If you didn't understand spiritual life, that would
be a very strange song to hear people
singing, wouldn't it?
Power in the blood.
You know, we talk about power in high
-octane gasoline or power in the atom, various
sources of power, solar power, and yet for
the spiritual life, we know that the source
of power is the blood of Jesus Christ
that never loses its power.
It is the eternal blood of Jesus Christ.
Only it can cleanse us from sin and
free us up to serve God and enable
us to serve him.
And so when we claim the power of
the blood of Jesus Christ, it is the
very life of Jesus Christ, his own eternal
life and power and includes all of himself.
And so we sing of the blood of
Jesus Christ.
We're singing of that which is God's vehicle
for giving us the ability to live on
the eternal spiritual heavenly plane.
Wonderful hymn speaking of the blood, the crimson
thread that runs all the way through the
Bible.
We're going to see something of the blood
in our passage this morning as we open
our Bibles to Genesis chapter 8.
Genesis chapter 8.
Let's bow in prayer.
Heavenly Father, whenever we approach your word, we
recognize our own inability with our own finite
minds to understand it.
And yet you have promised that you have
given us your Holy Spirit to be our
teacher indwelling every believer.
And so we pray as your word is
taught and declared and looked into today that
the teacher of all teachers, the Holy Spirit,
might teach and instruct and guide us into
the truth and apply individually to each heart
and mind and each need of each person
here today.
We pray it in Jesus name.
Amen.
Have you ever wondered how can I know
what God really wants me to do?
Perhaps you've come to the place where you've
said, OK, all right, I'm a Christian.
I've put my trust in Christ.
I'm saved and I'm willing to live for
God.
And I start the day and I say,
God, I want to do your will today.
But many times during the day, you end
up sort of wondering what it is.
Well, you know, it's not as well to
do sinful things and awful things, you know,
would be wrong.
But you wonder about decisions and choices that
you have to make throughout the day and
not only little choices, but especially those big
choices.
Which road to take, which way to go,
how can we be sure that we are
doing God's will in an individual basis?
How can we learn to listen to his
voice more carefully?
To tune in, as it were, to his
channel and to hear his voice speaking to
us.
There are many places in the Bible where
the basic general principles for knowing the will
of God are clearly expressed in doctrinal forms,
such as in Romans 12, 1 and 2.
That if we want to experience or prove
the perfect will of God, that we must
offer ourselves as living sacrifices, not being conformed
to this world, but being transformed by the
will of God.
By the renewing of our mind.
And then we will prove we'll know what
is that good and acceptable and perfect will
of God.
And perhaps we understand somewhat of the principles
of yielding our life to God and generally
following the teachings of the Bible.
But what about the particular guidance of God
in our lives?
I'm sure you've heard people say, well, God
just really showed me that this was what
I had to do, that I had to
go to Albuquerque on Tuesday.
Or I had to marry not this woman,
but that woman, or I had to marry
this, you know, or I went to this
college instead of this college.
Or I took this job instead of the
other one, even though the other one paid
more because God showed me that this is
what he wanted me to do.
And you're saying, no, I'm sort of making
my own decisions and hoping God will bless.
But does God particularly guide people, especially we
sometimes hear of evangelists and pastors who say
God called me to the ministry.
You say, well, I'm doing what I know
how to do, but I don't really sense
that God has particularly called me in any
particular kind of a way.
How does the individual particular will of God
work out in a real life case study?
I believe one person in the Bible or
many, but one person in the Bible who
is very tuned in to God's individual will
for his life was Noah.
Now, it may have been that the fact
that the flood was coming, the flood was
there and all those other things particularly motivated
him to listen carefully.
But he did listen carefully and he did
follow God's commands.
He did walk with God, as it says
here in Genesis.
He was a man who completely obeyed God
in his commandments when God told him to
do it a certain way.
He did it and he knew what God
wanted him to do.
He followed through on those details, how sad
it would be to come to the end
of one's life and to realize that although
you did many good things.
That you didn't do exactly what God wanted
you to do.
You see, God has made us all differently.
He didn't cookie cutter us out as all
stamped out of one mold.
We don't even look alike.
We look different.
We have different abilities and different strengths and
different weaknesses and different skills and talents and
many other things.
And God has uniquely designed you and I
for a particular task in this world.
I meet so many people today who don't
know why they're alive.
I talked to a man just recently and
I said we'd talk for quite a while
and I felt that I could ask this
question.
I said to him, what is your purpose
for living?
Do you have a purpose for being alive
and living?
They thought about it.
They said, well, no, not really.
How sad to be just existing, to be
just going to work, coming home, doing what
you're reading, doing the things that everybody does
and somehow surviving and yet not really living.
God wants every believer to fulfill a particular
task that he has laid out for us
to do.
We must find what it is and do
it and be tuned in to God's direction
along the way to walk with God.
God does not just send us out into
the world to do something in a general
kind of a way.
He wants us to walk with him in
this world to do his will, to go
where he's going and to do what he
is doing.
Now, sometimes we think of people like Noah
as colossal figures, you know.
I think somehow in our minds, if Noah
walked in, we would expect him to be
20 feet tall or something, you know, just
a colossal figure, not any.
It's very hard to identify with some of
these colossal figures in the Bible.
Men like David and Moses and Elijah and
others.
And yet in regard to Elijah, God says
he was a man of like passions as
we are.
He got discouraged.
He got upset.
He got angry.
He was a sinner, just like you and
I.
He was made of flesh.
He was a human being.
He didn't always know automatically what he was
supposed to do.
He had to get his directions just like
you and I do.
I believe we have to realize that the
people of the Bible were people just like
you and I, the same kind of problems
and strengths and weaknesses, generally speaking.
And yet somehow God communicated to them and
they received that communication.
They did as well.
And they stand before us as examples, not
examples that can in any way be imitated
by us because they are so great, but
examples that can be imitated and followed.
Of course, the great example is Jesus Christ
himself, who was completely human, except for having
sin, which is not essential to our humanness.
It came in the fall.
But we can look at these examples and
learn, and that's why God has given us
the Old Testament that we might learn by
its examples.
And I believe that we see five areas
in which Noah trusted God, and I believe
that's the key to walking with God.
Without faith, it is impossible to please him.
For him that cometh to God must believe
that he is and that he is a
rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
God says faith is the essential function of
the human heart in regard to God.
And there are five areas in which I
see in chapter eight Noah exerting faith in
God.
The first key to walking with God by
faith is found in verse one.
And that is that we must trust God
to never forget us.
Have you ever felt like there was a
situation in your life that God had forgotten
about, that it just didn't seem like anything
was happening?
A desperate situation, perhaps the deadlines have been
passed many times, and yet nothing seemed to
be happening.
And you started to wonder that little seed
of doubt began to grow.
Has God forgotten me in this?
Always helping others, and I hear wonderful stories,
but has he forgotten me?
Look at verse one.
And God remembered Noah and every living thing
and all the cattle that was with him
in the ark.
And God made a wind to pass over
the earth and the waters of swath.
God remembered Noah.
He said, well, does that mean that God
forgot him and he remembered him?
Well, if God were like us, that might
be true, but God is not like us.
Our computer breaks down.
We have memory lapses.
If you're like me, this is your memory.
You know, if you don't write it down,
you have trouble remembering it.
And I praise God for papers and pencil.
And that helps my memory a lot.
But God has no problem.
His computer does never break, never breaks down.
He has more K than you can imagine
for you that are into computers.
He has it all together.
He can remember every little detail of every
little thing he remembered.
That word remembered means that an impression was
made in those days.
They had writing on clay tablets was the
way they really made an impression on the
soft clay.
They would mark it with a stick and
they would make letters in that way.
We still have a lot of them today
because they're made on clay.
They wrote on stone, as it said, and
they wrote on the clay.
They made an impression.
It was like it was written on God's
heart.
God remembered Noah.
What it literally means here is that God,
in regard to Noah, is now ready to
show that he hasn't forgotten him, even though
it might look like he has.
When it says God remembered, it just means
that now God is ready to act on
that which he has remembered in Genesis 1929.
It says, and God remembered Abraham.
And it's talking here about the situation where
God came to Abraham and told him that
he was going to bring down fire and
brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah, those two evil
cities.
And Abraham says, but my nephew, Lottie, lives
down there.
And won't you spare the city and all
the negotiations and prayer there is as Abraham
intercedes on behalf of Lott.
And the intercession of Abraham is successful.
And on the basis of prayer, it says
God remembered Abraham and spared Lott.
Somebody prayed and God acted and this is
God remembered in Genesis 30, 22.
Rachel wanted to have a baby.
Her womb was closed and she prayed and
prayed.
And it seemed like she would never have
a child.
And then it says God remembered Rachel and
she conceived in her womb and she had
a child.
First, Samuel 119, by the way, Rachel had
prayed also.
It says that God remembered Hannah each time
the same Hebrew word.
God remembered Hannah.
Remember how Hannah prayed again, a two wife
situation.
And the other wife had all these children
and Hannah wasn't having any children.
And so she prayed and prayed and she
went to the tabernacle before Eli and she
prayed.
And then it says God remembered Hannah and
she had a son that was Samuel.
God remembered her.
Had God forgotten her?
No, God had never forgotten her.
But he chose then to act on the
basis of faith and prayer.
Trust God to never forget you.
You notice he not only remembered Noah, but
he remembered every living thing and all the
cattle.
God says Jesus said this, he said that
God takes note of every sparrow that falls,
keeps track of all the sparrows.
He's got one part of his computer that
just keeps track of sparrows.
And then he's got another part of his
computer, if we could say that in his
of his mind, his intelligence that keeps track
of hairs.
Every hair on your head is numbered and
he's got a little you just see it
all down through there.
How many hairs?
And he's constantly updating his computer as the
hairs fall.
God keeps track of everything.
He knows it all and he remembers everything.
He remembers you.
He hasn't forgotten you.
It might not be his time to act
yet.
Perhaps he has not brought you to the
place of faith and trust and prayer where
he can act as a result of that.
But he hasn't forgotten.
Don't ever forget that God doesn't forget.
Trust God to never forget you, no matter
what it may be and no matter how
long it may seem that you're waiting.
God has not forgotten and he will act
on your behalf.
Then secondly, we see trust God to make
your trial temporary.
Look at verses two through five.
They spent a total of three hundred and
seventy one days in the ark.
And it must have seemed like it was
going to be forever, but it wasn't forever
because God remembered them and he began working
on their behalf.
First to the fountains, also the deep in
the windows of heaven were stopped.
Remember, we talked about the subterranean waters in
the ocean water that came up and flooded
the continents and then how that great vapor
canopy around the earth, the shield came and
and inundated the earth with water.
And God said, OK, that's the end.
That's the stop of that.
And he closed them up.
The waters returned from off the earth continually.
That is, the continents were now draining back
into the oceans.
The oceans apparently deepened and the continents were
thrust up.
The waters returned from off the earth continually,
and after the end of the hundred and
fifty days, the waters were abated and the
ark rested in the seventh month in the
17th day of the month upon the mountains
of Ararat, Armenia, present day Turkey, and the
waters decreased continually until the 10th month in
the 10th month.
On the first day of the month were
the tops of the mountains seen.
That must have been a big day.
What a big day that must have been.
He said, well, it's still there.
Tops of the mountains seen.
Look at Psalm 104, verse six with me,
which is a description, I believe, of this
particular event.
Psalm 104, verse six.
The first few verses of this chapter, he's
praising God for his creation.
And here he is praising God for his
abating of the flood.
Thou coverest it with the deep as with
a garment.
The water stood above the mountains.
At thy rebuke, they fled.
At the voice of thy thunder, they hasted
away.
They go up by the mountains.
They go down by the valleys.
Literally, the mountains go up and the valleys
go down.
Apparently, it was a shifting of things, some
things up and some things down to take
care of that water.
Unto the place that thou hast founded for
them, thou hast set a bound that they
may not pass over, that they turn not
again to cover the earth.
He sent the springs into the valleys which
run among the hills and give drink to
every beast of the field.
And it goes on, describes the water cycle
that we experience today.
God said, all right, water, go back to
your place and the water all obeys God.
You say, could that happen?
Well, Jesus demonstrated on a small scale out
in that great storm on the Sea of
Galilee where he said, peace, be still.
And all of a sudden, peace, it was
still.
And God said to send that water back
where it belonged.
He didn't need it to be judging the
earth and cleansing it anymore.
And it went.
And that flood must have seemed to be
eternal to them over that year.
And they probably wondered what was going to
happen.
But God kept his promise and brought them
through and drained that water out.
I imagine they could have been sitting that
flood, figuring and figuring, how is he going
to get rid of all this water?
Number one, we didn't know where it all
came from.
And number two, where is it going to
go?
How is he going to dump it?
The whole earth is covered with it.
Where is he going to put it?
God had it all figured out and he
took care of it.
This is true of our own trials.
Look with me at Second Timothy, Second Corinthians
four.
What about that physical trial that you're going
through?
Perhaps you have some disease, some illness that
is chronic and it just seems to go
on and on and on and on.
And the prospects are only for it to
get worse.
Perhaps other problems in your life, pressures that
you might have, emotional problems, financial problems.
And you say, I don't think it'll ever
be over with.
I've been fighting the same problem for years
and it seems like it's going to get
over with and then it isn't.
And I'm just under this pressure constantly.
And it seems like it'll never be over.
Perhaps in your family, with your children, problems
that keep recurring time after time after time,
or in your marriage, perhaps you're.
Tempted to give up and to think that,
well, this is just the way it's always
going to be, I'll always be miserable.
Many people taking their lives today because they
figure that things cannot get better, they're only
going to get worse.
But what does God have to say to
us here in Second Corinthians four sixteen?
But for which cause we think not, in
other words, we don't give up, we don't
lose heart.
Literally, that word faint means doesn't mean just
to physically faint, but it means to faint
in the inner man.
But though our outward man perish, yet the
inward man is renewed day by day for
our light affliction, which is but for a
moment.
Look at that phrase.
But for a moment.
And Adamos, an indivisible amount of time, the
same amount of time that it's going to
take for the rapture to occur, he says
in a moment.
Very short amount of time work it for
us, a far more exceeding and eternal weight
of glory, he says, in comparison to eternity
and heaven and blessing, the trials of this
present life are like a split second of
time.
Indivisible in time.
You know, you can put up with most
anything if you know it's temporary and you
know it'll be over with soon because you
still have hope.
But if you lose hope and do not
see the light at the end of the
tunnel, then even the slightest thing, having the
flu can make you feel like you want
to die.
If you lose sight of the fact that
people usually do get over the flu and
don't always feel like that.
Trust God to make your trial temporary.
You know, whatever trial you have today, if
you're a Christian, someday going to be over
with.
Matter what sickness or disease or problem or
weakness or pressure or difficulty you have, someday
it's going to be over.
Live for that day, be faithful in it,
but there is going to be an escape,
there's going to be the light at the
end of the tunnel and that light will
last forever.
Light is in sight.
And so he says in verse nine of
chapter five, wherefore, we labor in 2nd Corinthians,
we labor that whether present or absent, we
may be accepted of him because I know
that he says to be absent from the
body is to be present with the Lord
and someday my number is going to be
up.
So I'm going to live for God.
Now, we persuade men.
Verse 11, we live for God because we
know that the trials are only temporary.
May seem like forever to us, but in
terms of eternity, a very short time, the
third area in which Noah trusted God and
we need to trust him.
Is in the area of trusting him to
give us indications of his will, indications of
his will and verses six to 14.
This is where we have the sending out
of the raven and of the dove.
He opened the window in verse six, took
a lot of faith to open the window.
If he'd opened the window a little while
before, he would have been drowned, probably.
Then he sent out a raven, verse seven,
a dirty bird, not a clean animal, but
one that lives on dead things, probably sent
that out first, figured how the best chance
of surviving, probably the world was just floating
masses of vegetables and dead animals floating all
over the place, and perhaps the raven could
have found a place to land there.
He sent forth the raven and which went
to and fro came.
It commuted, went back and forth between the
ark and other things.
It was into apparently.
And then he sent forth the dove, the
probably the cleanest of the birds and symbolic
of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament.
A symbol even today of peace with the
olive branch in its mouth symbolized here taken
from this reference, symbolizing the peace now that
had come upon the earth, the rest, as
Noah's name implies.
And so he sent out the dove and
the dove couldn't find rest at first, returned
to the ark, and then eventually sends out
the dove and the dove comes back with
the olive leaf plucked off in its mouth.
And then no one knew that the waters
were abated from off the earth.
How did he know God's will?
One of the things was he just thought
about things and did a little scientific experimentation.
He didn't just wait around and just wait
for God to speak to him directly.
But he did a little checking out.
Nothing wrong with that.
We don't have to leave our brains at
the door when we come to Christ.
God has given us brains to use for
him.
We ought to study and observe and experiment
and learn and put our minds to work
as God has told us to have dominion
over this world.
And we see him doing that, doing a
scientific experiment.
One interesting word is in verse 12, and
he stayed yet another seven days.
What patience he showed.
Word stayed means to expect or to hope
for something with expectation, to wait with expectation.
In Psalm 119, 74, the psalmist says, I
have hoped in thy word.
In Job 13, 14, 15, he used the
same word, though he slay me, yet will
I trust him.
I will wait expectantly for him even though
he kills me.
I will wait for him in Psalm 42.
Hope now in God, hope now in God.
He was willing to wait.
What patience he showed.
I think I would have had enough of
that arc, you know, a lot earlier and
would have just sort of piled out and
gotten out of there.
But no, he was waiting for the right
time and he observed what was happening.
Science is not opposed to the Bible.
It is not the science versus the Bible.
A truly understood Bible with a truly understood
science always fits together because God made both
of them.
He made the world and he made the
Bible, the two ways in which he has
revealed himself to mankind.
There is a science falsely so-called spoken
of in First Timothy 620, which often is
seen in conflict with the Bible.
But true science never conflicts with the Bible.
If there is a conflict between the Bible
and science, either we don't understand our science
correctly.
Or we don't understand the Bible correctly or
perhaps both.
So the earth was dried up and scientific
research and experiment was in order and it
gave him some helpful information and he knew
what was happening.
But it alone wasn't enough on which to
base his decision.
Secular knowledge is helpful, but it's not enough
in itself.
We must have a word from God and
we'll see that in the next area.
Now, Jesus Christ did many signs and wonders
and miracles.
But it was his word that did the
job.
It was the word of God that he
used to really change people and cause them
to have faith in him.
Remember the story told about the rich man
and Lazarus while they were both there in
hell and the rich man says, couldn't you
send somebody back and tell them, my brothers,
about this place so they won't come here?
And he says, if someone came back from
the dead, they would listen.
Send Lazarus back.
And the answer is, even if someone came
back from the dead, they wouldn't believe they
have Moses and the prophets.
Let him hear that.
Jesus constantly said, yes, I'm doing signs and
wonders, but it is my word that is
going to do the job.
And we need to know God's word.
We must have a word from him.
It's not enough to just use our own
unaided human reason to guide our steps.
It is not within man to direct his
steps.
We do not have enough ability, even with
all of our technological progress and everything else.
We still don't know enough to run our
own lives without a word from God.
And that leads us to verses 15 to
17.
The fourth area, not only to trust God
to give us indications of his will by
observing the circumstances, but we must have a
word from him on the subject.
Verse 15.
And God spake unto Noah, saying, finally, God
actually does give his word in this chapter.
Up until now, Noah has been proceeding on
the basis of what is happening around him
and is responding to that properly and is
tuned into what God is doing because he
knows God.
Now, God speaks in verse 15 and he
says, verse 16, go forth of the ark,
thou and thy wife and thy sons and
thy sons, wives with thee.
Bring forth with thee every living thing that
is with thee of all flesh, both the
fowl and cattle and explains all the things
and then to be fruitful and multiply gives
two commands.
Go forth, be fruitful and multiply.
God gave his command.
He told him what to do.
It is God's word that is essential to
knowing God's will.
In Second Timothy 316, we find that all
scripture is given by inspiration of God and
is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness.
But the man of God may be mature
and equipped, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
God has given us his word in Romans
10, 17.
We're told faith cometh by hearing and hearing
by the word of God.
It is the word of God that will
guide us and direct us.
That's why we have to be in it
every day, every day.
God will communicate definite instructions from his word
to us.
I remember a few years ago, several years
ago.
I had been here a couple of years
at Faith Bible Church as assistant pastor.
I enjoyed the ministry here very much.
But I began getting, you know, the old
other side of the fence syndrome, I guess,
began thinking that perhaps God wanted me to
go somewhere else.
I began considering that and I was reading
the scriptures.
I came across God's promise that you'll hear
a voice behind the saying, this is the
way walking in it.
When you turn to the right hand, when
you turn the left.
And I said, God's going to guide me
as to where he wants me to go.
And I began looking around at the various
other possibilities.
Then one day, on the very day that
I had decided I was going to make
a decision, my deadline I'd set, I came
across a passage that said this.
Turn not to the right hand nor to
the left, but let thine eyes be straight
before thee and consider the path of thy
feet.
I became convicted.
I wasn't concentrating on my ministry here, I
was thinking about elsewhere and other things.
And God said to me, concentrate on what
you're doing.
If I want you somewhere else, I'll show
you that.
But right now you concentrate on what you're
doing and what you're doing right here.
And God direct me to stay.
I'm so glad I did.
I praise the Lord for the opportunity to
minister here.
I've seen God direct me in that kind
of a way out of his word.
That sounds a little mystical and it always
makes me a little nervous when I say,
when people sort of, you know, this verse
right here.
And you go out and do it.
I'm not saying that in some kind of
a horoscopic, a superstitious sort of way.
But in your reading and study of God's
word, God will direct and guide you out
of his word.
If you want to know his will, don't
spend more time thinking or even so much
more time praying, but spend more time studying
and thinking and allowing God to tell you
something out of his word.
Spend time in the word and he will
lead and direct you.
And when he leads and directs you, you'll
know it.
Somebody says, how do you know when you're
in love?
You'll know it.
You won't need to ask me.
You'll know.
There is an inner knowing that takes place
in our spirit when we know God's will
and no matter what the circumstances or facts
that come before us from that point on,
we know what God wants us to do.
No one knew what God wanted to do.
God told him, you say, wouldn't it be
nice if God just sort of spoke an
audible voice out of the sky?
He may do that.
I don't deny that he could do that.
Of course, I always wonder whether it's the
devil or the Lord.
But if it comes out of the Bible,
I know it's the Lord.
My father tells a story about how he
was trying to make a decision one time
about whether to marry my mother.
He was down at the state house in
Providence, Rhode Island.
Nobody else was around.
He's walking around the grounds.
He was going to Bible school at that
time, didn't know what to do, was walking
around and really considering the matter.
He didn't have a job, didn't have any
money.
He was about to take a church, but
he didn't know how things were going to
work out.
And he didn't know what to do.
He was getting cold feet.
He already promised to marry her, but he
was having his last minute questions.
And he claims that somebody said, marry Ruth.
He heard a voice, he looked around, he
thought maybe it was, you know, somebody saying.
Now, I don't know.
I think it was the Lord.
But usually God doesn't speak that way.
And I wouldn't go around seeking for voices
because the devil can talk to you, too.
OK, there's all kinds of strange thing going
on in this world.
But find him in the word.
Let him speak to you out of the
word.
And if you're spending time in the word,
God will direct your paths.
He really will.
He will guide you.
It is his responsibility to do that.
He said, I will guide you with my
eye.
You notice the two commands here are very
similar to our commands today.
He said, go forth into the world out
of the ark.
And he said, be fruitful and multiply.
And on a spiritual level, we as believers
have been given those same two commands.
Go into all the world and preach the
gospel to every creature and multiply disciples unto
me.
Reproduce yourself spiritually in the lives of others
by sharing the gospel and discipling them to
be like me.
We've been given the same command, and I
believe every major decision in life ought to
be considered with those commands for us today.
How does this enhance my going forth into
the world with the gospel?
How does this enhance my making disciples of
all nations?
This marriage or whatever decision we're making.
My dad heard the director of teen missions,
this mission, Loris Custer's going with speak over
Hillthorpe Church the other week, and he said,
there's there's two words that keep more people
from going to missionary field than any other
two words.
I do.
Marrying a person who is not committed, many
young people come up and they're committed to
God there, they believe that God's calling him
to go out and to reach the world
with the gospel and to go somewhere and
serve him, and they're ready to go anywhere
and do anything, and then they meet someone
who's very nice, a Christian, very fine, but
is not interested in going to mission field.
It's very rare to find a young person
who make the kind of choices that I've
seen some people make and say, if you're
not going where I'm going, then we can't
go together.
If we're not agreed on that, then as
much affection and love as we may have
for each other, we cannot marry because we're
not going the same way.
Trust God to communicate definite instructions from his
word, and those instructions often are the same
ones that he got.
Go forth and be fruitful and multiply.
God will let you know what he wants
you to do if you are committed to
doing it ahead of time and if you
are seeking for his will in his word.
By the way, that's the reason why we
called our broadcast Faith from the Word, because
that's what we need is is to trust
God in a deeper way.
And how do we do that?
By hearing more of his word, faith cometh
by hearing and hearing by the word of
God.
And then fifthly, to trust God, to keep
his promises and wonderful promises are given to
Noah here in verse 18 through 22.
Noah went forth, he obeyed and his sons
and his wife and his son's wives with
him.
Every beast, every creeping thing, every foul whatsoever
creepeth upon the earth after their kinds went
forth out of the ark.
That was better than seeing the elephants come
down the street to the circus.
Can you imagine that all those animals coming
out of the ark?
They must have been excited, too.
They'd had enough of the ark, I think,
by then also.
And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord
and took of every clean beast and of
every clean fowl and offered burnt offerings to
the Lord.
We see went forth.
It took faith to leave that ark.
That ark had been all that stood between
him and the terrible cataclysms that had come
upon the whole planet.
And I imagine sometimes when he was in
those storms and that thing was tossed around
like a cork, like it very likely was
that he was thinking, I hope those nails
that I drove in are going to hold.
I hope those beams don't crack.
And you can just imagine him when he
finally comes to the end of where that
ark saved my life and then to go
out of the ark.
How did he know it was going to
happen again?
Only God's word told him that maybe there's
going to be some aftershocks.
He didn't know, but he went out of
the ark by an act of faith.
Then he builds an altar and you notice
he doesn't worship the ark.
I think today, if it had happened to
us, we probably would have gone out and
worship the ark.
That's one of the reasons it seems to
me why some people, not all people, are
trying to find the ark so they can
go worship.
I think that's one of the reasons why
probably it's been hidden for so long.
You could see it.
Everybody want to go there and be bowing
down and they'd be, you know, praying to
the ark and everything else.
And the sad things we saw over in
Israel's people praying to a wall.
I know they're praying to the God who
is symbolized by the presence of that wall,
but when we see the Jewish people, how
sad it is feeling that somehow that wall
puts them in touch with God.
Noah didn't direct his worship and thanksgiving to
the ark.
He knew it wasn't really the ark that
saved him.
He knew it was the Lord of the
ark that saved him.
And we need to give credit where credit
is due and all credit is due to
God.
He offered burnt offerings, not only an offering
of gratefulness for the salvation that had been
given him through that ark, but here a
blood sacrifice, perhaps thousands of animals burned up
upon the altar, not only showing the gratefulness
of his heart, but showing the propitiation, the
substitute for himself, realizing that he should have
died in that flood, that he should have
been offered on that sacrifice.
But in his place, God allowed him to
bring an animal as a substitute.
Later on in the book of Genesis, we
see or rather in Exodus, we see the
story of how God killed all the firstborn
of the of the human beings, of all
the families of Egypt and even of the
animals, the firstborn.
God took that one in death, but he
allowed the Jews to redeem the firstborn by
a lamb in its place, in his place.
And that's what God has allowed us to
do, to offer to God a lamb in
our place, we deserve to be offered on
the altar, we deserve to hang on the
cross, we deserve to go to hell, we
deserve to be killed and in a flood.
But God has given us a sacrifice, a
substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ, who has suffered
in our place.
And then we see the Lord's response, verse
twenty one, the Lord smelled a sweet savor,
give or go by a steakhouse.
And I think they have a machine in
there just cranks out that steak odor, you
know, all of a sudden you're interested in
stopping at the rustlers or whatever it is,
you know, and really gets you interested all
of a sudden, doesn't it?
What a sweet savor supper is cooking and
if it's not burnt and things like that.
And here it says God literally had a
positive response is what it's saying here.
God had a positive response.
He accepted the offering and the Lord said
in his heart, I will not again curse
the ground anymore for man's sake.
He responded to that sacrifice, that blood sacrifice.
And he says, OK, I will not do
this again.
He makes a covenant.
With no one, his descendants, and he says,
I won't curse the ground anymore.
For the imagination of man's heart is evil
from his youth.
That sounds like a strange kind of thing,
he says, I'm not going to bring judgment
because he's evil.
Now, literally, the Hebrew could also be translated,
though the imagination of man's heart is evil
from his youth.
I don't think people, mankind was any better
after the flood than before the flood.
We see that right away.
We're going to see how Noah gets drunk
and there's immorality going on and all kinds
of problems happen and the whole mankind gets
started all over again.
He says, even though man is still evil,
even from a youth, even from a child,
he starts going wrong.
I'm not going to curse the earth because
I love man, even though man is still
evil and people have not changed.
People are not any different after the flood
than before.
People are no different now than they were
then.
Or even in Jesus time, people have always
been pretty much the same.
We're still just as evil and God is
just as faithful and loving and kind to
us.
And he says, neither again will I smite
the world, smite anymore.
Every living thing as I've done.
And then he makes a wonderful promise.
Verse 22, while the earth remaineth, here's some
new things you can mark down and be
sure of.
Seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer
and winter, day and night shall not cease.
Will the sun rise tomorrow?
Yes, it will.
Will the summer come?
Yeah, eventually it will.
Springtime will come.
Seed time and harvest, he says, those things
are sure.
Many people have today because of the constancy
of the physical cycles of our earth in
these areas have said that it always was
that way, but they forget that there was
a great flood and they forget that things
were not always uniform in the way they
work.
They are now because God has made it
that way.
But previous to this, the flood tossed everything
up in the air and stirred it all
up and has led to much of the
geologic evidence that supposedly is evidence of great
periods of time for the earth.
There really is evidence of God's cataclysmic judgment
of mankind because of sin, of which he
is willingly ignorant.
We see in Second Timothy two thirteen, even
though we are not faithful, he remained faithful.
He cannot deny himself.
We see God's constant love.
He cannot change.
He loves us with an everlasting love and
he will keep his promises and you can
trust them.
How many of God's promises do you know?
If we were to hand out a sheet
of paper and say, write down all the
promises that you know and you could claim,
how many would you know?
I encourage you to make a study of
God's promises and to study all the wonderful
things that he's promised in his grace to
us.
Are you walking with God daily this past
week?
Did you walk with God?
Did you make decisions in regard to his
will and his way, seeking his guidance day
by day and step by step?
Ask yourself these questions.
Do you think that God has forgotten you?
Do you think that your trial will last
forever?
Do you think logic has nothing to do
with God's will and you just sort of
some imaginary way, work it all together?
Do you think God can't clearly tell you
his will?
Do you wonder if God will keep his
promises?
What I want to leave with each one
of us today is this statement.
You can trust God.
You can trust him.
He is trustworthy.
You can trust him never to forget you.
You can trust him to make your trial
temporary.
You can trust him to give you indications
of his will that you can understand.
You can trust him to communicate definite instructions
for you individually, and you can trust him
to always keep his promises.
If you're not saved, God has a will
for you.
And John 639, God's will for you is
that you should believe on the son of
God, Jesus Christ, and be saved.
That's the first obedience to his will.
He says, I've offered you salvation.
If you will receive it, you'll have eternal
life.
It's my will.
You should believe on my son, Jesus Christ.
That's God's word to you.
How do you do that?
By admitting you're a sinner, by believing on
Jesus Christ, putting your trust completely in him.
And then confessing him openly that you're believing
in him, let's bow in prayer just before
we pray, I'd like to ask you, has
God been working in your heart today?
Are you one that walks with God?
Perhaps you say, I don't even know God,
I don't really know what the spiritual life
is that you're talking about.
It's something that I can't even understand, but
I want it.
I want to know God.
I want to come to God.
I want to walk with God.
Well, first of all, you have to come
through Jesus Christ.
You have to put your trust in him.
How many here today would say just by
raising your hand, saying this to me, I
want to put my trust in Jesus Christ.
I want to have eternal life.
That's a desire of my heart.
As far as I know, I'm not saved.
I've never done this before, but today I
want to put my trust in Jesus Christ.
I want to be saved.
How many just by the upraised hand, nobody
else looking around, but just put up your
hand and say, that's the decision I want
to make.
Praise the Lord.
You can put it back down again.
Thank you.
Here in these verses, the Lord Jesus shows
us by his example how to pray for
those under our spiritual authority.
How many parents do we have here tonight?
Parents, you're a parent.
OK, grandparents, how many grandparents?
Great.
Double blessing.
How many Sunday school teachers?
I want to workers.
OK, anybody not raise your hand yet was
a few kids that didn't, but I'd say
the great majority of us do have spiritual
responsibility, not only for ourselves, but for others.
And there is sense in which every believer
has a responsibility for other believers in the
sense that we are our brother's keeper.
And so I believe there's something in this
passage for each one of us tonight.
We're looking at verses six through 19, just
briefly four things that we should pray for,
for those under our spiritual authority and responsibility.
Let's bow in prayer.
Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have
given us your word.
Now open it to us, apply it to
our hearts in a way that we can
live it this week.
We pray in Jesus name.
Amen.
Have you ever wished that you knew a
way to get inside of people and make
some improvements in them?
Have you ever been frustrated in trying to
bring about changes in people's lives, but just
not knowing how to get inside the works
and and see a change?
Do you know you can?
There is a way.
The way that Jesus exemplifies here, intercessory prayer,
intercessory prayer, where we as priests intercede on
the behalf of others before God, Jesus as
the great high priest in his high priestly
prayer here, we are to imitate Jesus in
the way that he lived.
It's a wonderful way to study the Gospels,
by the way, not just studying what Jesus
did, but thinking of it in terms of
how does that translate into my life?
Now, we can never equal the Lord Jesus
Christ, but we can seek to imitate him.
And we are to that is the Christian
life is the imitation of Christ.
And so we see here in his intercessory
prayer for his disciples, he prayed for four
basic things, four requests.
We see that he is praying for his
disciples in verse nine, where he says this,
I pray for them.
I pray not for the world, but for
them, which thou hast given me, for they
are thine.
Now, he did pray for the world on
other occasions, but here he's saying I'm narrowing
my prayer interest and I'm praying for the
whole world right now.
I'm praying for those whom you have given
me, my disciples.
And he had four requests for his disciples
that I'd like us to look at, first
of all, in verse 11.
And now I am no more in the
world, but these are in the world and
I come to the Holy Father, keep through
thine own name those who now has given
me that they may be one as we
are.
One of the things that we should pray
for, for those under our spiritual authority and
responsibility, is that they would be unified, that
they would be one, they being one together,
unified, just as.
Jesus said, Father, you and I are unified,
we agree, we work together in complete harmony,
and that is the same sense in which
I want these disciples to work together in
harmony.
Now, they needed prayer because they weren't a
very harmonious bunch.
They had a lot of problems.
They had a lot of rough edges, just
like we do.
But his prayer for them was that they
would be unified.
And they were.
They became unified and they worked together and
they were used of God to begin what
we know today as the New Testament church.
They were unified.
They were one.
We want our children to get along with
each other.
And if we were praying like Jesus prayed,
we would pray this way as parents, we
would say, Lord, help my children to get
along with each other just as well as
I get along with my spouse.
So I don't want to pray that or
not.
I don't get along so well with my
spouse.
Well, that's probably the first thing that we
ought to look at if we want our
children to be unified.
Right.
He said, let them be as unified as
we are.
Wives, can you say that to God, would
you be willing to pray that prayer and
have God answer it?
Help my children to be as submissive to
me and as kind to each other as
I am to my husband or husbands.
Lord, help my children to be as loving
and giving with one another as I am
with my wife.
But that's the way Jesus prayed and he
is our pattern, isn't it?
Unity, we should want our children, our students,
those under our responsibility, whether we be elders
who have a flock group or as a
pastor, those in the flock that we pray
for, we should want one of the things
we should pray for is they would be
unified.
What do we see Satan doing across this
country?
We see him dividing churches, dividing families, dividing
believers in general.
His method is to divide and conquer.
God's method is to unite and be victorious.
Well, how do we keep the unity?
What are some keys to unity in the
detail of praying?
Look at verse six.
I have manifested thy name unto the men
which thou gavest me out of the world.
Thine they were and thou gavest them me
and they have kept thy word.
What do you notice?
Thy, thine, thou, thy.
He gives credit to the father.
He gives credit where credit is due.
And I believe we see here a pattern
for how to see unity created in our
family by encouraging one another, by giving credit
where credit is due.
If the child does something right, encourage him.
If the wife does something right, encourage her,
thank her, show gratefulness to God for her.
And that is one area of unity.
When we're tearing each other down and criticizing
one another, we are not going to bring
about unity as we praise God.
And then as that filters and overflows out
into even giving praise to others who have
done right and thanking God for them, then
it produces unity.
If you bite and devour one another, you'll
be consumed one of another.
Verse seven.
Now they have known that all things whatsoever
thou has given me are of thee.
He says, I've manifested your name and they
know that all that I've got came from
you.
Speak well of your own family.
Don't criticize your spouse to others.
Don't criticize your children to others.
Children don't criticize your parents to others, not
if you want to have that unity that
God desires.
And then verse 10, all mine are thine
and thine are mine and I am glorified
in them.
What is that?
He's talking about sharing.
He says everything that you have belongs to
me, everything I have belongs to you.
That's a sharing, a commonness of ownership of
all things.
Sharing the early church in Acts 432 had
that kind of love.
It was a temporary situation that was very
much needful because of these people from all
nations that were gathered to Jerusalem and they
wanted to stay longer than they'd expected.
And so they ran out of money and
food and other things.
They needed a place to stay.
And the Christians there, Jerusalem shared with them.
And they didn't count that the things that
they owned were theirs, but they shared and
they held things in common.
We don't see that carrying on through necessarily,
but that they had that kind of love
that shared whatever they had.
And that kind of unity is what the
Holy Spirit desires in us.
And he says, I'm glorified in them, he
says, my glory comes from what is happening
in them.
What is your greatest joy?
Is your greatest joy that your children walk
in truth is your greatest joy when you
see those under your spiritual authority and responsibility,
growing spiritually, coming to Christ, going on for
God, that should be our greatest joy in
our ministry to others.
The ultimate key is in verse eight.
For I've given unto them the words which
thou gavest me and they have received them
and have known surely that I came out
from thee and they have believed that thou
didst that has sent me.
The greatest key is in the area of
faith.
The word was given, the word was received
and the word was believed.
It is in the area of the word
of God and the faith in what the
word of God teaches.
That is a center of our unity.
Some people today are saying that all Christians
everywhere that even name the name of Christ
or consider themselves to be Christians should get
together in one big church.
And they claim this verse and they say
that it's a sin to have all these
different denominations.
Well, I think a lot of denominational ism
is sin, but I believe all of it
is because I think you have to draw
the line somewhere on believers and unbelievers.
And just because a person says that he
is a believer does not mean that he
is.
He must be given some kind of evaluation
on the basis of does he agree with
what the Bible says about Jesus Christ?
The basis of the unity that we have
as believers is what the word says about
Jesus Christ.
It is a doctrinal unity.
That doesn't mean they have to agree on
every little point, but it is a doctrinal
unity on the essence of the Christian faith,
the fundamentals, if you will.
And the greatest fundamental is Jesus Christ.
He is the son of God.
He is God, the son.
He is the only savior.
Anyone who disagrees on that cannot be included
in unity without destroying the meaning of that
group.
If being a Christian means anything and everything,
then it means nothing.
If being a Christian means that I believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation and
eternal life as a son of God who
came to save me, then that means something
and we can have a genuine unity.
Now, sometimes the labels are a little funny
on some of these things and people that
we didn't think could be Christians and be
in that kind of a group are and
we can have fellowship with them.
But we need to discern and have that
unity that is based on truth.
We must pray for this kind of genuine
word centered unity among Christians.
And anything that divides us other than this
matter of the basic truths of the Bible
is sin and divisiveness, as we see in
First Corinthians.
The second thing that we should pray for
for those under our spiritual responsibility is found
in verse 12.
While I was with them in the world,
I kept them in my name.
Those that thou gavest me, I have kept
and none of them is lost.
But the son of perdition that the scripture
might be fulfilled, the protection we should pray
for protection for them, the keeping of them.
Look back now at verse 11.
Keep through thine own name those whom thou
has given me that they may be one
as we are keep them.
And he says, I have kept them.
Now, keep them.
I'm leaving.
You keep them.
We should pray for the keeping or the
guarding of those under our responsibility and care.
We cannot get into their hearts and guard
them from sin.
We can't even with our own children.
We cannot get into their hearts, but God
can through our prayers.
He can deal with them in their hearts
and turn their hearts to him as Christian
school teachers.
Christian school teachers can do many things, but
only God can reach into the heart and
make it desire God's truth.
What a wonderful guard we have.
We have the guard who is Jesus Christ
himself, who says, I hold you in my
hand and I'm in my father's hand and
no one can pluck you out of my
hand.
We need to call upon God and to
claim his keeping, guarding power.
Who are they to be guarded from?
Look at verse 15.
I pray not that thou shouldest take them
out of the world, but that thou shouldest
keep them from the evil.
Out of the Greek that could be translated
either as it is here, the evil, speaking
of evil and sin in general or the
evil one, and they're always connected, the evil
one and evil to keep them from sin
and to keep them from Satan.
The evil one who is a roaring lion
goes about seeking whom he may devour, and
if he can't devour them and keep them
from coming to Christ and salvation, then he
can seek to devour their testimony and their
effectiveness for God.
We need to pray that Satan will not
get an advantage over those under our spiritual
care.
We need to pray for our children's protection.
There's much talk today about child abuse.
But do you know who is the worst
child abuser in the world?
Satan himself, who is abusing children by polluting
their minds with thoughts that call into question
God's truth through the public schools, through the
media, through many other ways.
Satan is seeking to destroy and thereby spiritually
abuse the children of our world.
And we must pray for our children's protection
from the evil one in their minds as
well as their bodies.
I praise the Lord for parents who pray
for me every day, and as far as
I know, they've prayed for me ever since
I was conceived.
They just prayed for me every day.
How many times, you know, I'd come in
or I'd be around the house at night
and I'd hear them in there.
They weren't doing it for effect, you know,
so I'd hear them, but I'd hear them
in there kneeling by the bed every night
praying for me and my brother and sister
and a hundred other people.
But they interceded on my behalf and I
praise the Lord for that.
We need as parents to pray for our
children, that they would be spared from the
devil to claim the blood of Christ as
protection in their lives.
In Romans 8, 31 to 39, we're told
about the wonderful protection that God gives to
believers.
Nothing can separate us from the love of
Christ.
We say, what about Judas?
What happened to him?
Did he get saved and he's lost?
Well, he says, I've kept all of them,
none of them is lost, but the son
of perdition that the scripture might be fulfilled.
Well, was he saved and then lost?
Now, the Bible never says he was saved.
Judas was never saved.
He went to his place when he hung
himself.
In fact, Satan entered into him.
He was the son of perdition, which is
a title in Second Thessalonians 2, 1 to
12, put on the Antichrist.
Perhaps Judas himself will be the Antichrist come
back.
We don't know.
But he was a man that was so
indwelt by Satan.
That he was ruled by Satan.
He was possessed by the devil and he
was never saved.
And if you've been saved, you will continue
to be saved.
And if you can constantly turn away from
Christ and die in that condition, you will
be lost.
So Judas is not an exception to the
keeping power of the Savior.
He rather proves the rule rather than disproves
it.
So we must pray for the protection of
believers under our care from Satan.
And we ought to pray for them.
I think that was one of the keys
to Job's success as a parent.
You say success.
He lost his children.
They all died.
But, you know, he got them all back
in double, didn't he?
Well, actually, he didn't.
It's the only thing that God didn't give
him double later on.
And that's because his first set of children
were already in heaven and he was having
another set ready to go because he prayed
for them.
Bible says every day Job prayed for his
children, offered sacrifices on their behalf.
And I believe that's one of the reasons
why God chose him out of all the
people in the world as an example to
the devil in the world and all the
demons as a person who lived for him
because he prayed for his children.
And then thirdly, we see that we should
pray for them in regard to joy.
We want our children to be happy, don't
we?
We want our students to be happy.
We want those under our care to be
happy, don't we?
We want them to be joyful.
And he says in verse 13, in praying
for his disciples, and now I come to
thee and these things I speak in the
world that they might have my joy fulfilled
in themselves.
Joy.
Now we say joy isn't the same as
happiness because happiness depends on happenings.
Joy depends on the inward state of the
heart.
But sometimes we can so objectify joy that
it is no longer an experience, but actually
joy is an experience.
It is not so deep down that we
can't feel it.
It is an actual experience of the Christian
life to be joyful.
And he says, my joy, not the world's
joy, which passes away, but my joy that
is lasting.
My joy that is fulfilled and the idea
fulfilled is overflowing joy, joy that is in
them.
So joy is that pleasurable experience of knowing
that God is working in and through you.
And I don't know how you experience it.
I know how I experience.
I experience it by a song in my
heart.
I experience it just by just really feeling
good, even though my circumstances might not be
so good at that particular moment of knowing
that God is working.
As Sherlock Holmes used to say, that something
is afoot, something's happening and knowing that God
is working in our lives.
That's joy.
Feeling a pleasurable experience of knowing that God
is working in spite of what I can
see.
We're commanded to rejoice in Philippians four, rejoice
in the Lord always.
And again, I say rejoice.
And then he goes on and tells us
in Philippians four how to keep rejoicing.
You might want to study that over and
see the instructions given there.
In Nehemiah, we are told that the joy
of the Lord is our strength.
When you lose your joy, you lose your
strength.
That's why when you get depressed, it's a
vicious cycle, you feel low and you feel
depressed, you lose your joy, your experience of
joy.
And then what happens is then you lose
your energy and then you don't do much
and then you get more guilty and you
get more depressed.
And it's a vicious cycle somewhere by confession
of sin and getting right with God.
We have our joy returned and then we're
able to begin doing what we ought to
do anyway.
And we begin being lifted up out of
that depression.
Joy.
We want people to be happy.
But so many times I hear parents saying,
yeah, well, I know it's not right for
her to divorce her husband and go marry
that other guy.
But I just wanted to be happy.
Total disregard for God's will and God's word
in the situation, but I just wanted to
be.
I know it's not right for him to
live together, but I just wanted to be
happy.
So I'm not saying anything about it.
Well, what really makes people happy?
I mean, in the joyful kind of sense,
it's walking with God that makes them happy.
And that's what we ought to pray for,
for those under our spiritual responsibility.
Pray that they'll walk with God.
And I'll guarantee if they walk with God,
if they are filled with the spirit of
God, controlled by the spirit of God, they
will have a song in their heart.
They will have a pleasurable life because the
inside of them will know that God is
working.
So we need to pray that those under
our authority will be joyful and then fourthly,
holiness, holiness.
And he says, sanctify them through thy truth,
thy word is truth, verse 17, sanctify them,
sanctify them.
Verse 19, and for their sakes, I sanctify
myself that they also might be sanctified through
the truth.
Again, he says their sanctification is linked to
my sanctification.
Why is he saying that?
Because he wasn't holy.
No, he was always holy.
Completely holy.
But as our example of a high priest,
as a priest praying for others, he says,
if you want other people to be holy
that are under your care, then you be
holy and then ask God for their holiness.
What is holiness?
It means being set apart for God, being
special to him, being clean and sharp and
usable for God, because we are not filthy
with this world.
The opposite of holiness is worldliness, as he
says here.
It is separation from the world unto God,
not separation out of the world, but separation
in the world from the world.
He says neither, he says, I pray not
that they should be taken out of the
world.
But that they might be kept from the
evil one, and he says, thy word is
truth, it is the word that sanctifies us
in Ephesians five, twenty five and twenty six
and speaking about marriage and then talking about
Christ in the church.
He says that Christ sanctifies it with a
washing of water by the word.
It is the constant washing of the word
of God in our lives that keeps us
holy and makes us holier to be like
Christ set apart for his use.
How would you like to go to a
doctor, a surgeon and have him operate on
you with dirty instruments?
You say, oh, I wouldn't go to a
doctor to operate with.
They've got to sterilize him.
It's got to be clean.
Yeah, but what if they looked clean, but
they hadn't really been sterilized and they had
germs on them?
Would you still want to be operate?
No.
God's standards are very high for the tools
that he uses.
And if we want to be used of
God, there is no shortcut.
Our lives must be clean and holy or
God will not use us.
We may use this to some minor extent,
but if we want to be fully used
for God in the full extent, our lives
have got to be clean.
How do we get it clean?
By confessing our sin, renewing our mind, forsaking
that sin and replacing it with something good.
And then we can be used of God.
What does he mean by the world?
First John to 15 to 17 says that
all that is in the world, the lust
of the eyes, the lust of the flesh
and the pride of life.
These are in the world.
They're not of God.
And it is these areas that we need
to deal with in our lives if we're
to be holy.
Isn't that we want for our children, our
grandchildren, our students, those under our spiritual responsibility?
We want them to live holy, clean lives.
We want them to hate sin.
And as we pray, we ought to examine
our own hearts and make sure that we
are holy.
And then we see in conclusion here that
we have a wonderful high priest who is
praying for us and he's still praying for
us.
He ever live to make intercession for us.
When he went back to heaven, he's still
praying for it.
You say, well, I don't have a mom
and dad like you do that prays for
you.
I feel sort of terrible when you tell
that you have a savior who prays for
you.
You have a perfect priest, an intercessor in
heaven who prays for you every day and
every minute, who ever liveth and never sleeps.
He ever liveth.
You have a perfect umbrella over you of
prayer and protection.
The Lord Jesus Christ himself.
Are you praying, though, are you doing that
for those under your care, are you praying
for them?
Abraham did it.
Job did it.
Moses did it.
Daniel did it.
Samuel did it.
David did it.
Solomon did it.
Elijah did it.
Elisha did it.
Nehemiah did it.
Ezra did it.
Jesus did it.
And Paul did it.
I think it's a good thing to do
to pray for those under our spiritual responsibility.
Parents, grandparents, teachers, elders, leaders.
Would you be willing to make that commitment
that before God, as you remember, as God
prompts you, that you'll pray for those under
your spiritual care every day?
A lot of responsibility, isn't it?
Let's bow in prayer.
Heavenly Father, we pray that we would be
like Samuel and say, forbid it, that I
should sin against you by failing to pray.
And Lord, we have often committed the sin
of omission in not praying for those under
our spiritual care.
What a responsibility it is.
Lord, I pray that there might be many
here tonight who would commit themselves to praying
for those under their spiritual care, that you
might work in those lives and that we
might see people living this kind of a
life, a life of real unity with the
brethren, a life of protection from Satan and
evil and sin, a life of joy, the
joy of the Lord and a life of
holiness and purity.
Lord, may this be true of each one
of us as we seek to intercede for
others.
We pray in Jesus name.
Amen.