This message is one of the Times Square
Church pulpit series.
It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times
Square Church in Manhattan, New York City.
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We're going to take him at his word.
Hallelujah.
We'll be a blessed people.
Today, a very simple word, and probably not
too long of a word, but sometimes those
simple ones have a way of getting the
message through.
And the title of my message today is,
Led Into Abundance.
Father, I pray now, oh God, I need
you and I need the quickening power of
the Holy Spirit.
Lord, please let this word come forth in
clarity.
Let you be glorified in it.
Oh God, bring your people, oh God, into
the glory of it.
Give us, oh God, the strength, my Jesus,
to hear it and receive it.
And Lord, we'll give you all the praise
and the glory because Lord, we know you're
leading us to a place, oh God, in
you.
Lord, that we can't go by ourselves.
So Lord, we will give you the praise
and the glory because it all belongs to
you.
And I thank you, Lord, you're making that
so real to our heart.
In Jesus' precious name, I pray.
Amen.
Jesus said, I am come that they may
have life and that they might have it
more abundantly.
Beloved, the whole mission Jesus expressed purpose was
that he, his sheep, would have not just
life but abundant life.
And we heard so clearly this morning, as
powerfully as I have ever heard it, how
that the abundance is in Jesus Christ.
That everything that we need, our total supply
for spirit, soul, and body to be nourished
and not just be healthy but to know
what it is to flow in divine life
and be transformed by that life is found
in Jesus Christ.
It's found in that union and communion with
him.
But that was this morning's message.
And I, it was, I can't say enough
how, if you haven't heard that, to get
that tape.
But today, I want to talk about being
led into that abundance.
And if you would turn with me to
2 Kings chapter 7, 2 Kings 7, we're
just going to look at a few verses
today.
Being led into the abundant life in Jesus
Christ is a place where no man can
go alone.
Alone.
It's a place where God wants to take
us but we can never get there ourselves.
It's a place where that, that road really
starts in the heart of God.
It goes right, and it goes right through
into our heart.
And so we can't see that road with
our physical eye.
And we can't know it by our human
understanding.
But it's a place that, where Jesus is
going to give us his life where it
says, Lord, I give you my anger.
Please give me your peace.
Lord, I give you my bitterness.
God, give me your forgiveness.
Lord, I want, I give you all my
unselfish, my selfishness.
And Lord, give me your love.
It's that kind of place where we live
in that tension.
Where God, I see what's rising up in
my heart.
And Lord, you've come and dwelt in me
so that I can have a different heart.
Where I can have a different response.
I can live a different life.
I can think with a different mind.
And in 2 Kings 7, just a few
verses, that road that leads to abundance is
very succinctly told in the life of the
people found in these chapters, in these verses.
And the backdrop is that I spoke about
last week.
But it talks about when Samaria, the northern
kingdom, was besieged by Syrian armies.
And it was shut up straight.
And that these armies had come in against
this city, Samaria, dwelt by the Israelites in
the northern kingdom.
And basically, a people led by a leadership
so far from belief and so far from
the heart of God.
And the enemies, the Syrians came and they
surrounded the city so that no one could
go in or out.
And it was so bad there that the
scripture tells us that the starvation set in
and cannibalism started.
And the leadership at that time in that
city rose up and wanted to blame Elisha,
the prophet, the man with God's word.
And he wanted to blame them.
And as we join this story now, Samaria
is still in that siege.
They are still starving within the walls.
In 2 Kings 7, starting at verse 3,
it says, And there were four leprous men
at the entering in of the gate.
And they said one to another, Why sit
here until we die?
If we say we will enter into the
city, then the famine is in the city
and we shall die there.
And if we sit still here, we die
also.
Now therefore, come and let us fall unto
the host of the Syrians.
If they save us alive, we shall live.
And if they kill us, we shall but
die.
Now here's four lepers sitting outside the city
gate and they are dying.
And they know it.
And a cry for some reason comes over
them for life.
A cry enters into their spirit because I
believe that they are suddenly, they are living
in touch, they are in touch with their
reality.
They said, Listen, we are living in a
place of absolute death.
And they said, Well, what are we going
to do?
This quickening, this sitting there and dying, all
of a sudden it's forcing them to see
what are our options because there's a cry
for them for life and for hope.
And they reviewed their options.
And they said, Well, if we sit in
the city, if we go back to the
city, there's death there and we'll die there.
If we go back to what's there, we're
no better off than we are right now.
We're not welcome anyway.
We're lepers, we're cast out.
And they understood that going back to the
past, that certain death waited them there.
They said, We'll die there.
But they said, If we sit here and
do nothing, watch each other fall apart, if
we hide from the truth and the conviction,
we're going to die here.
Why should we sit here and die?
But beloved, I think that's kind of a
remarkable thought they had.
Because most people in their situation won't look
at themselves and their surroundings truthfully because it
just seems to add more pain to a
painful life.
They're lepers and that's a type of sin.
That's a type of a God-given life
being eaten away by something.
It's a type of an unbeliever who's not
yet come into life with God, has not
had their sins forgiven.
It's a type of someone who is paralyzed
by their unbelief and their doubt.
Even knowing all the promises of God and
can recite them, somehow something has gripped their
spirit that says, Nothing is going to ever
change.
Why get my hopes up?
Why I'll only be disappointed and perhaps I'll
lose the little faith that I have.
And yet a challenge to these thoughts are
starting to arise in them.
I believe the Spirit of God is starting
to stir them.
But yet the old strongholds of doubt are
crying out.
Why look at your life square in the
face?
Why look at this death?
All you see is death.
You're a leper.
There's a famine.
There's starvation.
You're at war.
Sit down and pretend.
Sit down and get distracted.
Sit down and turn away from the truth
because you'll just get hurt more.
But beloved, I believe in earmark that God
is working in our life is when a
determination to see starts to grip us.
You see, God is truth.
Jesus is truth.
And that Spirit of truth that will come
into the life of a believer somehow will
not let us sit in darkness.
It will not let us as those in
Samaria shut up and unable to see and
hear at this point.
But these people are outside that gate and
though they're leprous, they are sitting outside of
a fortress and God is able to get
a hold of them.
And the Spirit of truth is saying, I
want you to see something you need to
see.
And when they look initially that you could
say, that's too painful.
I don't want to look.
That's about death.
I want to run.
But somehow the Spirit of God comes upon
them and says, look.
And they come to the conclusion.
If we sit here, if we do nothing,
we will die.
And so a cry for life comes upon
them.
A cry for hope.
It was given them.
It was given to them.
Beloved, why should a lepers want to hope?
They have an incurable disease at that time.
Why should lepers want to live?
They'll only be forced to live apart from
people, only be forced to cry out unclean.
Why?
Why are these four men?
Why is something stirring upon them?
Because truth was leading them, beloved.
Because they decided not to hide from themselves
or their situation.
When we decide not to hide from ourselves
or our situation, you know that you're in
the grip of God.
No matter how painful it is.
No matter how much we don't want to
see.
God is saying, I've got something incredible for
you.
But you must not hide from yourself and
what I'm trying to show you.
And the Spirit of God stirred them, beloved,
and they were being led.
And it tells us where they were being
led to.
It says, now let's get up and walk
into the enemy camp.
What a strange path God would take them
on.
That's a road none of them would have
chosen.
That is something, a plan they never would
have thought.
We're four leprous men and we're going into
the enemy camp.
God, why are you doing that?
Yet something came upon them and decided that
was their only hope and help.
And beloved, that was the Spirit of God
beginning to lead them out.
Beginning to lead them out of where if
they stay there, there's death.
If they go back to their past, it's
death.
It's God calling forward, saying, I'm going to
lead you into something and you've got to
not trust your own understanding.
I'm going to lead you into a path
that looks right down to slaughter, into the
enemy camp, but you have no other options.
And so the Spirit of God, the truth
of God is gripping these men and they
stand up and they go.
And the Scripture tells us in verse 5,
and they rose up in the twilight to
go into the camp of the Syrians.
And when they were come to the uttermost
part of the camp of Syria, behold, there
was no man there.
For the Lord had made the host of
the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots
and a noise of horses, even the noise
of a great host.
And they said one to another, Lo, the
King of Israel hath hired against us the
kings of the Hittites and the kings of
the Egyptians to come upon us.
Wherefore, they arose and fled in the twilight
and left their tents and their horses and
their donkeys, even the camp as it was,
and fled for their life.
God has caused eight leprous feet, eight leprous
feet to sound like chariots and horses and
an incredible host of armies, not just one,
more than one.
And here's these men walking down the road
going, God, I don't know why we're doing
this, but all we know is death.
And it doesn't look like much hope, but
we feel to move forward.
We feel your spirit upon us to move
forward.
And as they began to tramp down that
road, the scripture says that the spirit of
God caused confusion in the enemy ranks, that
God caused eight leprous feet that were falling
apart and past feeling to sound like a
mighty wind, a mighty chariots and mighty horses
and a mighty army.
And the scripture says that the whole enemies
jumped up in confusion and they ran pell
-mell for their lives.
They left everything behind them, their food, their
raiment, their clothing, their gold, their silver, everything.
And they ran for their lives for the
army that was coming against them.
Beloved, why did God give such a tremendous
rout and victory to these four lepers?
Why did God give them such a spectacular
victory to four leprous men with so very
little faith?
Because beloved, I believe they got up when
they shouldn't have.
I believe that they are a type of
a Christian who said God goes before them
and say, this is my heart and this
is my mind and I go before you
and I will spoil them.
And then God begins to shut down every
avenue where we might have that we might
lean on our own understanding and go our
own way.
And then God comes and softens our heart
and begins to send us truth and it
begins to soften us and we begin to
think thoughts we never would think.
That I'll get up.
That I won't sit here.
That I won't die in my self-pity.
I won't die in my circumstances.
I won't die looking around at everybody around
me losing hope.
But God in His great mercy is such
a picture of what God does for a
believer who with very little trust will get
up.
God goes before us.
God goes in us.
God goes around us.
God does an incredible thing.
God gave them that incredible victory because they
got up and they shouldn't have.
There would have been so many who would
have said their circumstances and lot in life
have beaten them down.
That the enemy of their souls had kept
many down by painting a picture of hopelessness.
But moved on by the Spirit of God
they may first started to feel, God, that
can't be you.
I don't deserve it.
God, this can't be you.
I shouldn't have this.
Because it's a picture of a type of
a Christian who knowing truth will still sit
under the condemnation and the weight of the
enemy.
It's a picture, oh beloved, that sometimes we
get it in our hands.
There's surely there's got to be more we
have to do and we haven't done that
more so God can't be for us.
It's a picture, beloved, when God says it's
about me revealing myself to those that will
open their heart to what I have to
say to them.
And will be honest in it.
I can do great and mighty things.
Why such a tremendous abundance in their victory?
Beloved, because the scripture says, verse 8, And
when these lepers came to the uttermost part
of the camp, they went into one tent
and did eat and drink, and carried then
silver and gold, and raiment, and went and
hid it, and came again and entered into
another tent and carried then also, and went
and hid it.
God didn't just give them a tremendous victory
that they walked into an empty enemy camp.
But these leprous men walked into a camp
that was theirs for the picking.
It was theirs for the spoil.
God gave them a tremendous abundance in their
victory.
Beloved, they got that because they could still
hear truth and open their heart to it.
And I say that you and I, that
we can know victory.
If we can hear, we can still be
moved to victory.
If we want to hear what God needs
to tell us, we can still be moved
to victory.
Is there a cry for life in you?
Is there a cry for life in me
today?
Are there places in our life that we
have looked and in all our best efforts,
we have tried and we want it so
badly?
But beloved, we're coming at it with the
wrong understanding.
And when we have the wrong understanding, we
sit like the lepers at the gate.
We sit there till the Spirit of God
can grip us and say, why will you
die?
Because Lord, I don't deserve an abundance in
my victory.
Because Lord, I don't deserve a victory.
Because Lord, I know who I am and
I've seen places and areas in my life
and it's known nothing but failure upon it.
So God, I can't believe you for great
and mighty things.
God says, you have a wrong picture and
you don't understand me.
And as long as you have that picture
of me, you'll sit at the gate and
die because the enemy will be able to
oppress you and I will not get the
glory.
You will not realize the incredible thing that
I do.
What is my salvation that it brings you?
It's about me moving through you.
It's about me going before you.
It's about me being in you.
It's about me stirring you up.
It's about you having an open heart to
it.
It's about you facing the truth that I
will show you in it.
Because no matter what truth I have to
show you, I am leading you into abundance.
I am leading you into a victory with
abundance.
Beloved, he has to take us step by
step into this pathway of victory because we
truly believe that if we're not all generals
of the army, we don't get the reward.
Beloved, God has to take us step by
step and begin to dismantle all the wrong
ideas that we have about him and how
his kingdom works.
We need to get the right perspective of
who we are.
And I'm proud, not proud, but I declare
today that as long as we're on this
side of eternity, we are spiritual lepers.
That we are in constant need of him.
That no matter how he uses us and
what he longs to do, that because we're
in this place and this flesh and this
tabernacle and there will be the seed of
sin in us, we'll always be tempted to
sin.
And we can see a true picture of
ourselves when we see that we're spiritual lepers.
But beloved, the word to those lepers was,
they said to themselves when the Spirit of
God came on them, why do we sit
here and die?
Why when we have known failure, we know
areas of sin and yet we hear a
great and glorious gospel preached to us, why
will we sit here and die?
Why will we not get our eyes off
ourselves and look to him who has promised
us an incredible victory with abundance?
Beloved, if there is a cry for life
in us, there also has to be then
a curse of the spirit of do nothing,
sit in unbelief, sit uncondemned, sit focusing on
ourselves.
Beloved, there will be a reckoning.
There will be a time when God will
take us to task, but I tell you
when the truth, when he begins to reveal
that he brings it with such a compassion
in his spirit, such a sense of hope,
such a sense of purpose that we get
up.
That way his spirit truly begins to move
on us and a true repentance comes upon
us.
It is a godly sorrow that moves us
to hope.
It is a godly sorrow that we hear
his voice and we respond to it.
We say, whatever you have to say, I
will hear whatever you have to do.
I will do, but God lead me now,
lead me no matter where I think it,
how ridiculous or how I can't understand it.
God, I will not sit here at the
gate of Samaria and die.
I believe that your call for my life
is abundant life.
I believe that you, your words, when you
say to me, I have come that they
may have life and that they may have
it more abundantly.
And so Lord, though, so I sit here
in death.
I'm going to choose to open my heart
to what you're stirring there.
I'm going to open my heart to the
word that you're speaking to me at this
time.
And so they got up.
They did not starve and die with the
disobedient and the unheeding in Samaria.
The fact God knows our compromising hearts and
feeble faith does not change his love for
us or what he wants to be to
us.
But we must be led to this revelation.
We can hear it preached so many times.
And yet the goodness of God that leads
us to repentance has to be repeated and
repeated to our heart and spirit.
It's almost too simple.
It's almost too good to be true.
But to be led down that path of
the revelation of this glorious salvation, of this
glorious abundant life that he's longing to give
us and that we have.
Beloved, we must be have to be willing
to be led.
Made willing, I think, is the more correct
term.
Scripture says, Lord, we will be made willing
in the day of your power.
There is a day of power that comes
upon even the weakest among us.
There is a day of power when God
sees four leprous men sitting outside the gate
of Samaria and he says, enough, I've sent
my truth to them.
And they begin to see that every other
option they have is death.
I'm sending my power to them.
I'm going to give them the ability for
this season.
I'm going to send my Holy Spirit and
I'm going to stir them.
And all those that, like those lepers, will
sit in a place that looks like death,
where the devil will condemn us and tell
us it's hopeless, where we do not deserve
an abundant life and an abundant victory.
The Holy Spirit, in the day of his
choosing, in the day of his power, will
come upon his people and we will be
made willing.
Because we're his people.
And the scripture says, we will be made
willing in the day of his power.
God will raise the issues of our heart
that keep us unwilling.
I'll say that again.
God will raise the issues in our heart
that are keeping us unwilling.
God will raise the issues that will have
us consider moving to the left hand and
moving to the right, which is only moving
sideways in our death situation.
God will close off all the paths till
only his that goes right into the enemy
camp.
With the testimony of the abundance of Jesus
in our life, God knows what it is
that he has to remove in our heart,
what he has to expose that keeps us
unwilling.
Because he says, we will be made willing
in the day of his power.
The lepers could have said, we'll just sit
here till we die.
They could have said that because, I'll tell
you something, there are many that have said
that.
They could have said, God, you know, we'll
sit here till we die.
God, are you happy about that?
Lord, I'm a leper.
You could change that.
Lord, I'm starving.
You could change that.
I'm dying.
And you could change that.
But Psalm 35, 22 says, keep not silent,
O God.
It's saying that because there's times that God
answers accusations and words like that with silence.
Because his ways are above our ways.
And he knows that when these things that
are deep seated in our heart and those
things that make us unwilling to follow and
make us unwilling to trust, make us unwilling
to be led down a path we can't
understand.
God says, I'm committed to exposing it in
your heart because you're going to be made
willing in the day I move.
And so God begins to expose.
And many times he does it with silence,
beloved.
Because in our heart, if there's accusations forming
and doubt and unbelief, if there are things
there that are honest and they're raging, God's
silence gets our attention if we're his.
God's silence keeps the heart seeking because our
questions keep the turmoil raging.
Our questions keep us in a rage and
a turmoil till we will long for rest.
And then finally we'll be open.
And we'll be open to his word.
We'll be open to his answer.
Till our accusations become a cry.
Till he turns our accusations and our unbelief
into an honest gut cry.
And when God is doing that, then he
says a broken spirit and a contrite heart.
You will not despise, O God.
Beloved, so many times he has been loving
us in his silence.
He has been working powerfully in his silence
because he knows the area of heart that
are unwilling to follow him into the abundant
life he has for us.
We say we want the abundant life.
We say, Jesus, all of you and none
of me.
But the Lord God Almighty knows in reality
what the heart is and what path it
must be taken along.
And what kind of leading and handling it
must have to be made willing.
Why sit here until we die?
The Lord moves them down a mysterious road
into the enemy camp and into abundance.
And they did not only had abundance when
they walked God's way.
These lepers walked in, not just to abundance,
but to joy, to revelation.
They alone knew that the besieging army had
fled.
There's an army walled up over the hill
that knows nothing but what they know.
These men have been brought into a revelation.
They see with their eyes what God had
done with so very little that they had
given him.
All they did was respond.
All they did was say, God, yes, I
agree with your truth.
I agree what you're showing me about me
and my life.
And God was able to do with so
much with so little.
And God brought them into the enemy camp.
And now they see that their enemies are
bred for them.
They see that their enemies have departed.
And their enemies have left them nothing but
spoil, nothing but riches.
God also delivered the lepers from the city
of Samaria.
And Samaria, beloved, is a place where truth
is proclaimed.
But there's no power to deliver in this
truth.
You know people, I know people who say,
I know truth, I understand truth.
But there is no deliverance, there's no transformation
in the life.
Beloved, if we're in that place where we
say, I know truth, I understand truth.
But we are without transformation.
I know truth, but we're not in a
place where God is able to squeeze us
and to open our eyes to reality.
If there's not something going on, beloved, we
must say, what is the truth that I
seemingly think I understand?
And Samaria was this place where they had
truth, but there was no deliverance.
It was a city constantly under siege or
starvation all the while saying, the Lord God,
He is our God.
It's a place with a history.
It's a place, Samaria is a city and
Samaria is a surrounding area.
And the people who lived in it eventually
be called Samaritans.
And it was first founded by a man
who set it on a high place.
And there he built high places.
He was an idolater.
But its roots came in a man named
Jeroboam who was given legitimately by God the
ten northern kingdoms.
But because they had to go to Jerusalem,
the southern kingdom, he was afraid of them
coming under the dominion of another king.
And so he said, don't you worry about
it.
You don't have to go to Jerusalem to
worship.
He said, I'll build you altars just like
in Jerusalem.
I'll build you places to worship that look
just like what happens in Jerusalem.
I'll close the priests in the same clothes
like they do where in Jerusalem.
The same services and the rituals that they
do in Jerusalem, we'll do it here.
And we won't just have it in one
place.
We'll have it all over Samaria.
We'll have all these high places of worship
that you can come.
And it looks just like what takes place
in Jerusalem.
And it looked, to the untrained eye, it
could look like a mini-revival breaking out
all over that land.
But beloved, it was anything but.
Because God, it's God's decree when He says,
I am the one who choose how you
worship me and where you worship me and
with what you will worship me with.
It was Jeroboam saying, I'll build you altars
that you can come and worship at.
But God was not at that altar.
God was not in it.
God was not with them.
And so there never was deliverance in their
truth.
There never was a release.
There never was the protection.
There never was the comfort.
There never was a shepherd as one looking
after his sheep when they would go to
these altars because God was not there.
They were in the wrong place.
But they could have recited the truths that
those that went to Jerusalem, they would share
the same common truth.
But one people were a delivered people that
believed it.
And now we have another people that have
truth, but they're sealed up in a wall,
starving to death, surrounded by their enemies.
But beloved, God loved them.
He raised up Elijah and Elisha to try
to draw people out of that northern kingdom,
to draw people out of the Samaritans.
And because they couldn't hear the word anymore,
because they had unrighteous leadership over them, because
they were being fed and they worshipped at
a desecrated altar, at a rejected altar, and
all their pleas and all their cries for
worship would go unheeded, except for the cry
for truth.
And that's still today.
Every other altar, every altar that God has
not established and appointed, the only cry that
God will hear from mankind is a cry
for truth.
And so this God still wants to reach
out to these Samaritans and they can't hear
him anymore.
They feel we have truth.
And it's not done us much good.
We claim Jehovah is our God and we
have no deliverance and we're starving.
And so God can't speak to them by
his word, so he speaks to them through
events.
So he speaks to them through events.
And he brings one calamity after another, he's
after their heart.
Wars and sieges and starvation.
But he took his four lepers and he
took them outside of that gate of Samaria.
He took them outside that city of Samaria,
where they could hear.
Beloved, sometimes we don't realize, but the most
precious thing we have in our life is
that God is still talking to us.
That God is not giving up on us.
That when we cry, he hears.
That when we say, God, I give you
my life, he takes it.
When I say, God, lead me down the
path, no matter how I go kicking or
screaming, he says, okay, I love you, I'll
take you there.
Beloved, these lepers were outside the city of
Samaria, a place that was shut up to
idol worship and under the dominion of evil
men, said lies to turn them against truth.
These men were sitting outside of that and
God could speak to them.
Sometimes we don't understand what a blessed place
we're in, where we're in a place where
God can still speak to us.
If we're in a place where it's a
rebuke, a reproof, or a blessing, or an
I love you, I am with you.
I'll take you through this season.
I'll take you through this next little while.
I'll give you a testimony of abundance if
you trust me, if you will not sit
there and be condemned, if you will not
sit there with your mouth shut, if you
will not sit there and feel I don't
deserve it.
I am the God that saved you.
I have an appointed place.
Beloved, that appointed place, you know, that he
chose for an altar was a cross.
And that place where he said you will
sacrifice to me was a place in Calvary.
And his son, Jesus Christ, was the sacrifice.
And today that's how we come.
That's how we come to him saying, Lord,
I want that abundant life.
When we come to the Father through the
Son, saying I'm coming to the appointed place,
every other altar that I've created, saying it
was truth, saying, God, this is how you
act.
And God, this is how you deal.
I will tear it down.
Or God, I'll ask you to demolish it
by your spirit.
And I ask you to bring me to
the one place, oh God, that you hear
and that you bless and that you save
and that you deliver.
Because God, when I will go through Jesus
Christ and I'll ask him to lead me
into the abundant life he's promised me, he
will take me right into the camp of
the enemies and he will give me an
abundance not less than what the lepers had.
The scripture says, for as many as are
led by the Spirit of God, they are
the sons of God.
Today, if we come to Jesus Christ and
we say, Jesus, live your life in me.
He says, I will.
Now follow me.
And the assurance that you're saved, beloved, is
that we can be led.
The assurance that we're saved is that we
can be led in life and we can
be led into life.
The leading in our lives, I have found,
often goes the smoothest when we're the most
dependent.
Independence, really in a nutshell, is when our
independence has been broken.
Our, I'll, that urge in us will continually
raise its head.
Thank you, God, for what you've done.
I'll carry on.
Thank you, God, how you've delivered me.
I'll carry on.
Thank you, God, how you've given me patience
and a forgiving spirit.
But I'll carry on in case I get
misused.
Beloved, we have to learn to trust him
the whole route.
We have to release ourselves to him continuously.
There will be this raising of his head
that will want us to depend back on
ourselves.
We will receive the blessing of God, but
we will stop halfway into that full, abundant
life.
We will have life, but it is his
purpose that we have abundant life.
Broad down a path we can't take ourselves.
He has to lead us into it.
In verse 8, it tells us about the
lepers and how they took the treasure and
they hid it.
And that is such a lesson to us
on learning how to, how God is going
to be speaking to us to stay dependent
on him after the blessing.
How that we can say, God, I thank
you that I trusted you in this, that
I did not sit down in my condemnation
or my death or my sin, but I
got up as your spirit led me and
you brought me into a victory.
But now these, these lepers in verse 8,
it says that they came into the camp
and they did eat and drink and they
carried the gold and the silver and the
raiment and they went and they hid it.
And then they went in another tent and
they took all that they could carry out
and they carried it and they went and
they hid it.
Beloved, that's such a picture of us.
That God will bless us and bring us
into abundance.
But then we'll want to take it, anxious
to keep the treasure as if we are
been responsible for finding it.
We're anxious now.
We have something now.
And they take it and they hide it.
So finally, after they did that, they said
in verse 9, we do not well.
We do not well this day.
It's, let's review now.
We, we were nothing and God moved upon
us.
And by his grace, we responded and we
were made willing and we walked down the
road to the enemy camp and we found
it empty.
But we found it full and we took
all the stuff and we've eaten and drank
and now we're set for life.
I have life.
That's a picture of us.
I have eternal life.
God, I have a relationship with you, but
now I take it and I hide it.
Now I'm anxious about it.
Now I've got this treasure.
God says, you're not doing well.
He says, I want, you cannot maintain this
abundance through your efforts and your scheming.
You can't eat all the food in this
camp.
You don't have the strength to bury all
this treasure.
You do not well.
God's saying, did I leave you, did I
lead you here to abundance?
Then follow me again and I'll lead you
back to a greater abundance.
And the scripture says that they came back
and they went back to that walled up
siege, siege city to Samaria.
And they said, they brought tidings that could
barely be believed.
They said, we have gone to the enemy
camp.
And beloved, I can imagine on the way
back before they came, these good tidings, there
would have been a struggle in their heart
saying, why should we go back to a
people who rejected us?
Why should we go back to a people
who say they know truth?
Why, why should, why can't we just live
where we've got it good?
Why do we have to go back?
God, I thank you for this life.
I thank you for the abundance.
I have all that I need and more
now.
Why do I have to go back?
Why can't I just hide it?
Why can't I just live the good life?
God says, because I've come to give you
abundant life, not the good life.
He says, because I've given you life, but
I want to have abundant life.
Now you've got to keep following me.
And I say, go back.
And again, the spirit stirred then, yes, we
do not well if we don't listen.
We do not well if we'll not be
led.
We do not well if we don't heed
our faithful God.
Because when we obeyed him the first time,
we were more than blessed.
If we obey him again, he will not
fail to bless us again.
And so the scripture says, they go back
with this testimony of mercy and goodness and
abundance.
They go back with a testimony that can
scarcely be believed.
And beloved, they go back and they tell
the porter and they say, the enemy has
fled.
And they said that all that you could
ever imagine, all that we need and more
is sitting in the enemy's camp waiting for
us to spoil it.
And the scripture, it says in verse 12,
when this report came to the king who
ruled Samaria.
He said, wait a minute.
He said, I will now show you what
the Syrians have done.
They know that we are hungry and they've
gone out before us and they're hiding.
And when we all leave the city, they're
going to rush in.
They're going to massacre us.
They're going to kill us.
And beloved, this king, this scorner is now
being threatened.
His control over the people, his interest is
being threatened.
Faith, truth is being preached.
And all that can come out of his
heart is no, no, no.
This is a trap.
This is a scheme.
But God will expose him as a leader
who sees nothing.
When lepers return with this incredible testimony, we
have been led into abundance and we come
in the name of the Lord to share
it with you.
And so they did.
They shared the news and the word went
through the city.
And some men came to the king and
said, could we not least see, send an
embassy out to see if it is true.
And the scripture says that they could only
find two withered old horses for everything was
being consumed that lived in Samaria.
Everything that had a false concept of truth
and how God acted and how God dealt
with his people.
Everything was being consumed under the lie that
was calling itself truth.
And the scripture says that they sent an
embassy out on two withered horses and they
found it to be true.
And they found that not only was their
loot left in the camp, but the enemy
had ran so fast and so hard out
of that camp by the sound of those
leprous men's feet, that they left a trail
all the way from Jordan to Egypt.
Then they left things all along.
There was an incredible spoil and there was
an incredible bounty.
Beloved, what a picture.
Because the scripture says in verse 16, and
the people went out and they spoiled the
tents of the Syrians.
And these lepers came back with the testimony
of the abundance that they had found in
God.
They went back into a people that they
thought would, had always rejected them.
And they went back to a people who
they didn't think wanted truth.
But because of their bold testimony, the powers
and principalities over that group of people was
broken.
God was saying, there is a hungry people.
More than you know, more than you understand,
waiting for a testimony.
Waiting of a testimony of life.
Waiting to hear something.
Waiting to hear that God is real.
That God will forgive through His Son, Jesus
Christ, that God can deliver.
Because all my life, I have paid homage
to truth and a God that never delivered.
God is putting upon His people, He wants
to put upon you the testimony of abundance
in Jesus Christ.
Where you become who you never could be
apart from Him.
There's a richness in you.
There is an ability to love.
There's an ability to move in wisdom and
walk in wisdom.
There's an ability to have an abiding sense
of the Spirit of God in you as
we walk in His presence and the richness
of Christ fills every hole that is in
our life from our past.
Fills every hole because we've given out to
people and now we're empty.
Fills every hole overfilling.
There is an abundance, an abundant life in
Christ when we walk His way.
And when we will be led.
And beloved, there is a multitude waiting to
hear.
Our testimony is going to be the abundance
of Christ in us.
But God will take us down that path
to make sure it's a real testimony.
If that's not true in our life, He
is committed to showing us where we are
unwilling to be led.
What are we afraid of?
What am I afraid of?
God says that if you will be led
by me, I will bring you into abundant
life.
I can't even imagine it sometimes because when
I sit shut up in fear and shut
up in wondering, God, will you be faithful?
He says, remember who I am.
Remember how I dealt with the lepers.
Remember when I came and stirred them and
brought them to an incredible victory.
That's who you are.
And that's who I'll be to you.
Beloved, I believe God is creating, even at
this moment, a great longing in many hearts
here to trust Him.
That you sit in a place of hopelessness
some today.
Or you sit in a place where despair
can so easily overwhelm, knowing all the promises
of God.
But I believe today that God wants us
by faith.
He is stirring us by His Spirit.
And He's getting us ready to be led
into an abundant life because of the starving
multitudes around us.
Because we've got something to feed them if
we let Jesus be our bread.
Because we're going to bring in a very
blackened and darkened world the only hope and
life this world has to offer.
Because God has a way when He puts
His hand on a man or a woman's
life to close down every avenue in people's
lives.
And in a split second show them it's
death.
But who will show them the path to
life?
Only those with life.
You don't have to explain light.
Light just is.
That's what God wants us to be.
Beloved, will you stand with me?
God is creating a cry even here today.
There's some that say, Lord, I want to
respond fully to what I feel you are
starting to plan in my heart.
That's an abandonment to you.
An abandonment.
Some of you are counting the cost.
But Jesus said, I will be with you
to the end of the age.
And I have come that you might have
life and that you would have it more
abundantly.
If the Lord is moving upon you now
and you want to respond, He's making you
willing because there's a day of His power.
And you want to respond to what He
wants to put into your life as an
abandonment, a trust, a growing trust like you've
never had.
You have some.
But like most of us, we are so
easily besetted by the sin that keeps us
sitting and doing nothing.
But beloved, we don't have to be condemned
today.
We just have to receive what the Spirit
wants to put in our spirit and rise
up and go forward and say, God, I'll
be led.
I will be led by you.
Wherever you lead, Lord, I will be led
by you because I have confidence that it
is into abundant life, not just for me,
but for those around me and for those
that my life will touch.
Will you come now as we sing?
For those of you that have come forward,
this is just a time for you to
raise your hearts and our hands to Him.
I'm so grateful He accepts us just as
we are.
Fully seeing into our hearts and our lives.
But there's the hope.
He does see in our heart, Lord, I
want my life to be totally yours.
And that's why He extended such mercy to
those lepers, because they were His.
Beloved, that's why He's going to be so
merciful and gracious to us.
He's going to put us on our feet
in spite of our weakness, in spite of
all our past.
He's going to put us on our feet.
And every step we take on our leprous
feet is going to be a testimony to
Him.
And beloved, when we lean on Him like
that, we say, God, every step is yours.
Every step is yours.
It's your strength.
It's your will in me to even want
to do it.
Beloved, I want you to hear your enemy
fleeing.
Every time we, by the grace of God
and the strength of God, get up.
When we say we shake ourselves and say,
why do I sit here till I die?
God has appointed me life.
So I'm going to choose life by the
grace of God.
And I'm going to get up.
And beloved, the enemy is so fearful of
that because it's the feeble.
And it's those that say I'm nothing, that
I'm a leopard.
It's those that shake the enemy because they
shouldn't be getting up.
The enemy is so used to oppressing them.
He's so used to having them under his
thumb.
He's so used to having you and I
obey him in areas where we've struggled before.
But this time when we get up, we
go in the strength of God.
We go, I know you're giving me life.
I know you're giving me life.
And beloved, when you get there, the enemy
will flee and there will be a treasure.
There will be an abundance for you.
There'll be a blessing for you.
There'll be a blessing for your family.
There's going to be a blessing and abundance
because our God is faithful.
He doesn't just reward the generals.
He rewards those, the lepers.
And beloved, that's where his power resides.
It's with the lepers.
It's with those who know their only hope
and their last hope is him.
So they get up in that strength.
Beloved, this is the hardest message I've ever
prepared in my whole life.
I agonized over this word.
I can't tell you how.
You want to know why?
Because I don't like to be led.
I don't.
And there's a couple of witnesses here.
But as much as I don't want to
be led, I want to be led.
And anyone who came in and responding in
their heart, that's your heart cry too.
God, ignore what the top of my heart
is saying.
I thank you.
You see the bottom of my heart and
I want to be led.
And so he's gracious to our failings.
He's gracious to our feebleness.
He's gracious to our hesitancy because he's going
to make us willing.
He is going to make us willing and
we're going to walk all the way.
If God makes us willing, we will know
nothing but victory.
Let's praise and now let's raise our hands.
Thank you, Jesus.
Hallelujah.
This is the conclusion of the message.