I wanted to put a pause button here
on the series that I started at the
beginning of the year on the book of
1 Thessalonians.
I just felt impressed this week that I'm
to speak on something else, very vital.
I just feel there's people in here, it's
for all of us because it's from the
Bible, but maybe there's some emergency situation here.
You need to hear this.
You need to understand primitive, not just Christianity,
but primitive about primitive worship of God, how
this all began.
We could find things like this, the beginning
part, anywhere in the Bible, but then there's
this one unique verse that I want you
to focus on.
The passage is just four verses found in
Isaiah 64.
Notice this is a prayer because you see
you're catching it, oh that you, and that's
to God.
So it's a real prayer, but it has
metaphorical language in it.
It has imagery, which is not literal to
be taken literally, but it's symbolic of the
cry of this man's heart, Isaiah's heart.
Oh that you would rend the heavens and
come down, that the mountains would tremble before
you, as when fire sets twigs ablaze and
causes water to boil.
Come down to make your name known to
your enemies and cause the nations to quake
before you.
For when you did awesome things that we
did not expect, you came down and the
mountains trembled before you.
Obviously imagery.
Since ancient times, no one has heard, no
ear has perceived, no eye has seen any
God beside you who acts on behalf of
those who wait for him.
Now that verb that's translated there in the
NIV, who acts on behalf, is a very
powerful word in the Hebrew language.
It has many alternate meanings.
But literally how it could be translated is
it has to do with make, manufacture, accomplish,
and it could read in some literal translation
have it this way.
Since ancient times, no one has heard, no
ear has perceived, the natural mind cannot understand
this.
It has to come to you by the
Holy Spirit's teaching.
No eye has seen any God beside you,
and now God is called the God who
works for those who wait for him.
There's a trait about God that is highlighted
here.
He works on behalf, he accomplishes things for
a class of people.
What class of people?
The ones who wait for him or wait
on him.
Now the beginning part of this is the
very essence of religion.
It has to do, I'm not going to
talk long, because I want to see if
we can see some people move to a
new position of waiting.
There's a need in the prophet's heart for
divine intervention.
Israel in the time of Isaiah were getting
hammered by other nations.
They had turned away from God, and because
they turned away from God, God sent judgment
on them.
Try to get their attention, get them to
turn back to him.
And then also comes this horrible law of
sowing and reaping.
If you sow to the Spirit and to
God, you reap blessings.
If you sow continually away from God, worship
idols, sow to the flesh, you reap back,
because that's a law, God says, sowing and
reaping.
As Israel is being waylaid and hammered, the
prophet cries out, and you'll find this from
the beginning of Genesis through Revelation, Oh God,
if you could just open the heavens and
come down.
Rend the heavens and come down.
Make the mountains shake.
Let the people feel your presence.
In other words, there's a cry for divine
intervention.
Isaiah has surveyed the situation and realizes it's
not in Israel's power to get out of
the bind that they're in.
This is a huge, huge pivotal point in
every life or nation.
When you come to the place where you
realize that the situation you and I are
in, the weaknesses that have been exposed in
our own characters, the oppression of the enemy
in our own life, the people who are
plotting or planning against us as individuals or
a nation, this is beyond us.
If you believe in God, and this is
from the beginning to the end, your look
goes vertical, and you say, God, oh, that
you would rend the heavens and come down.
He doesn't mean literally like separate the sky
and come down in some visible way.
He's not talking about that.
He's saying, God, look at the pressure we're
under.
Look at the heartache we're facing.
God, you have to come and intervene because
if you don't intervene, we're toast.
We're going to be smashed to smithereens if
you don't come down.
In other words, we've run out of plan
Bs.
There are no plan Bs.
No more human cleverness.
No more trusting in Egypt or some ally.
No more trusting in our educational degree.
No more trusting in how smart we are
or some friend we have who has influence.
We're at the bottom now, and we have
no one else to turn to but you,
God.
Oh, God, that you would come down and
help us like you have before because this
was Israel's great history.
You'll find it all through the Old Testament,
especially in the Psalms and among the prophets.
They will go back to the time of
Passover, the very thing that's being celebrated now.
They will go back to Passover night when
the blood was put on the doorpost, and
God passed over, judged Egypt, the firstborn males,
but gave salvation to Israel for only one
reason, because they followed God's instruction.
Put the blood on the doorpost.
It's not that you're any better than the
Egyptians.
It's because you trust in my provision, and
in that case, it was the blood of
a lamb.
You don't have to put the blood on
any door in your house.
All you need is the blood of Jesus
in your heart, covering your heart by faith
in what he did on Calvary.
That's what salvation is, not by works, not
by earning, not by trying to live a
good life, not by trying to go to
the Brooklyn Tabernacle, be a Catholic, be a
Protestant.
Those are dead ends.
You need a personal relationship with Jesus where
you know he died for me.
Can we put our hands together and say,
amen?
He died for me.
But they would look back, the prophets, and
say, oh, do we remember when you sent
the plagues on Egypt, and then you got
us out, and then we came to the
Red Sea, and oh, how you extended your
hand of power, how you delivered us.
We were toast back then, but you saved
that toast.
We didn't end up toast.
We end up conquerors, victorious, not because of
us, because of you.
You divided the waters.
You punished the enemy who was coming after
us.
And then all the way through their history,
you provided the manna in the wilderness, and
then you led us by the pillar of
cloud during the day, the pillar of fire
by night.
All the way through, you raised up David
to be the king after your own heart,
and you gave him the ability to slay
the giant.
And all the way through, they look back
on what were the high moments of their
life when God opened the heavens and came
down.
The highlight of any life is when God
acted on your behalf, when he delivered you
out of a situation, when he provided something
that wasn't there.
Now the prophet is saying, God, do it
again.
It's not like we don't know you can
do it.
You can do it.
Oh, but if you would run the heavens,
and if you would just come down and
deliver us, we need divine intervention.
Everybody say divine intervention.
Say it together to two words.
One, two, three.
Divine intervention.
Now if you don't have faith that God
still divinely intervenes, well then according to your
faith, so be it unto you.
I'm not going to fight with you.
But if anything is true in the Bible,
anything is true, is that he's rich in
mercy to everyone who calls upon him.
Everyone who has enough faith to pray.
You'll always know people who have true faith
because they pray.
They call on God.
Not mental faith, not intellectual affirmation of certain
truths in the Bible.
We're talking about faith in su corazon, in
your heart.
When you believe that there's a God, you
do what people have done from time immemorial,
which was back to Genesis 4.
And then men began to call on the
name of the Lord.
We don't know why, but that was the
beginning of religion.
No Bible, no synagogue, no Protestant church, no
reformation, no choir, nada, nothing.
But some instinct came in men where they
looked around.
Maybe a baby was sick.
Maybe there was a drought, and the crops
were going to perish, and they knew that
meant no food.
We don't know why and how it happened,
but at a certain moment, men began to
look up and say, he's not just creator.
He's a God that you can call on,
and he opens the heaven, and he comes
down, and he intervenes in your life.
He supplies things you didn't have.
He opens doors that you've been knocking on
for years.
And that's how religion began.
The first people who belonged to God were
not called Jews.
They were called men and women who call
on the name of the Lord.
They prayed.
That's why Jesus said, affirming an Old Testament
passage, my house shall be called a house
of what?
Not teaching, not singing.
That's great.
You ought to have been there and all
of that.
That's great.
It all has its place.
But if we don't have transactions with God,
why are we coming to church?
I don't know about you.
I need God's help in my life.
How many are with me?
Lift your hand.
I need God every day.
How many need Him every day?
I need Him in small ways, big ways.
I need Him every day.
And that's why God said, my house shall
be called a house of prayer, because I
love you more than you love me, and
I want to help you.
But the way I send help is when
people call to me.
When they ask, they shall receive, if they
ask in faith.
So let's bring this to a conclusion, because
I told you I didn't want to talk
long.
I want to do this.
Listen, there are two kinds of people in
the world in one way.
God doesn't see ethnic distinctions.
He doesn't know Italian from Irish.
He doesn't know black from white.
That's the junk we've got into in society,
putting up barriers between people.
God just looks down and sees us all,
and He loves us all.
He loves us so much, He sent His
Son to die for us.
But someone has well pointed out, you can't
distinguish all humanity this way.
There are people who pray and people who
don't.
Possibly that's the way God looks at the
earth.
He also looks at those who are His
children, who have been born again, and those
who aren't, who either mock Him, ridicule Him,
turn away from Him, or just merely religious,
but don't really know Him.
But if you know Him, you pray, because
you can't get saved without praying.
Nobody can become a Christian without asking God
to forgive them of their sins.
True or no true?
And you have to ask Him in your
life, God have mercy on me, a sinner.
That's a prayer.
True religion always is accompanied by prayer, always,
at all times.
And that's a sad commentary on what's happening
in America today, because churches meet for teaching
and singing, but the element of prayer is
almost gone out of style like high button
shoes.
It's like a new day.
But there is no new day, because God
doesn't change.
Your needs, He wants to meet, if you
just ask Him, if you'll bring it to
Him.
But notice this verse goes deeper.
What it says is this, He works for
those who wait for Him, not who pray,
but who wait for Him.
So what's the picture?
There's no God like the true God.
There's all these false gods and false conceptions
of God.
But the true God is a God who
says, trust in me, and trust in me
enough that you pray the prayer of faith.
You pray believing in me.
You're able to come to Isaiah's position.
God, you did it, done it before, come
and do it again.
Oh, you would rent the heavens and come
down, and change our situation, and deliver us,
help us.
Bring that daughter back.
Heal this fractured relationship.
God, you have to do it, because we
tried everything else.
We're sick and tired of being sick and
tired.
So God, you got to come.
That's faith.
But notice, faith prays, and then after you
pray, things don't change immediately.
And now here comes the crux.
God is a God who works for those
who trust and pray, and then after they
lay it before the Lord, they have enough
faith that even though nothing happens visibly to
the eye, they're willing to wait for Him,
for His timing, for His sovereign will, for
His plan, which is not our plan.
Neither are His thoughts our thoughts.
Neither is His timing our timing.
So now the Bible says, when you're striving,
and working, and fretting, and worrying, God is
paralyzed as it were.
But the moment you stop and say, God,
I trust in you, and I will wait
for you to stretch out your hand.
The moment you begin to wait, there's a
new working by God, for He works for
those who wait for Him.
God's power comes to its maximum efficiency, not
when you're working, but when you're waiting in
faith.
Now, for clarification, there are certain commands from
God in the Bible that even though He
has to work with us, it means action
on our part.
Like this one, go into all the world
and preach the gospel.
Do we need to pray that the gospel
will be blessed, that it'll go out in
power, that people will be converted?
Yes, but we gotta go.
You can't sit back and wait.
You gotta go.
That's an action verb.
Go.
So you go.
But then there's a lot of other situations
in life, ladies and gentlemen.
Oh, haven't we been there?
Where you do believe, and you say, God,
come down and help me.
But nothing happens immediately.
And now comes the test.
The hardest part of faith is waiting.
Because here's the alternative a lot of us
have chosen.
There's a mess.
It's breaking our heart.
It's pressuring us, keeping us up at night.
We pray.
We believe.
Nothing happens.
Oh, I don't know.
I don't see God doing this.
Let me try to help this thing along.
And the more you touch it, the worse
it gets.
How many know where I'm coming from here?
I know.
In other words, you touch something that God
has said, if you'll just wait, I will
work it.
My power is made perfect when you trust
me and you wait.
But if you try to do it yourself,
that means you don't have confidence in me.
And now you'll make it worse.
Have we not all done that?
Have we not all tried to solve our
problems instead of God's way by waiting for
him to do it?
Why does God wait and ask us to
wait?
Because his timing is different than ours.
And he wants maximum glory from that answer.
So he's waiting for a few things to
happen so that when he does answer, he
will answer.
He works for those who wait for him.
When he answers, he'll get praise and honor
and glory like you and I can't even
imagine.
Come on, let's say amen to that.
Put our hands together.
He works for those who wait for him.
His timing is different than your timing.
And what's the temptation?
There's two.
One I already gave you, and as I
close, it's to try to help God along.
Oh my goodness, how ridiculous that must seem
to the angels.
Oh, look down there.
Jim Simba thinks he has to help God
like God is a little short on power
and on wisdom.
And look at him.
What a mess he's making of this situation.
It's as if God says, angel, stop.
Holy Spirit, just wait.
I got to wait till he gets tired.
And when he's run out of energy to
try to fix it in his arrogance and
his pride, then I'm going to work for
him if he'll just learn to wait.
What a revelation.
He works for those who wait.
That's against everything because we're all type A's.
We're all going to fix it.
Oh, we're going to fix it or worse.
We try to fix it.
We see it gets worse.
Now we're waiting for God.
Instead of waiting, we worry ourselves to death.
If you're here today, I have a word
for you.
Your worry won't change anything.
Your anxiety, you're laying awake at night, you're
biting your nails.
It will not change a single thing except
negative stuff in your own body and personality.
Worrying won't change anything.
Those are the two alternatives we have.
Working ourselves when God says, wait for me,
or, all right, I give up on that
and now I'm just going to worry and
fret and be negative and cynical and unbelieving.
God says, no, there's a better way.
Just wait and worship.
Have enough confidence in me that I'm going
to come through.
This church is here because people have prayed.
I'm here because people have prayed.
Nothing exceptional in me at all.
I'm the most average, below average person around,
but people have prayed.
I won't go into all the stories about
how this church was founded, its formative years.
This choir is here.
My wife is doing what she's doing because
people pray.
She can't read or write music, but she
just keeps doing it, what she does.
I'm happy.
It's based on God's power and not our
cleverness.
How many find that a better way to
do it?
Say amen.
I could tell you the time, as you've
heard me say, when God supplied six million
bucks that we needed as a church in
10 minutes from two people that I didn't
ask, but the gun was at our head
timing-wise.
He supplied that.
I could tell you that story, this story,
that story, all learning that lesson myself.
Jim, stop and just trust me.
Wait for me.
I will do it.
Just wait expectantly.
Don't be worried.
Don't be anxious.
Don't be panicking.
Don't be calling everybody and going off.
Wait.
Worship.
I work for those who wait for me.
But maybe the biggest lesson is when my
oldest girl, that's a perfect example of it.
She got away from my wife and I
emotionally.
She got away from God spiritually, and she
was going down a terrible road.
I should have picked it up earlier.
I didn't, but now we're in the soup.
I tried everything.
Look at me.
I'm going to tell you the truth.
I tried everything.
Name something.
I tried it.
Use money.
I tried that.
Screaming.
I tried that.
Emotional outbreaks.
I tried that.
Yelling.
I tried that.
Discipline.
I tried that, but she was too old
to discipline that way.
Just name anything that you would try to
do when your oldest girl, a daughter you
love so much, is going to destruction, to
destroy herself.
I tried everything, and with everything I tried,
she got worse.
She got worse.
Name anything that you could think of.
I tried it.
This is two and a half year nightmare.
You know, when's your daughter, you just don't
sit idly by.
You want to try, and that's, oh, that
was me.
Boy, try, try, try, try, and then when
I saw her getting harder.
You ever pray for something, and instead of
it getting better, it gets worse?
How many have ever had that wonderful experience,
right?
A voice says, gee, you better stop praying.
The thing will totally explode, and boy, God
had to get a hold of my stubborn
little heart and say, you've preached about prayer.
You've read about prayer, but now I'm going
to teach you something about prayer.
Stop talking to her, and don't tell any
more people.
I told very few, just pray and wait
for me, and that's when the breakthrough came.
God turned her around in a way that
I could have never dreamed.
God visited her in the middle of the
night.
She wouldn't listen to my voice, and she
might not listen to your voice, or that
situation.
You can't solve it.
Can you get to that place where you
know this thing is too big for me?
I can't solve it, but I believe that
there's a God who can open the heavens
and come down.
I believe in divine intervention.
I believe in a Jesus who's not dead.
He's alive, but he works for those who
not just trust him and pray, but then
who are willing to go the extra step
and wait, wait with joy, wait with expectancy,
so there was a breakthrough one night in
that situation, and this was new to me
back then.
I was up at one o'clock in
the morning sitting in the living room in
Queens where I lived then, and pouring out
my heart.
Yeah, I had to preach, but you think
that was on my heart preaching sermons?
When your daughter, you don't know where your
daughter is.
Look at me.
I didn't know where she was.
Do you know what that feeling is?
It's not a good one.
She's a teenager.
She has a baby now, and I don't
know where she is, so I pour out
my heart to God, and I felt the
Lord speak to me and say, do you
believe I can do this?
Yes, I know you can.
Do you believe I will?
There's a big difference between can and will.
How many say amen?
But he helped me.
He gave me faith.
I said, you will.
I can see myself, bathrobe on, and the
Lord I felt speak to me and say,
well, if you know I will, then stand
up and praise me.
But God, she hasn't changed.
I know, but I work for those who
wait for me, and if you'll just praise
me for what you know I will do,
you will see the glory of the Lord.
You will see what I can do, and
I remember hot tears coming out of my
eyes, rolling down my cheeks.
I see myself now, as God is my
witness, pushing off the arms of the chair
and standing all alone at 115 in the
morning.
No one saw it, but no one needs
to see it.
God saw it, and I lifted my hands,
and I began to praise him.
Was I crying?
Yeah, but I was praising him.
He works for those who wait patiently, expectantly.
Close your eyes.
If you're here today, you have a situation
you want God to know you're going to
wait for him now.
You're going to take your hands off of
it.
God has spoken to you.
Get your hands off that thing if you
want me to work.
You're going to stop worrying and be anxiety
-driven.
You want to give it to God, and
you're willing now to say, I'm waiting for
you.
Stand up quickly if you're in a situation
like that, and come quickly to the altar.
Come quickly from the balcony or downstairs.
If you're in the choir, come and stand
behind me.
God, I'm giving you today, Sunday, the 24th
of April, I'm giving you this situation.
I will not worry, and I will not
fuss with it.
I am tired of trying to fix it
myself, but I believe what your word says.
You're a God who works for those who
wait for him.
Bring that daughter back.
We're waiting for that son to come back.
We're waiting for that spouse to change his
or her attitude and be reasonable and soft.
Open the door that has to be opened
only by you.
Supply the monies that we've tried so hard
to get, but we can't get it.
You have to supply it.
Open the heavens and come down.
Rend the heavens.
Come down.
Work among us.
Show your power.
Let the world know that you're not dead.
You're alive.
You're a living God.
We just don't go to church to study
intellectual principles.
You're the God who says, I'll never change.
I'll never leave you, and I'm the same
yesterday, today, and forever.
We're going to wait.
We're going to worship.
We're going to be expectant.
We're not going to be negative.
We're going to be positive.
We're going to be happy.
We're going to praise you even through tears
because sometimes it hurts, but we're going to
wait because our God is never late.
He's always on time.
Lord, I pray one more thing before we
dismiss.
Give us a heart to seek after you.
Some of these folks, Lord, who need you
so desperately, give them the grace of prayer.
Daily prayer.
Prayer in the prayer meeting on Tuesday.
Build faith in them that there's no telling
what you can do to those who faithfully
call on you and wait and worship.
Build our faith.
Build expectancy.
Give us a good rest of the day.
We thank you for everyone who's here.
Bless them and their families in Jesus' name.
And everyone said, every man hug about three
men.
Every lady hug about three ladies.
Come on.
God bless you.