The psalmist said in Psalms chapter 3, which
is titled the psalm of David when he
fled from Absalom, Lord, how are they increased
that trouble me?
Many are they that rise up against me.
Many there be which say of my soul,
there's no help for him in God.
Seal it.
But thou, O Lord, art a shield for
me, my glory and the lifter up of
mine head.
I cried into the Lord with my voice
and he heard me out of his holy
hill, Selah.
I laid me down and slept.
I awaked for the Lord sustained me.
I will not be afraid of ten thousands
of people that have set themselves against me
round about.
Arise, O Lord, save me.
Oh my God, for thou has spent in
all mine enemies upon the cheekbone and thou
has broken the teeth of the ungodly.
Salvation belongeth unto the Lord.
Thy blessing is upon thy people.
Last week I was sharing with you a
little bit about David and how when he
was being driven out of his own palace
by his own rebellious son Absalom, he refused
to hurt a man that was cursing and
throwing stones at him by the name of
Shimeon.
Refused to let one of his mighty men
go over and kill him.
David had been taken as an old man
to the point to where he could love
and trust God in any situation.
Now David was by far from being a
perfect man.
And as Jesus said, he that is without
sin let him cast the first stone.
We've been pretty quick to pick on old
David in his sin.
But what about ourselves?
How have we done in the race of
life?
How have you done?
And me in the trials of life.
Have we got to the point in our
spiritual life where we can say no matter
what happens, it is the Lord that him
do as it seemeth him good.
Last week I shared with you a little
bit in the area of responding to the
trials and adversities and circumstances of life in
a Christlike way so that Jesus might be
seen in your life.
You see we saw an aspect of Jesus
in the life of David as he went
through the valley of humiliation.
Being driven out by his own son and
cursed by a Benjamin.
And I just wonder if God isn't trying
to get our attention today to where we
will be like Jesus.
And one of the reasons that he allows
us to go through the trials and he
knows just what we need.
He knows just what I need.
And I've been going through my trial and
I know you've been going through yours.
I don't know why we wiggle so much
and we try to squirm our way out
of it, but we do.
Instead of getting in there and just letting
God teach us and patiently waiting, a lot
of times we want to wiggle out of
it.
Well sometimes we do wiggle out of it.
We make our own decisions instead of waiting
on God and guess what?
God lets us wiggle right into another one.
You know moving all the way across the
country is not going to solve your problems.
Your personal problems.
But moving into the will of God will.
I was sharing some thoughts and some meditations
last week from an old preacher by the
name of Raymond Edmond.
And I might share a few more with
you this morning.
I want to close up by sharing with
you an amazing passage in the book of
Mark on Jesus and his disciples.
And it's when Jesus was taking them away
they had never seen before.
You see one of the things that throws
us is sometimes God takes us away that
we had not planned on.
A way that we've never seen before.
And it throws us off track.
It gives us a jolt.
And we even sometimes wonder if it's God.
But let me assure you that nothing will
happen in your life that God isn't aware
of.
Now I'm not saying he's responsible for sin.
You can't blame sin on God.
That's our problem.
But he can take that sin when we
have messed up and he can forgive us
and he can make a new life for
us.
Some of you listening today there may be
someone that is just about giving up on
life.
And as I go back to myself back
in many years ago, 1966, when God got
a hold of me and I was thinking
about checking out on this old life.
About burn up with life at the old
age of 19.
Psychology major in the university.
About Freud, fried my brain on Freud.
Getting into that occultic stuff.
Listening to the voices of demons and God
loved me and he drew me out of
that and he drew me to Jesus.
And I saw that I didn't need to
be there to make a lot of money.
Get an education, get a degree so I
could hang out a shingle.
No, what I needed was Jesus and I
gave my life to Jesus.
Oh, what a adventure it's been.
It's just almost like a dream to be
going with Jesus all these years.
Boy, we've gone through some stormy waters and
we've gone through some pretty bumpy roads.
But I'd rather take the storms with Jesus,
the bumpy roads with Jesus, than to go
anywhere without him.
You know, the psalmist, as we read this
morning, was the heart cry of a man
that had learned to walk with God.
And I thought maybe God was wanting to
speak to us this morning a little bit
more in this area of taking up our
cross and following him and not fighting and
fidgeting and resisting and putting the brakes on,
but just following Jesus.
You know, David said, but thou, in verse
3 of Psalms 3, but thou, O Lord,
art a shield for me, my glory, and
the lifter up of mine head.
Let him lift you up.
Let him place you.
Let him do it.
Then you know when it happens that it
was really God that did it.
One of the things that the Spirit of
God has driven me to do is put
me in situations to where He gave me
the choice to where I could take an
easier way out or I could take the
hard way, and I would know for sure
that God did it.
There's been many times I wanted to take
the easy way, but the Spirit of God
would say, now you can take the easy
way, but here's the way that I would
like you to take, and you'll know it's
me.
And I said, okay, Lord, I'll take it.
It's just more dying to self, dying to
self, to let Him have His way with
me.
And I found that He is my shield,
and I'm finding that He is my glory.
Now, you may not have a shimmy on
it.
That's your trial.
We were talking about this, not this thing,
but this thing of being godly and being
spiritual and being mature.
Pastor and some more men a few weeks
ago, and we come to the conclusion, and
this is my conclusion too, that no one
ever walks with Jesus without a trial of
some kind.
I've not known anybody that has been godly
and had the power of the Spirit of
God on their lives that has not had
a trial of some kind.
Now, if you have, you let me know.
I'd like to meet that person.
But I really don't think there's anybody like
that, because it's through the trials and the
tribulations that we're driven to our knees, to
fall on our face, and to cry out
before Him, Oh God, I need You.
Now, Father, I ask You to lead us
and direct us on this morning as we
go.
Holy Spirit, give us the lessons that we
need.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
So you may not have a shimei, that
old persistent, rock-throwing, dust-throwing, cursing Benjamite,
but you may have another situation that God
has allowed to come into your life.
And God is saying, let him alone.
Let him curse.
Let it alone.
Let it go, and you just draw to
Me.
I had a little confrontation with my pastor
the last few weeks.
We had a little troubling in the fellowship,
and some things were happening and developing, pretty
rough things.
And I told him the other day, as
a matter of fact, it was just yesterday,
I said, you know, one of the things
when we went through our little thing the
last few weeks, that God showed me, He
showed me that I had taken my eyes
off Him and was looking at you, pastor,
as looking at your mistakes, instead of Him.
And He rebuked me for that.
And that about threw me off track, because
I got my eyes on you and your
mistakes, instead of Jesus.
And He could say the same thing to
me, or someone might say the same thing
to you.
Matter of fact, I don't know if you
have the freedom to receive someone coming up
to you and saying, you made a mistake.
We are so proud that we will not
recognize or acknowledge that we have been wrong.
I'll tell you, I am a sinful man.
If it were not for the grace of
God, I wouldn't go anywhere.
I need it every moment, every day.
And these guys that are perfect, that never
make any mistakes, and never sin and whatever,
I get a little nervous around them.
Especially if they are on TV, and we
got this Hollywood lifestyle projecting across the screen
something that is sort of a utopia type
of experience.
Watch out!
Somebody needs to just pull the plug on
all these things.
And I believe one of these days it's
going to happen.
Because as I can see the handwriting written
on the spiritual wall of the future, we
are in for some rough times.
And this is what the prophets are saying
to us.
Prophets of doom you might say them, but
you better be a listener, you better be
praying, you better be preparing for what's coming.
You listen to Marlon Maddox, he'll give you
all the stuff going on in the world
around that's not right.
And he's right on.
But you'll get warped if you don't keep
your eyes on Jesus.
And you'll get fearful if you don't keep
your eyes on Jesus.
Now let's get back to David a little
bit.
David's not alone in his submission to savage
and searching, invictive.
As Ehrman said, and this is to show
that a soft answer turneth away wrath.
Moses in his day, the meekest of men,
listen to this, suffered cursing, not only from
the multitude, and that could be overlooked, but
listen, from his own brother and sister.
It seems like sometimes we think, God I've
really gone quite a ways, I think I've
about arrived, and then something turns around that
you didn't expect.
Something from somebody very close to you.
You never expected that, and it throws you.
And so here's Moses, even on a trumped
up accusation against his wife.
And then of course there is the Korah
and his fellow conspirators.
What do you do?
Well I think you need to do what
Moses did.
He turned to God.
God you take care of it.
Moses didn't split the earth.
He just turned to God and he said,
God you take care of it.
Both cases, all the things that Moses went
through, he gave to God.
And God was honored by the humility of
his servant.
I'll drop, let me put the brakes on
here in a second, except that Moses had
a besetting sin.
And I believe that was anger.
A root there, that cost him dearly and
he couldn't get into the promised land.
So there's a warning for us.
And that's because he smoked the rock twice
and Christ was not crucified twice.
And we have a cultish system that crucifies
Christ all the time in this world because
I believe of that mistake.
Paul said, I die daily.
The day you forget to die is the
day you may blow it.
And God will forgive you, but it may
be that you can never get back up
as high as you were before.
He who walks with God, walks with God
alone.
And if you soar on eagle's wings, you'll
have to learn to go through the discipline
of the eagle.
You'll have to learn to fly on the
turbulent winds and learn to soar on the
storms of life and the circumstances to where
the point where you do not complain and
grumble and get bitter and bent out of
shape because there are storms but you learn
to fly on those things.
The basis of this program is named on
eagle's wings.
That we would learn the crucified life on
the basis of the victory that Christ gave
us at Calvary.
So we need to learn the lesson of
the cross.
Herman said, the master himself, the Lord Jesus
Christ knew this discipline of defamation in supreme
measure.
Was man ever spoken against more falsely or
viciously than the Son of Man?
He restored to strength the man's hand that
withered and received only the wrath of the
politicians who plotted forthwith to be rid of
him.
He delivered pitiful human beings from the power
of indwelling demons and was portrayed as possessing
demon power himself.
For his word of mercy and his deeds
of might he received from his fellow citizens
of Nazareth a contemptuous sneer, is not this
the carpenter?
For the kiss he was betrayed by one
of his own followers.
On trial for his life he was accused
by many false witnesses toward whose perversities he
held his peace.
Before Pilate who had the power of life
and death he was accused of many things
by the chief priests the religious leaders of
his people, but he answered nothing.
In the days of his flesh he had
fulfilled the prophetic word of Isaiah he shall
not cry nor lift up nor cause his
voice to be heard in the street.
A bruised reed shall he not break and
the smoking flax shall he not quench and
he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.
And in the shadow of death he fulfilled
their father word.
He was oppressed and he was afflicted yet
he opened not his mouth.
He is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter and as a sheep before his shearers
is dumb so he openeth not his mouth.
He knew in practice what he had declared
in precept.
And my friend, that's what he's trying to
get you and me to.
To the point of where we know in
precept we'll come out in practice.
I heard Stanley many weeks ago say on
a program that if you have a bad
attitude it's going to be followed by bad
actions.
So that attitude needs to be dealt with.
One of the things that God showed me
in the revival services we had here with
a man from Georgia by the name of
Charlie Orr.
And I have permission to play some of
his messages for you.
And I don't know, maybe the Spirit of
God is holding me off.
I wanted to do that last week and
this week.
But let me tell you, there was so
much conviction.
Grown men were shaking in their seats and
their wives got up.
Two of them, their wives got up and
went downstairs to the prayer room to pray
for them.
So much conviction.
And if you and I do not have
something right in our life there's going to
be conviction of the sin and we're going
to have the response of repenting, recognizing that
we're right, that the Holy Spirit...
I mean that we're wrong, the Holy Spirit
is right and that we better get right
or we're going to turn and walk away.
And we'll have some bitter words to say
against the messenger.
I saw that.
Some wouldn't come back to the meetings.
I'm going to play his tapes for you.
If God will release me to do that,
I have His permission.
So you can hear what a powerful revivalist
is.
He's just a man, like you and I,
but God has taken him to the cross.
Taken him to the bottom of the well.
And beat him to pieces.
As He does with you and me to
get Jesus in there.
This old self doesn't die easy.
And so if we'll get to the point
to where we will be like Jesus where
we will not open our mouth, even if
we're crucified on a cross and turn and
say, why you dirty guy, why are you
crucifying me?
But he committed himself to God continually.
And that's where God wants you and I
to continually commit ourselves to Him.
You see, we show our beliefs, not so
much by what we say in our theology
and the preachers around the country.
We preach and we preach and preach.
But it's not what we're preaching that's bothering
folks.
It's how we're living.
As Gelfeisen said, it's not orthodoxy we need.
Orthopraxy is what we need.
How is it when you go home and
you're with your family?
How is it when you go to work
and you're with your colleagues there?
Do you listen to the dirty stories?
Do you cheat on the time?
Do you leave early?
Get there late?
Do you beat your kids?
Do you verbally beat them?
Are you white?
Are you critical, cynical?
Are you jealous?
You see, your doctrine doesn't mean anything.
What's in the life?
There's a love of Jesus there.
This morning, I went to my little 5
-year-old and he had just...
I was on the phone with somebody and
my 12-year-old came out of his
bedroom and I don't know what kind of
burr he had under his saddle, but he
came behind her and slammed the door.
Behind her.
Now, that was bad enough, but he slammed
the door before she got her hand out
of the door and it hurt her hand.
And I was on the phone beginning to
get a little heated up.
Well, when I got off the phone, I
went in there to see how the 12
-year-old was and I thought she'd lived,
so I went back into the room after
the 5-year-old and gave him a
pop on the behind without a warning.
I was angry.
Well, after a few minutes, I had to
confess my sin to him, ask him to
forgive me for my anger.
We had had several things going wrong and
then Dad jumping in there didn't help it.
I asked him to forgive me.
I told him, Daddy had gotten mad and
it was sin and he forgave me.
But you know what?
That little rascal would not ask his sister
to forgive him for slamming that door on
her hand.
And I stood him in the corner in
her room so he'd had plenty of opportunity
with her there for about 10 minutes.
Still wouldn't do it.
So finally I went in and I talked
to him.
I said, are you about ready to do
it?
He says, okay.
And so he did it.
I don't know how his attitude was, but
we got the action out.
You know, we can have right actions many
times but still have wrong attitudes.
We can have the right words but still
have the wrong attitudes.
And out of the abundance of the heart,
the mouth speaks.
And so God's going to take you and
I through the trials that we need to
show us our own heart.
To show us the deceitfulness of our own
heart.
And God may be doing that with you.
I want to close up with something.
By the way, the Bible says in Romans
12, 17-21, Recompense to no man evil
for evil.
Provide things honest in the sight of all
men.
If it be possible, as much as lieth
in you, live peaceably with all men.
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves but rather give
place unto wrath for it is written, vengeance
is mine.
I will repay, saith the Lord, therefore if
thine enemy hunger feed him.
If he thirst, give him drink for in
so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire
on his head.
Be not overcome of evil but overcome evil
with good.
If you and I don't learn the power
of the cross and the crucified life, we'll
be overcome with evil.
And it may be that you've had Jesus
come your way in a way that you
hadn't thought of.
Now, I want to share this in closing
with you.
You know, in Mark chapter 10, verse 32,
the Scripture says, And they were in the
way going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus went
before them, and they were amazed.
And as they followed they were afraid, and
He took again the twelve and began to
tell them what things should happen unto Him.
And He goes into the Scripture.
But the thing I want to focus on
is that they were amazed.
There was something about the countenance, the pace,
and the direction of Jesus.
As He headed for Calvary that amazed them,
it was unusual, unexpected.
And it may be that God has taken
you away that is unusual.
It's amazing you.
It's almost thawing you.
And you can't understand.
Let me encourage you, hang in there with
God.
Don't give up.
Chambers said on this passage, he said, At
the beginning, we were sure we knew all
about Jesus Christ.
It was a delight to sell all and
to fling ourselves out into a hardy hood
of love, but now we're not quite so
sure.
Jesus is in the front, and He looks
strange.
Jesus went before them, and they were amazed.
There is an aspect of Jesus that chills
the heart of a disciple to the core
and makes the whole spiritual life grasp for
breath.
And He said, This strange being with His
face set like a flint and His striding
determination strikes terror into me.
He is no longer counselor and comrade.
He is taken up with a point of
view I know nothing about.
And I am amazed at Him.
At first, I was confident that I understood
Him, but now I'm not so sure.
I begin to realize there is a distance
between Jesus Christ and me.
I can no longer be familiar with Him.
He is ahead of me, and He never
turns around.
I have no idea where He's going.
And the goal has become strangely far off.
Have you ever experienced this where it seems
like you're being left behind?
You're losing that contact with God.
And it may be that God is moving
out ahead of you, and He's getting a
little farther away from you in the Spirit
of God and saying, are you going to
jump out and go?
Are you going to walk on water or
not?
And it may be that God is calling
some of you today to walk on water.
And I mean by that to go out
into the deep, to follow God by faith,
casting all your care upon Him, committing it
all to Him, to where you know if
God fails, you know if you take this
step, if God doesn't come through, you're going
to have pie all over your face.
You're going to look foolish.
And that's the way the cross is.
And Chambers went on to say, Jesus Christ
had to fathom every sin and every sorrow
man could experience.
And that is what makes Him seem strange.
When we see Him in this aspect, we
do not know Him.
We do not recognize one feature of His
life.
And we do not know how to begin
to follow Him.
He is on the front, a leader who
is very strange and we have no comradeship
with Him.
He goes ahead of us.
He launches out, my friend, to show us
that we've got to go deeper if we're
going to go on with Him and walk
deeper.
And Chambers closed and he said, the discipline
of dismay is essential in the life of
discipleship.
But he says, listen, the danger is to
get back to a little fire of our
own and kindle enthusiasm at it.
And he takes that from Isaiah 50, 10
-11.
When the darkness of dismay comes, endure until
it is over.
Because out of it will come that following
of Jesus, which is unspeakable joy.
Go with Jesus.
If it gets dark, you just hang in
there.
But don't turn back to the lesser way.
Now I've got to go.
My time's gone.
Let me leave you with these words.
Jesus Christ is all you need.
But have you got to the point in
your life to where He's all you want?
Till next time, I trust that God will
continue to bless you, my friend.