering into what He has provided and laying hold of it so that it becomes ours in a practical way. We’re not just sitting here affirming truth and thinking that’s all that it takes.

And so, we find Paul, in Colossians 3, I guess, is as good a place as any to go…. But Paul has, as we’ve pointed out so many times, spent the time letting us know who Jesus is, and the fact that our hope is entirely based, not upon anything other than Christ living in us. If we have any other source of what we do, then it’s futile, it misses the point completely. The only hope I have of standing there in glory one day is Christ literally living in my heart.

Is He in your heart? Has that really happened in your life? I pray that if it hasn’t, God will so convict you, that you will fall on your face and realize how desperately, how greatly…desperately is the wrong word…how deeply He loves you and what He has done for you, that it’s not just this generalized love, He loves you, as an individual, with all of your faults, all the virtues you think you have, but don’t. Everything about you, the stuff that you don’t want anybody to know about, He knows, and He loves you. And He has made a way for you to know Him and to have a new heart and a new life.

That’s the whole foundation of everything. And every possible obstacle that would keep us from the purpose of God, Jesus dealt with. He dealt with the guilt of my sins so I could even have a relationship with God, and what an amazing thing it is that I can come to Him and not only is my legal guilt taken care of, but I don’t even…I can come to a place where I don’t even feel the guilt of things that I just felt before I brought them to Him. It’s real!

( congregational response ).

When God meets the heart that reaches out to Him, from the heart, God is able to wash your sins away as if they had never happened, give us a fresh start. Oh man, what an incredible Gospel!

But the Gospel doesn’t stop there, does it? See that’s the foundation. That only gets us into the game, as it were. That gets us to home plate, to use a baseball analogy. Now we’re in the game. Now, it’s up to…now, God wants us to actually produce something.

And so, he has laid that foundation, and Paul summarizes in the beginning of chapter 3 in these words. “Since, then…” (NIV). Now see, since then, looks back, doesn’t it, to everything he’s been saying? “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.”

Now the foundation that God has to establish in our hearts…and I understand that there are varying degrees with which we truly get this. I mean, we get it intellectually, but I mean, really get it in our hearts. The reality of what He has done with us has to become real to you, personally.

Paul was able to look at his own life and everything that he has done…he had been responsible for the death of Christians who were followers of Jesus. That’s how zealous he was in fighting against Christ. And in spite of that, God reached out, Christ reached out in love to him and gave him a brand-new heart and a brand-new life. Man, there’s no obstacle in your past that God can’t overcome, that the cross did not overcome.

But the reality is, if I’m going to live, He had to do something about me. And we talked last week about how God does something in the beginning of a race, as it were. In Adam, how did we get to be sinners? We were born into a family of sinners. We may not have been there personally making the decision, but our ancestor, from whom we inherited everything, was. And so, we were in Adam sinning. We were the ones who partook of that tree and made the decision to rebel.

But the same principle applies to what Jesus did. And I’ll tell you, God did something amazing when Jesus came out of that tomb. There was a victory for all eternity and there was a people that God placed in Him. Everyone born of that life partakes of every characteristic of that life, and one of them is that we died with Him on that cross.

The problem is, we don’t see that. We don’t live as if that’s really so. But I pray, I feel this need in me…I mean, this is one of the things that makes me hesitant to preach some of these things, but they’re real and God wants us to get them. We can’t just sit there forever and glory in the foundation. God wants us to do some building. It needs to be translated into real life, and that’s what God is saying and doing.

But here again is the re-iteration of that foundation. Folks, if we don’t, to some degree, if God does not make this real that I died…I died already. This thing that wants to rise up and control me, I died to that. It does not have the right to own me anymore.

See, there’s this way of seeing ourselves and seeing what God has done for us that forms a foundation. If you’re doubting that, if you’re struggling and…I don’t know if it’s really me, I don’t know if it’s really true…you know, there are a thousand and one ways, and our emotions get involved. But folks, God wants to plant that reality, that foundation in every heart, in the heart of every one of His children.

I get that it’s a process. There’s no experience you can have where you suddenly, you’re catapulted all the way into Canaan land. Of course, in Canaan land, there are giants, aren’t there? There are giants.

But anyway, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ….” He treats that as a historical fact. And God wants you and you and you and me, this morning, to reckon on the reality of what God has done for us. That is the foundation of everything that he’s about to say. Since that’s a fact, you’ve been raised with Christ, “…set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”

Hallelujah! Glorious theology! But God wants that translated into everyday, practical life, dealing with very real issues. Bear in mind, Paul is not writing to the heathen. He’s writing to Christians, writing to us here this morning. All right?

First of all, he deals with a category of things, characteristics of the earthly old nature to which we died in Christ. “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived.”

Okay? I’m gonna stop right there for the moment. But it looks to me like Paul is dealing with two categories of characteristics of the old nature. And it’s awfully easy for us to look at these and say, well, he’s talking about somebody else. He’s talking about all those people out there.

The truth of the matter is, every single person in here has these qualities, if you want to call them that, these characteristics of the old nature and they operate in us! So, this is not written to the heathen. This is written to Christians. And notice that even though God has done this wonderful thing for us in Christ, there is a part that we play!

Notice…I mean, you can go back and read…I’m not gonna take the time this morning to read Romans 6. I don’t know, I say I won’t…we’ll see. But Romans 6, Paul deals with this same truth and he really spells it out. And he leaves…he shows us that while this is true, we have a responsibility to make choices, don’t we? And in a practical sense, you can be a child of God and yield yourself to something that doesn’t produce good fruit, right?

( congregational response ).

That’s where you get the Scripture that talks about, “…the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.” We can yield ourselves to something, and if we do, do we not become slaves? You’ve got a world full of people that think slavery is a horrible thing and they are slaves and do not know it. We have a nature that, if we don’t…if we don’t rule over it, it will rule over us, in one way or another.

And, I’ll tell you, these desires are real. God has implanted, has given us physical desires…some of them are pleasurable, some of them are need, but they are real and God gave them every one with a wonderful purpose. If there were not…if sex were not a good thing God created, none of us would be here. But it has a reason, it has a purpose.

And Satan loves to take control of people’s lives in varying ways. Some of it is outward activity, that is way outside the will and the purpose of God. Oh, I’ll tell you, we need divine help. We need divine life, to be able to say, no, you cannot rule over me, Christ is in here. This is not my strength, it’s not anything of me, but Jesus lives!

How many of you think…we’re called to live the life of Christ, right? How many of you think these characteristics are characteristics of Him? See, if any of these things that he’s talking about…and he’s gonna be enumerating others…if they exist in our lives, they ain’t coming from Him. They’re coming out of the old nature.

And to the degree that they are given expression, to the extent that we make excuses for them, we yield ourselves to them, we just say, that’s the way it is, that’s just as good as it gets, I believe in Jesus, that’s good enough, we’re not doing much building, are we? God wants to take us further. He wants to take me further, I know. I’ll guarantee He wants to take me further than I have been and I want that, I desire it. I just…I praise Him. I praise Him that He’s put up with me all these years.

But oh, what a Savior we have! None of this is put out there as some kind of a, you’ve got to measure up in your own strength. None of it is that, but if we…if the Gospel is not honest with a real need, what good is it? We can’t pretend we’re not really sinners. Our sins are forgiven, so we’re good. And yet, we live enslaved by more things than we dare to realize. We certainly don’t want to admit it to one another. But the truth is, we don’t admit it to ourselves.

And I know it’s a challenge for young people growing up, especially in this world today which glories in, you were born that way, just give vent to it. To find out how to handle their bodies, they begin to feel attraction to the opposite sex, they begin to feel all kinds of things, and what’s right and what’s wrong? And oh, it feels good, so I’m gonna play with this and play with that…and you older ones, we’ve been there, right? We understand.

But oh, I’ll tell you, God has a…God has a salvation that can deal with these things, if we’re willing. We can find the way that God intended all these things to be used. There is a nature that will rise up and take you down paths, you’ll wonder how you got where you got…if you listen to it, if you yield to it, if you give vent to it.

But there is no place for sexual immorality. That covers a wide range of activity here. This is the actual act of using sex in a way that God never intended. And I’ll tell you, it leads to a bad, bad place. We need the grace of God, to say, Lord, you made me this way, and when I feel it, I need to bring it to you, and I need to let it find its rightful place. I need you to give me the power to keep it where it needs to be. And I’ll tell you, there’s a God who will hear that prayer.

But we have a choice, don’t we? We’ve got a lot of choices here, and there are a lot of people that have made shipwreck of their lives by just following their natural desires for a wide variety of physical reasons, psychological reasons. We are complex creatures, folks. You know, you have this expression, ‘people who seek love in all the wrong places.’ And I don’t want to say that in a joking way. It’s…those are real issues. Those are deep, deep needs in a lot of people’s hearts.

But oh, I’ll tell you where love begins. It begins with Him, where your worth, your value begins with Jesus Christ who shed His blood to open heaven’s door for you! You want to know what being loved is about? Open your heart to Him! Let it begin there! That will spoil every false form of it. God wants to set His people free!

( congregational amens ).

But notice, he doesn’t just stop with the act. He talks about, “…impurity, lust, evil desires…” There are so many things that happen where, it’s not like it’s an open thing or even involves somebody else. But what happens on the inside? What happens in our minds, in our hearts? What do we think about? What do we do when nobody’s looking? What do we…what kinds of thoughts do we let happen in here?

It’s a sober thing to think about, folks. This is stuff that affects us, right here, this morning. And don’t you look at me and lie to me, because you know what I’m talking about. We need God to give us, not just refraining from open acts of…but from the inside. Jesus said, ‘whoever looks at a woman and lusts after her in his heart has already committed adultery.’

You know, we act like if we’re doing something in secret and nobody else knows about it, that, well, it’s okay. Oh, I’ll tell you, we are standing on a perfectly lit stage and heaven can see everything that happens. Oh, we need grace. We need God’s help and God’s mercy. We need to be honest with ourselves about those needs.

Where do you go on the internet? There may not be anybody here that hasn’t gone the wrong place at one time or another. We just need mercy and we need grace. But we need to recognize these are real, real issues.

And God…I’ll tell you what, God allows temptation. Did He not send His Son into the desert to be tempted by the devil? And He was tempted in every way just as we are. And it was by divine strength that He was able to say, no. God didn’t send me down here to use this vessel that He has given me in ways that dishonor Him, and by His strength I say, no. God lives in me and that’s how it’s gonna be. God wants to bring us to real victory in these areas. And I believe He can.

You know, there are so many different levels of strongholds. But didn’t Paul say that God had given him a ministry, and it wasn’t just employing the world’s wisdom but there was divine power in it to do, what? To pull down strongholds and every thought that rises up against obedience to Christ. I’m paraphrasing a little bit…but from 2nd Corinthians 10. I’ll tell you, we need divine power, don’t we?

( congregational response ).

How many of you need divine power?

( congregational response ).

Yeah. I do. I’ll put up every hand I can find. Yeah, I don’t have any strength. I’m no better than you in this area. There are areas where every one of us thinks things, that we need help. We need the Lord to give us victory, because you know, you might say, well, I’ve never ‘done the thing.’ But how many times has your mind gone in that direction? And you’ve allowed it and you’ve just played with it.

I’ll tell you, the devil has so many ways of pulling on our hearts and our lives. And so many of the things are not simply responding to physical needs or physical desires, some of them are an attempt to deal with real psychological issues. It’s another thing we’ve talked about before. But I mean, you could have real deep-seated needs buried down in here that you don’t even want to admit, or maybe you can’t even remember why.

But yet, there are certain things that happen in your life and you’re gonna respond to them by eating the proverbial box of chocolates. Isn’t that dealing with…trying to use a physical thing to deal with another issue? I mean, there are so many ways you could…spend all day, I guess, if somebody were to catalogue every kind of thing. But the reality is, God did not give us these bodies to serve them and their desires.

Paul is dealing with this over in 1st Corinthians or 2nd Corinthians one. I forget which chapter. I think it’s 1st Corinthians 6, if I’m not mistaken. But he warns about immorality and he talks about the bodies that He’s given to us. And he says, “…ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (KJV).

That is, they belong to Him. God gave Jesus His earthly body, for what purpose? So, He could just follow His desires and be enslaved by them? No! So that He could glorify God and carry out God’s purpose. This is what God wants to build in us. He’s laid the foundation, now, there’s some building that needs to happen.

And in order for that building…in order for the positive qualities of Christ’s life to come out, some of these other things have to be overcome. It’s like the Israelites, they couldn’t really occupy the land and enjoy the fruit of it without kind of dealing with the giants.

Well, you and I got giants to deal with. And they are very real. And I believe with all my heart God wants us to realize and be honest with our own needs. And when we read a Scripture like this, not just think, oh, that applies to everybody else. Folks, if you’re human, it applies to you. And I don’t suspect there are any Martians here this morning.

( laughter ).

We need…we need grace, don’t we? And that’s what God offers. These instructions are not to discourage. But I’ll tell you, they are to warn us that our growing in Him, the response to the wonderful, incredible foundation that we have in Christ and what He’s done for us, is that we need to begin to make choices that are consistent with what He has done. And when we do, He’ll help us.

Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 1534 — taken from Closed Captioning Text

— Brother Phil Enlow: Remember, “Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness…” (NIV). All the way—all the way. Do you realize that in your life? I know there are people here who have gone through tough stuff in your life. Do you realize, if you’re the Lord’s, He’s led you all the way even in the hard things?

You heard Ricky’s testimony. Do you think all that that he went through was incidental, a waste? Or do you think God can take that and build something on it now, that could not have been, had he gone another way? It doesn’t mean it was easy.

But I’ll tell you, we’ve got a God who can take nothing and make everything out of it. He kind of did that with the universe. He doesn’t have any limitations. There’s nothing impossible with God, and He wants us to realize that, but He wants us to reckon on it in our lives and see our lives through His eyes.

The Lord’s looking down and says, there’s one that’s gonna be with me forever. I’m gonna start working. They’re gonna go through stuff they’re not gonna understand, but I’m gonna help them as they grow to understand and to let go and to trust Me. See, that’s what He’s seeking to bring.

That’s what that older generation never understood. They would face some obstacle, and all they could see was the natural side of it and feel just helpless, and, God hates us! He’s brought us out here to die! We should have stayed in Egypt! Over and over and over again that spirit of stubborn unbelief that refused to see the mighty hand of God in all the things that He had done.

Folks, if you’re here this morning, God has worked in ways you don’t understand, and we need to just bow our heads and say, Lord, thank You. Lord, where I could have been if You hadn’t had Your hand upon my life. Where would I have been? Thank You, Lord! Thank You for the wildernesses of my life!

Thank You for everything You’ve done in my life to bring me to this point! Open my eyes to see, Lord! Teach me, that I might humble myself and just occupy that place that You desire, where I just bow down and rest in Your love, and I cast my cares upon You. So much that we sang this morning was so relevant to what we’re talking about.

“…Humble you and test you…” Again, this is not classroom stuff. This is real life. “…In order to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commands. He humbled you…” and this is the amazing thing, “…causing you to hunger…” Causing you to hunger.

Think about a God who will bring you and me into a place of need, and He does it, and He allows it. He might even use the Devil to bring it to pass. Oh, He knows how to use the Devil. But the Devil can’t win when it comes to God’s children.

But He will bring you into a place of need, because if He doesn’t, what’s gonna happen? We’re gonna be self-sufficient and proud of what we have accomplished. And we might have an outward show of being religious, being followers of God, being faithful and all of that, but way down in here, there’s something else that’s really kind of ruling, and the only way God can deal with that is to bring us to a place where it’s over our heads. We can’t handle it.

( congregational amens ).

We’re facing something that is beyond our capabilities. Does God do that because He’s mad at us, or does He do it because it’s the only way that we just throw up our hands and just let go and let God have His way?

See, some will come to that place, and they’ll rebel and they’ll be angry and see God as hateful. But we need to be able to see that this is a loving heavenly Father who knows what we need, who has nothing but good things ahead for all of His people. Yeah, we may have to go through all kinds of things to get to that, but you and I have no idea the things that He has ahead for His children.

I’ll tell you, only when our eyes are open to eternity will we really begin to grasp the greatness of His love and His mercy toward us, and what He has. He can let us know. He can give us a genuine faith so this is not just religious make-believe. I mean, there is a God who knows how to contact a human heart and minister a genuine faith that gives us a confidence that what we do not see is greater than what we do.

That’s what He seeks to impart in every willing heart. He’s able to do that. He’s able to bring us to a place where we can look at the Egyptians, and we can look at the sea, and know that’s not the end of the story, because we serve a God who has power over everything that would oppose us.

That’s the relationship God was seeking to establish, because they were getting ready to face some stuff. They needed to know. They needed to understand, be able to look back and say, this is how it was. Look what You did for us. My clothes didn’t wear out. I was always cared for.

“Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you.” How many times have we mentioned that discipline…we tend to think of it as punishment because I did something wrong? Discipline is training. Yeah, sometimes we need consequences if we do something that needs correcting. The Lord knows how to do that, but always, the spirit behind it is one of love to help and to lift up and to deliver from something that’s really bad.

God doesn’t do it because He’s just mad at you, because you broke a rule. He does it because He sees you going in the wrong direction. I mean, if you were going toward a cliff without any consciousness about what was going on because it was fun, and someone snatched you back, does that mean they’re mad at you? Or does that mean they love you enough to see the consequences of where you’re headed?

And God could see the consequences of them being like the other nations, walking in self-will, walking without a spirit of trust in this God. He knew what they were facing. He had nothing but good things in mind, when you look at what He had promised them. When you look at what he said down in verse 7 of chapter 8, I sort of referred to this but didn’t read it,

“For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land—a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills.”

I mean, the blessing that he was talking about here were earthly in a sense. And you know, the lesson from this is not, oh, come to Jesus, and you’ll get rich, in natural things. But it is that God has good things ahead for us, and we are a part of a kingdom that looks beyond all the riches of this world. God can take care of His own.

But I’ll tell you, we seek something that is way beyond this. “Seek ye first…” Jesus said, “…the kingdom of God, and his righteousness…” and all these needful things, “…all these this shall be added to you.” (KJV).

I’ll tell you, God is seeking to have a people whose heart sees like Paul. The things that I’m seeing, everything I see is temporary. The stuff that I don’t see, that lasts, and that’s what I’m living for! And I’m willing to let go of this, because that is so real to me that I’m willing to leave this behind.

Oh, I’ll tell you, God has so much ahead for His children. But don’t you for one minute think that where you’re at right now, is irrelevant to that. God hasn’t got you on pause. He hasn’t gone away and left you for a while, and then He’ll come back and renew the lessons. Every single day, God looks on you and cares about you.

Wouldn’t it be good if we recognized that? Wouldn’t it be good if we acknowledged Him in all of our ways, allowed Him to direct out paths, that we returned His love instead of complaining as we do, because the truth is, if we’re complaining, who are we complaining about? Now we direct it at situations and circumstances, but who’s the One who allowed all of that?

And does He allow it because He’s angry at us, or does He allow it because He’s because He loves us enough to take us directions that will break the chains, break the hold of earthly ideas and values and self? We are imprisoned by our own choices, folks. We need Him. We need to learn to see through His eyes, and that’s what He was seeking to do here.

Praise God. I’m just trying to focus on…trying to recall the things that I wanted to emphasize out of this. There are things that the Lord brought to my attention. One of them is this, that God wants us to be very realistic about things that we face. We have a way of avoiding stuff. I believe with all my heart, there are battles, right now, going on in people’s lives. There are battles that should be going on in our lives that aren’t, because we’re avoiding them. Does that make any sense?

The Lord kind of drawn my attention to things that…you know, here’s a battle that you need to be fighting. There’s an enemy, right now, that has had too much victory in your life, too much of a hold. And I want to bring you to a place where you don’t duck that and hide from it and pretend it isn’t there, because those are all things we do.

We lie to ourselves. I’m good. I’m okay. In the meantime, there are things…there are strongholds the enemy has. There are weaknesses that have a hold in our lives that God wants to deliver us from. And, we can pretend, or we can take the…you know, I’m just supposed to ignore it. I’m supposed to pretend it isn’t there. After all, I died with Christ. It can’t have any effect. I’m victorious, and we have this ‘victory in word’ kind of thing, which is, it’s all right to confess the Word of God, but I think you know what I’m talking about. We have a lot of techniques by which we avoid things that God wants us confront and overcome.

Now it is quiet. Am I telling you the truth? Every single one of us, there’s not one in here that doesn’t have areas of our lives where we need to grow, and need more victory than we’ve had. I certainly wouldn’t stand here and tell you that I’ve arrived. Paul didn’t. Paul was still battling, still working.

Look at examples like David. We know how the Lord had prepared him for the things that he had gone through. But what did the Lord do to do that? Just let him be quiet and sing songs by the sheep? No, He sent a bear out one time, sent a lion out another time.

And you know, the way we do it sometimes, he could have just ignored the beasts and gone ahead and sung praises to God. Isn’t this wonderful. It’s a beautiful day. But he didn’t. He confronted the enemy, didn’t he? He didn’t pretend it wasn’t real, didn’t pretend it wasn’t stronger than he was, in the natural. There was a total realism on his part. I’m up against something where I don’t have what it takes. I need God. And God showed up. God helped him.

And so then, Goliath shows up. And David arrived at the army to visit his brothers and bring supplies, and he sees what’s going on. And his counsel wasn’t, oh, don’t pay attention to that stupid guy, God’s with us, we can ignore all that chatter, that’s meaningless, just go on about your life. We’ll just stand here and proclaim the victory!

We can kind of duck and hide and never confront if we’re not careful. And David’s victory included him having to step forth and actually confront that giant in a real battle. We don’t want that. We’d prefer to find a way to kind of slide around it and pretend that’s not that big an issue. But there are issues that God wants to focus His heart and our attention on, where He longs to deliver us. But it doesn’t happen by singing happy songs and pretending if that’s…when confronting the thing is what’s needed.

And so, David…but David also understood something else, and this has been the subject of many messages. He understood it wasn’t just his battle. The Lord wasn’t standing off and saying, I want to see how you’re doing this. Let’s see your…rally your strength and see what you can do. He said, this is not your battle, David. This is My battle.

Do you know that every weakness, every enemy, every stronghold the enemy has in the life of any Christian, is not just your battle but His? That’s why it’s called salvation. That’s why the solution is not for me to somehow gear up, and be stronger and do better, quote more Bible verses. I mean, if I’m trying to do it through ‘technique,’ is what I’m saying, and human strength, it ain’t gonna happen. But do you see the picture of this in Israel and God’s dealing with them? There was a total realism about the picture that God painted.

Look at chapter 9, just for a moment. Look at the beginning of it. “Hear, Israel: You are now about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you…” (NIV). Oh, how encouraging! “…With large cities that have walls up to the sky. The people are strong and tall—Anakites! You know about them and have heard it said: Who can stand up against the Anakites?” There were still families that had descended from some giants. There were still some of them around.

“But be assured today that the LORD your God is the one who goes across ahead of you like a devouring fire. He will destroy them; he will subdue them before you. And you will drive them out and annihilate them quickly, as the LORD has promised you.”

And you see this perfect balance. God is going to put you in a position where there is no possible human solution to your problem and your need and mine. I have no answer! But He doesn’t skirt around it. He doesn’t pretend it isn’t real. He doesn’t pretend the enemy is not real. There he is. He’s real. He’s a lot stronger than you. How many of you know the Devil is a lot stronger and smarter than you are?

( congregational response ).

How many of you know that your human nature has no power to change? You cannot call upon anything in your own resources to become what God wants you to be. We’re gonna have to present ourselves to Him.

( congregational response ).

And say, I need a Savior. But you know, it doesn’t just start with, oh God, I need a Savior. You know, we sing the song sometimes, ‘In times like these we need a Savior.’ Or you need a Savior, I forget which. But one of the lines in one of the verses is, ‘In times like these I have a Savior.’

See, that’s the balance that God seeks to bring, where there is an absolute honest reckoning upon our need and the fact that I have no power against what God is asking me to overcome. If it’s just me trying to do it, it’s not going to happen. I need a Savior. But He wants me to get past that, to where instead of looking at my…what I lack, I am looking at what He is and who He is.

He doesn’t just give me instructions and techniques to win a victory, He is my victory! The answer to the Devil’s power is not more resources from human life, it’s divine life. Those giants didn’t know what they had against them until they faced the Israelites when they did trust God.

When they went in on their own strength, man, it didn’t work out so good. But when they went in and looked to God, and God gave them the pattern of the battle, and they just did it in faith, even when it made no sense at all, like marching around Jericho, what did God do? He said it’s not dependent on human strategy and human strength. It’s dependent on Me and My Word. I can do anything if you will just trust Me, and look to Me and do what I’ll tell you to do, you can win the victory.

I believe with all my heart, instead of us ducking and pretending, God is looking for a people who will bring our needs to Him. First of all, recognize in our daily lives this is not meaningless. Everything that you and I do from the time we get up in the morning until time we go to bed and during the night, for that matter, we’re in God’s hands. God is working out a purpose.

He never leaves His own. His purpose, His heart is always to bring us to a place of greater victory. I know the thoughts that I have for you, it says later in one of the prophets, thoughts to bless you, “…to give you hope and a future.” I forget the exact words, but you remember the Scripture.

That same God is here this morning, and that’s what He thinks, and what He wants for you and for me. But in that process, I believe there are times when you and I need to be a lot more honest with ourselves, and not be afraid to be honest.

Are there persistent needs in your heart and your life? There are in mine. Wouldn’t it be a good thing to say, Lord, this is where I’m at. I don’t have any strength in this battle. It’s had a hold on me for all these years. There’s a need that I have. You know about it. There’s no sense pretending.

You love me anyway. You sent a Savior to the cross because you loved me enough to do something about it. But Lord, I can’t fight this battle in my own strength. I need You. I can’t make it go away by pretending it isn’t there, put a smile on, and I’m good, everything’s good.

There are battles God is bringing you and me to right now, and He means for us to learn His ways so that He can take us further in Him. We’re gonna have more battles and more victories as we go forward into the future.

I don’t know what all the Lord has for us. I know He’s preparing us for things, but I want us to make sure that we get the heart of what the Lord is saying here. He’s being very realistic about the things that He’s brought them through. He’s being very realistic about what they face, but He wants them to understand, you don’t do things with human resources. You need every Word that comes out of My mouth, because I have the power to overrule everything that arises out of this creation, including your own personal need. I have the power.

And as My power is released in you, you’re gonna grow up to be My people. You’re gonna experience things that are…you’re gonna experience the blessings that I have for you. Oh, if you had any idea what I’ve got planned for you, you’d just lay all this aside, and you’d quit fussing and quit worrying about it, and just reach out to Me and praise Me, and give thanks, and you’d bring your needs to Me, not afraid to do it.

Like, I shouldn’t be this way, I can’t come to you like this, oh, God. That’s exactly when He wants us to come, when we’re in need. I mean, the Lord kind of knows, doesn’t He? Is there anything about you that He doesn’t know? Wouldn’t it please Him for me to come and say, Lord, I have no power in this area? I’ve been like this. This is an area where the enemy has kind of built a bit of a hold and a stronghold over the years. I need help. I need You to teach me. I need You to show me how to overcome this and to give me faith to look up and to believe Your Words.

And I’ll tell you, God can quicken His Word. It isn’t just words on a page. It’s when God speaks to our hearts, and somehow, we come to the point where we believe His Word more than we believe the circumstance and the feeling and the weakness and all those other things.

But it takes…many times, it takes a process. There are battles that aren’t won in a day. But I’ll tell you, they can be won because His Word trumps everything. There’s nothing He cannot do. I want to let go and let God have His way. Don’t you? He is a loving heavenly Father who has nothing but good things ahead for His children.

May God make us what He wants us to be. May we experience what we talked about last week, the love of God. There’s nothing beyond it. There’s nothing greater. And I’ll tell you, it can power us to be able to live in this world and glorify Him, and keep our eyes fixed upon the goal that He’s set before us, because it’s real. Oh God, if this isn’t in your heart, you cry out to Him.

( congregational amens ).

I don’t expect anybody to believe something that God hasn’t made real, but I pray that God will make it real!

( congregational amens ).

He has the power to touch your heart in ways that no human knowledge can. This is not about a religion, it’s about a relationship with the God of the universe. To Him be all the glory. We just praise Him this morning.