Shall we turn in our Bibles now to
Psalm 8 for our scripture reading.
Now read the first, the unnumbered verses.
Pastor Brian will lead the congregation in the
reading of the even numbered verses through the
eighth Psalm.
Shall we stand as we read the Word
of God?
O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy
name in all the earth, who has set
Thy glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings
hast Thou ordained strength because of Thine enemies,
that Thou mightest still the enemy and the
avenger.
When I consider Thy heavens, the work of
Thy fingers, the moon and the stars which
Thou hast ordained, what is man that Thou
art mindful of him, and the son of
man that Thou visitest him.
For Thou has made him a little lower
than the angels and has crowned him with
glory and honor.
Thou madest him to have dominion over the
works of Thy hands.
Thou has put all things under his feet,
all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beast
of the field, the fowl of the air,
the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth
through the paths of the sea.
O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy
name in all the earth.
Let's pray.
Lord, indeed, how excellent is Thy name.
And we have gathered together today, Lord, to
worship You and to give thanks and to
honor You as our God.
We ask, Lord, now that our hearts will
be open, that You will speak to us
through Your Word, challenge us, Lord, to a
life that is committed fully.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
You may be seated.
This morning, we'd like to draw your attention
to the second chapter of Micah, verses six
and seven.
Here he is saying that the people are
saying to the prophets, prophesy not.
They say to them that prophesy, they shall
not prophesy to them.
Don't prophesy to us, they're saying.
That they shall not take shame.
Don't prophesy to us.
We're not going to take shame.
We're not ashamed of what we're doing.
For thou art named, the house of Jacob,
the prophet is saying.
And is the spirit of the Lord straightened
or restricted?
Are these his doings?
Do not my words do good to him
that walketh uprightly?
Too many times I believe that men seek
to conform God to their image, rather than
seeking to be conformed to God's image.
Many people have sort of a composite God.
They take a little bit out of Buddhism,
a little bit out of Hinduism, and a
little bit out of Shintoism, and they sort
of make their composite God.
The things that they like about each God,
and they put it together, and this is
the God that I believe in, or this
is the God that I worship.
And they try to conform God into their
image, and into their likeness.
Man is often seeking to restrict what God
has to say to them.
They are saying to the prophets here, prophesy
not.
The question I want you to think about
today is, am I guilty of trying to
restrict what God has to say, or what
God wants to do in my life?
Am I giving him only a narrow area
to control, and keeping most of the control
in my own heart?
He addresses his message here to thou, he
said, who are named by the house of
Jacob.
Now Jacob had served the true and the
living God, and he was often referred to
in the scriptures as the God of Jacob.
And so he is saying to them, you're
named by the house of Jacob.
But in reality they weren't serving or following
the God of Jacob.
They did not have a true relationship with
God.
Still known as the house of Jacob, but
really far from the God of Jacob.
The name Christian was first given to the
believers in Antioch, and it was sort of
a a slur because the Christians are actually,
the name Christian was originally there, but because
the believers were so much like Jesus, they
called them Christ-like.
And that's what the word Christian literally means,
Christ-like.
They were so much like Jesus.
It's sort of like, you know, the newspapers
here talked about the young people that were
worshiping the Lord here as the Jesus people.
And it was a term that was given
to us by the word, world, the Jesus
people.
So the word Christian was given to the
believers in Antioch by the world because they
were Christ-like.
Would to God that we would live up
to the name Christian.
I say I'm a Christian.
Am I really like Christ?
Here are the people, they are known as
the house of Jacob, even more or less
like the United States is known as a
Christian nation.
But we are far from a Christian nation,
and that's what the prophet is saying to
them.
You are far from the God of Jacob.
You have the name, but you're far from
the God of Jacob.
You know, the name doesn't always tell the
real or the true story.
Go to the grocery store, look on the
cereal shelf, and you'll see a box and
it says grape nuts.
Well, have you ever thought?
It's really not grapes, and it's really not
nuts.
So the name is rather deceiving.
If you buy a box and you think
you're going to get a box of grapes
and nuts, you're going to be disappointed because
the name is deceptive.
Many times I think as we take the
name of Christian, it is deceptive.
When people open up, they find out that
we are not really like Christ.
That's exactly what was happening with these people.
They had turned from the God of Jacob,
and still they were known.
They had the name that they were the
people of Jacob.
Jesus said to the church of Sardis, you
have a name that you are alive, but
really you are dead.
You don't live up to your name.
The prophet was speaking to the people who
were trying to control the spirit of God.
He said, is the spirit of God straightened
or restricted?
Is he restricted to your ideas, your concepts?
In verse six, he speaks of them commanding
certain of the prophets, don't prophesy to us.
We don't want to hear what the spirit
is saying to us.
The prophets were telling them that you need
to amend your ways, warning them that the
path that they were walking on would lead
them to destruction.
They were being told that God was not
pleased with their devising evil schemes on their
beds at night, and then seeking to fulfill
them when it became day.
That God did not approve of their coveting
another man's goods and seeking to take them
by force.
They were being warned that a nation that
had lost its moral roots could not possibly
survive.
And so they were saying to the prophets,
don't prophesy to us.
We won't hear it.
The prophets were telling them that they're lying
and they're cheating and they're drinking.
We're not pleasing unto the God of Jacob.
And so they wanted to restrict the message
of God that he would bring to them.
They did not want rebuke for what they
were doing.
They wanted to sin without the feeling of
guilt or remorse or shame.
They wanted people to accept their immoral practices
and not to shame them for their perverse
activities.
They did not want to remain in the
closets, but wanted to publicly flaunt their evil
perversions and pray down the streets in their
pride.
They were saying, don't tell us what God
says.
We want to do our own thing without
his interference.
And thus they were trying to straighten the
Spirit of God.
Restrict what God would say to them.
Silence the voice of God.
They desired that evil be called good.
And they in turn were calling good evil.
If you accept their chosen evil practices, that
was good.
If you would condemn their practices, then you
were a narrow minded bigot.
If you wanted to teach your children in
school, moral values like the 10 commandments, that
was evil.
But if you wanted to instruct the children
on how to properly use a condom, oh,
well, that's good.
If their eyes, if in their eyes, the
teaching children how to have safe sex, oh,
that's good.
But if you teach them abstinence until marriage,
oh, that's bad.
They wanted to restrict the message of the
Spirit of God to hear only the things
they wanted to hear.
Verse 11 tells us that if a prophet
would come along or a man would come
along walking in the spirit of falsehood and
lies, and he would say, I want to
prophesy to you of the pleasures of fine
wine and strong drink.
The people will say, oh, you're a great
prophet.
You be our prophet.
We like what you say.
Don't talk to us about sin or evil
or hell or things like that.
We want to have a feeling of positive
goodness when we leave the sanctuary.
They would like to dictate to the Spirit
what to say to them rather than to
hear what the Spirit had to say to
the church.
Just put a reverend in front of the
man's name.
Let him say that all of their evil
practices were acceptable to God and that God
loves them too much to restrict them from
their chosen evil practices.
And he will be hailed as a great
preacher and become very popular.
But don't tell them that they are drunkards
and that the Bible says that drunkards are
not going to inherit the kingdom of heaven.
Just tell them that they have a physical
inability to metabolize alcohol.
It's something that's in their genes.
God made them that way.
And oh, how men would like to blame
God for what they are.
They want to hear that God is so
loving and kind and weak that he can
condone whatever they wanted to do.
Even those things that were harmful and destroying
them, he would never restrict them or seek
to warn them of the dangers of choosing
such a lifestyle.
In many circles, you're not even qualified to
speak the Word of God unless you've graduated
with a degree from some seminary, which for
the most part teach you that you can't
really trust the Bible as the Word of
God.
They restrict what God has said in his
Word to only those parts that they agree
with.
I think it is a travesty that these
men are meeting in Claremont on a irregularly
scheduled basis, going through the New Testament and
determining which of the words Jesus actually said,
that the New Testament said he said, and
which ones were inserted by the writers of
the New Testament.
They really weren't the words of Jesus.
How audacious can you get in trying to
divide the Bible and say, well, this you
can accept and this you can't, this you
can believe and this you shouldn't.
I believe that the Spirit of God is
not restricted and that God can speak through
any person he desires.
You don't have to have a degree, but
if you have the Word of God burning
in your heart, God can use you to
speak to others.
Amos, who was up in Israel prophesying to
the people, they didn't like his rebuke.
In fact, they said, go on back down
to your home.
We don't want you here.
You are a danger.
You're demoralizing the people, talking against their evil
and against God's going to judge them.
And Amos answered them.
I was no prophet.
Neither was I the son of the prophet.
I was just a farmer.
I picked figs and the Lord took me
as I was following the flock.
And the Lord said to me, go and
prophesy unto my people, Israel.
They were saying, you don't have a degree.
You didn't graduate from seminary.
Don't try to tell us about God.
And he said, I was a farmer.
I wasn't a prophet, but God spoke to
me and sent me here to give you
his word.
Even in the days of Jesus, the scholars
of his day came to him and questioned
him saying, who gave you the authority to
do these things?
They were challenging the authority of Jesus.
My blood begins to boil when I hear
men with their religious degrees claim that their
knowledge of the scriptures is superior to the
knowledge of Jesus.
I was talking with a doctor of philosophy
who was the head of a religious department
of a prestigious university.
In the Los Angeles area.
And he was declaring that the Bible doesn't
have any prophecies in it.
And so I brought out Isaiah chapter 44,
45, where Isaiah prophesied that Cyrus would be
the name of the king that would release
the Israelis from their captivity in Babylon.
And he said, any fool knows that there
were two Isaiahs and that the first part
of Isaiah was written by the first Isaiah
and the second Isaiah, the second part from
chapters 40 through the end were written by
the second Isaiah.
It does.
It is interesting.
You go to Israel and sometimes the guides,
you know, you'll ask them a question.
They'll give you an answer.
It may not be right, but they're a
guide and they're supposed to know everything.
And, and we've caught them giving some pretty
interesting answers to the questions of the people.
I've for the most part kept silent, but
I heard of this one particular guide and
the guide was pointing out and he said,
that's the tomb of Samuel over there.
And there is a monument and a building
on the top of this hill and they
call it the tomb of Samuel.
The person said, well, now I was here
a while back and I had a different
guide and he showed me a different place.
And he said, that was the tomb of
Samuel.
He said, oh, well, that's second Samuel.
This is first Samuel.
And, uh, and so there are those that
say there are two Isaiahs in this professor
said, uh, you know, he, he wrote this
after the fact, it wasn't a prophecy.
He wrote it after the fact.
I said, well, it's interesting to me that
Jesus makes reference to Isaiah, both to the
first part of Isaiah and to the latter
portion of Isaiah.
And he attributes both to Isaiah, the prophet.
He said, well, Jesus did not have all
of the advantage of the scholarship that we
have today.
And I said to him, do you mean
to tell me, you know better about the
scriptures than Jesus knew?
He said, well, he didn't have the advantage
of the scholarship that we have available to
us today.
And I said, well, I beg your pardon.
I don't think I'm smart enough to talk
to someone who is smarter than Jesus.
But you see, they would straighten out the
Lord.
They would, uh, restrict what God can do
and can't do.
Is the spirit of God straightened?
Is God restricted as to what he can
do today?
Can we blame the lack of the power
of the Holy spirit in the church today
on the Holy spirit?
Has God changed?
Or is it possible that we have changed?
Can we say with scriptural authority that God
no longer wants the gifts of the Holy
spirit to be in full operation in his
church today?
Could it be that we are guilty of
restricting the spirit of God today?
Can we now look at man's genius to
win the world for Christ through programs rather
than through the power and the guidance of
the Holy spirit?
Is the church that begun in the spirit
now going to be made perfect in the
flesh?
Could it be that we are to blame
for the lack of power rather than the
Holy spirit?
Look at the conditions of our world today.
After 2000 years of the preaching of the
gospel on a percentage, fewer people believe in
Christ than ever before.
Our world is wracked by wars, terrorist, wickedness,
evil.
As the bible said, evil will abound and
surely it is.
We have one of our Calvary Chapel pastors
who was in the area where Katrina did
so much damage.
They had to evacuate from their home and
when they were finally able to go back
to their home, they were thrilled as they
drove up to the house to see that
it was not really damaged outwardly by the
hurricane.
The house was still intact.
The roof was still on.
All of the windows were still there and
they were rejoicing that their house escaped damage
until they went into the house and they
found that looters had gone into their house,
had stolen all of their furniture, all of
their valuables, even took the bathroom fixtures.
And you think, what kind of a world
is this?
What kind of people are living around us
that would take advantage of a situation like
that and try to turn it to their
own advantage?
Has the word of God lost its power
to transform lives?
Or could it be that the teaching of
moral principles through drama just lacks that same
power that the word of God does have
to transform a life?
Can a politically correct gospel designed not to
offend anyone but rather to provide an hour
of entertainment and bring men, can it bring
men out of their darkness of sin into
the glorious light of God?
It would seem that we are coming to
that day that Paul warned Timothy about when
he said to Timothy, be instant in season
out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all
long suffering and doctrine.
For the time will come when they will
not endure sound doctrine, but after their own
desires, they shall gather to themselves teachers to
scratch their itching ears.
They shall turn away from the truth and
shall be turned unto entertaining stories.
Are we living now in that day when
the gospel is so watered down that it
no longer has the power to lift man
out of the quagmire of sin and set
him on the solid rock and transform his
life for good?
Have we ceased warning men that the wicked
will be cast into hell and all nations
that forget God because the idea of hell
is held up to ridicule by the world?
Is the spirit of God straightened or have
we restricted the work of the spirit because
of the fear of man and our desires
to be popular?
I agree with Charles Spurgeon, who told his
congregation, let us return to the Lord, lest
we seek again to be baptized and let
us seek again to be baptized into the
Holy Spirit and into the fire.
And we shall yet again behold the wonderful
works of the Lord.
Jesus said to the church of Philadelphia, I
have set before you an open door that
no man can shut.
If we do not enter that open door,
who then is to blame?
Isaiah told us that the people were saying,
awake, awake, oh Lord arise.
And the Lord answered them and said, I'm
awake, you wake up.
And I think that, you know, so many
times you're saying, oh God, you know, awake,
awake, look what's happening.
And God's saying, I'm awake, you wake up
and you start praying and you start seeking
the power of the spirit.
How many times it's true of us.
The psalmist tells us that they limited the
Holy one of Israel.
God wanted to do so much more, but
they limited God through their unbelief.
They restricted what God would do through their
unbelief.
We're told when Jesus came to Capernaum, he
could do no mighty works there or very
few mighty works because of the unbelief of
the people.
Is the spirit of God strengthened?
The prophet said, are these his doings?
In other words, is it God's fault or
is it perhaps our fault?
Jesus Christ, the Bible said is the same
yesterday, today, and forever.
He is still seeking to save those who
are lost, who will come to him.
He will still empower and use men and
women to accomplish his eternal purposes in our
world today.
How often are we conscious of our own
inabilities to deal with all of the issues
that arise from this vast ministry that God
has created here at Calvary Chapel.
With Paul, we often ask who is sufficient
for these things.
But with Paul, we always find the answer
our sufficiency is not of ourselves, but our
sufficiency is of Christ.
He's not restricted.
I am.
He's not.
And thus it is so important that I
yield myself to the spirit of God and
allow him that freedom to do what he
desires and longs to do.
Even though men might at times get upset,
yet I must obey God rather than man.
When I look around and I see the
deteriorating condition of our society, I see the
increased drug and gang problems.
I see the social chaos.
I feel so inept and incompetent to affect
any real change.
How can you deal with the filth that
comes out of Hollywood, the corruption of our
government, the breakdown of the family structure, the
immoral conditions of our teenagers, and even those
less?
I feel so helpless at a time like
this, but I'm so thankful there's no restriction
to what God can do.
The spirit of the Lord is not straight
and he's not restricted.
I may be weak and ineffectual.
He is not.
And I can do all things through Christ
who strengthens me.
It is still true.
The mountains of difficulty that are around us
can be removed, but not by might nor
by power, but by the Spirit of God.
He is not straightened.
He's not restricted.
Oh, may God help us to let him
move in our lives as he pleases, not
as we control or direct.
Father, we do thank you today for the
unlimited power of your Holy Spirit that you've
made available to us, as you told us
that we would receive power when the Holy
Spirit would come upon us.
And so we pray that your Holy Spirit
would come upon our lives this day, Lord,
and that we would not seek to fetter
or to restrict or to lay the parameters,
but let you move freely, Lord, in our
lives, doing what you want to do.
And may we not, Lord, try to dictate
to you, but may we be willing to
be dictated from your word.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
Shall we stand?
Can it be that God wants to use
you in a more powerful way, a more
effective way in these days?
Could it be that God is calling you
to just live a life empowered and led
by the Spirit?
Could it be that you have restricted the
work of the Spirit in your life?
And that other things have become so dominant
that God really isn't free to use you
and to work through you?
Maybe God is speaking to your heart today
and the Spirit is saying, yes, you have
put limits.
You have been restricting that which I'm wanting
to do in and through your life.
And God is calling you to surrender fully,
not to restrict or try to restrict that
work that he wants you to accomplish.
The pastors are down here at the front
to pray with you.
As we're dismissed, if you'll just come forward
and say, you know, I do feel that
I've been restricting what God is wanting to
do in my life.
I'm guilty, but I want to be used
by God in whatever capacity he desires.
I want to just be God's instrument doing
the work of God in this world in
which we live today.
And just make yourself available to God, surrendering
yourself even now to allow the Holy Spirit
to have free sway in your life.
They're here.
They'll be glad to pray with you.
And if that is your prayer and desire,
then I would encourage you, once you come
down and pray, fasten your seatbelt, because you're
in for an exciting ride as the Spirit
of God begins to work in and through
your life, his wonderful work that he is
wanting to do in this world in which
we live today.
And he can do if we will just
but yield ourselves to him.
The world has yet to see what God
can do through just one life that's totally
dedicated to him.
Maybe you are that one.
And God is wanting you to be his
instrument to reach this world in which we
live today.
His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.