THE SECRET POWER OF A FAST
There are a number of questions people ask when thinking about fasting. We will ask and answer many of them. What is fasting? Fasting is when a person denies his self of a variety of things including food, sleep and pleasure.
Why do people fast? The reason people go on a fast will vary from person to person and from situation to situation.
Is fasting a Biblical teaching, and if so, why should a person fast?
I - THE PRINCIPLE OF FASTING
As we first look at the principle of fasting, Jesus gave these words in Matthew 6.
16 Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
17 But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face;
18 That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.
1 – Fasting was a regular practice in New Testament days:
Notice that the Lord said, “Moreover when ye fast.” (16) The principle of pasting was practiced throughout the Scriptures. The Greek words of Christ here, when you fast, implies the idea that fasting was a common practice. He did not say, “if you decided to fast.” Jesus speaks of fasting as if it should practiced often, or weekly or yearly.
Look at an example relating to the Church. Acts 14:23 And when they had ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they believed.
Fasting is mentioned again in II Corinthians 6:4 But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, 5 In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings;
In Matthew 17 the disciples could not cast out a demon out of a child. They brought the child to Jesus. After Jesus casted the demon out He said, 21 Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.
Some folks are so oppressed by demons, that prayer and scriptures along won’t deliver them. Those concerned must give themselves to fasting.
Fasting is never a command from God, but it is a sign of great power. It is like the adrenaline gland releasing power in your body whereby you are able to show super human strength, but it is spiritual.
Developing and disciplining the body to fast often, is like being part of the “Special Forces.” In the Army, that special force is referred to as being “a Green Beret.” One Soldier in the Army “Special Forces said, "A Green Beret is a hat. I'm not a hat. I'm a highly trained, professional Army Special Forces Soldier."
In the church, there are saved people and there are highly trained, professional Special Forces soldiers for Christ.
A person is not a special soldier for Christ, because of his clothing, or because he is part of the church, but because of his mental and spiritual discipline and knowledge for God.
A Special Force soldier uses reconnaissance, unconventional warfare and counter terrorism to win victories.
Reconnaissance is when one gains knowledge to determine a foe's intentions, by collecting and gathering information. Do you know Satan’s intention is to use any method possible to take a soul to hell? Do you know to do that, he uses any method possible to keep you from praying and living holy and seeking God. Less than 1% of Christians fast today. Satan has stolen that weapon.
Unconventional warfare is using methods that causes the enemy to submit or surrender without warfare. In Christendom, that would involve people who die to self and are filled with God’s Spirit. Walking in the Fruit of the Spirit is a must if we are to win the spiritual war today. The reason the Church is losing the moral battle in America is we have lost our own righteousness.
Counter-terrorism refers to the practices, tactics, techniques, and strategies adopted in response to the attacks of the enemy. In the spiritual realm that would involve prayer and fasting.
2 – Those who “Fast” must have the right motive.
Notice that in this Scripture the Lord gives direction to have the right motive when you fast. Jesus says, “Be not as the hypocrites.”
The Pharisees and hypocrites would fast, but walk around with a sad face because they wanted people to notice them and admire them for their, so called, spirituality. Jesus said, “There reward will be the admiration of men and not the recognition of God.”
Mohandas Gandhi was the founder of Satyagraha. Satyagraha was to be a non-violent means of protesting the government. He learned from the humanist Henry David Thoreau how to have a public fast to gain political influence.
Gandhi would fast, publically for days, so his followers would demonstrate against the governments of South Africa and India.
Though it was said to be a non-violent protest, there would often be rioting and bloodshed. Even though Gandhi claimed it to be for peace, his methods brought rebellion and war in people’s heart.
Was his fast proper? The answer is, “no.” It was not proper because Gandhi’s motive was impure. In 1948 a Hindu fanatic assassinated Gandhi because of his political views. Gandhi’s reason for fasting was political and self gratifying.
In eighteen century England there was a man by the name of George Whitfield who’s fasting brought about the light of God and salvation to many, including himself.
The testimony of Whitfield is like many I have heard today. He grew up in church. He would go to church three and four times a week. As a youth he learned the Scriptures. He developed a hunger to know God. He went to a Christian college where he met John and Charles Wesley. They fellowshipped together. All were religious and all were unsaved.
George would sometimes go to church and pray three times a day. He came to the place where he would kneel in the rain and pray for hours. He would fast twice every week as he studied the scriptures.
Then one day the light of God shown through and George Whitfield, at the age of 21, under the conviction of God’s Spirit surrendered his life to Jesus Christ.
George Whitfield saw his need of salvation while fasting. After his conversion, he preached to crowds of more than twenty thousand people. His motive for fasting was to get to know God and God, he got to know.
3 – Fasting should be done secretly.
If you will study the text, you will discover that God never says, go alone on some mountain, or lock yourself away in some room and don’t come out for three days. No! When fasting, you may go about your day, but God sees into your heart that your motive for fasting is pure. You are fasting because you realize only God can lift your burden or do a miracle in your life.
II_- THE PRACTICE OF FASTING
When should a person or people fast? What are the examples in the Bible? Why is it that very few people fast today?
1 – We should fast when preparing for the ministry.
In my younger years, I fasted often, three days, five days, one day at a time, seeking to draw nearer to the Lord.
Moses fasted for forty days on two separate occasions (Exodus 24:18). He got alone with God to receive spiritual character, godly attributes and divine power to lead Israel for forty years through the wilderness.
When he fasted, he was alone with God on a mountain. Periods of a person getting alone with God to fast may be very important at times. If you decided to do so, and you are married, be wise to let your mate know where you are.
When Nehemiah learned about the tragic conditions in Jerusalem, he fasted before the Lord (Nehemiah 1:4). God gave Nehemiah direction and the king (Nehemiah’s earthly authority) gave Nehemiah approval.
If you are concerned about the immorality in America, or the condition of your family, or the spiritual apathy in your church, a fast is needed.
When Barnabus and Saul went to the mission field, it was the act of the church fasting and praying. Read Acts 13:2-3. 2 As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.
3 And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.
2 – We should fast when we sense destruction is near.
The prophet Nathan informed David that he would have to pay for the sins he committed and covered up. This story is found in II Samuel 12:12-23. David’s newborn son took sick and David fasted, lying prostrate on the ground for seven days. David was fasting and praying for his sick baby. The baby died. David then arose and said, God could have chosen to save my baby for He is gracious. Then David ate and went and comforted his wife.
In the Assyrian Empire many years ago, the second most powerful man in the kingdom, Haman, had forced the hand of the king to sentences the Jewish people to death. When Queen Esther, who was Jewish, learned of the destruction that she and her people faced, she fasted and asked that her people fast for three days before she went before the king and ask for help.
Esther 4: 16 Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish.
To go before the king without being summons could cost Esther her life. Through fasting, God intervened in a miraculous way and the lives of her people were spared and her enemy was deposed of.
If the life of Daniel; his colleagues turned against him and concocted a plan to kill Daniel. The scheme was planned in such a way that it would make them look innocent.
They deceived the king into passing a law against Daniel for praying to his God. When Daniel was arrested for praying, and cast into the Den of lions, King Darius, who loved Daniel, stayed up all night fasting for Daniel’s life. (Daniel 6:18-27).
The next morning King Darius came to the den of loins, weeping and spoke, “O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?”
He listened for a response from the mouth of the den of lions, “O king, live for ever,” said Daniel. God did a miracle and deliver Daniel from the mouths of the lions.
King Darius, who was the greatest king of the world at this time, sent a decree throughout his kingdom and it eventually went to the ends of the earth that men should tremble and fear before the God of Daniel.
People would ask, “Who is Daniel’s God?” And the answer would come, “It is Jehovah God, the creator of the world.” “He delivereth and rescueth, and he worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the lions.” Those same miracles could happen today, if God’s people would practice fasting and prayer.
The prophet, Joel, saw into the future 2700 years ago. He saw the final judgment, the tribulation, God would send on this world. Listen to what he told the people of his day in Joel 1:13-15.
13 Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl, ye ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the meat offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God.
14 Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the LORD your God, and cry unto the LORD.
15 Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.
Joel told Israel’s priest and ministers to lie all night in sackcloth. He said don’t eat a thing. Don’t drink a thing. Fast, pray and cry out to God. Weep before the Lord because Judgment is coming.
Do you think America is near judgment? Do you think that God will soon judge your child for his or her rebellion? Do you think God will soon judge your mate because he or she is wayward? Then it is time for a fast!
3 – We should fast when we purpose to honor God’s principle of rest.
It was a common activity for many in Israel to fast on the Sabbath. It was also a common activity for the early church to fast on the first day of the week.
However, Israel came to the place where they fasted for the wrong reason. Their motive was impure and for this the prophets rebuked them.
Zechariah rebukes them in Zechariah 7:4-14. Israel fasted, but not for God. It was for their own benefit.
Jeremiah rebukes them in Jeremiah 14:10-12. Again, Israel fasted, but they did not turn from their sins.
And Isaiah rebukes them in Isaiah 58 and tells them to have a right motive in fasting. Look at Isaiah 58:5.
5 Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD?
The day of rest for Israel was once a day dedicated to God. The day of worship and rest to the church was once a day dedicated to God.
Israel slowly compromised their Sabbath and over the years the Church has turned Sunday into fun-day. Notice what Isaiah says about the day of rest:
Isaiah 58:13 If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:
14 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
Isaiah simply says, if we would make the day of rest a day to seek the Lord and to honor God, not doing our thing, or finding our pleasure, but if we gave ourselves to the Lord, God would give to us the honor of controlling the highest places of the earth.
If we fast for God’s glory to draw near to Him and honor Him, if we take the day of rest God has given us and use that liberty to honor God and not for an occasion for the flesh, then God would do great things. What would God do? Look at Isaiah 58:
1 – He will set you free of from your sins and habits. v 6
6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?
2 – You will discover wisdom and direction for your life. v 8a
Then shall thy light break forth as the morning…
3 – Your health will be renews quickly. v 8b
…and thine health shall spring forth speedily…
4 – Your life will be a testimony for God. v 8c
…and thy righteousness shall go before thee;
5 – The Lord will protect you. v 8d
…the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward.
6 – The Lord will answer your prayers. 9a
Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer…
7 – The Lord will come to your side. 9b
thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am.
8 – The Lord will give you a good name again. 9c
…If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;
9 – The Lord will give you insights to truth, which will bring great joy 10. And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon day:
10 – The Lord will be your personal guide in life 11a.
And the LORD shall guide thee continually…
11 – The Lord will feed you and refresh you 11b.
…and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.
12 – The Lord will rebuild your home, your church, your community, your life. You will the rock for your children to stand upon v 12. And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.
III – THE POWER OF FASTING
Fasting brings spiritual insights. It brings physical health. It brings power from heaven. Fasting and prayer with the motive of seeking God and pleasing God is the greatest power on earth, but few people practice fasting.
Some don’t practice it because of ignorance, but many don’t practice it because it takes discipline. It truly takes a highly disciplined and dedicated Christian to be part of God’s Special Forces.
If you desire to see God do something amazing and miraculous in your life time, learn to fast.
Ill. When Jehoshaphat saw a number of nations had allied to fight against and destroy Judah he declared a fast.
Second Chronicles 20:3 And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. God intervened and delivered Judah from the hand of their enemies.
Ill. When Jonah preached to Nineveh and declared the judgment of God, the people of Nineveh declared a fast in Jonah 3:5-10.
5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
6 For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:
8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.
9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?
10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.
If God would take heed to the repentance and fasting and prayers of this people which for centuries, worshipped idols and hated God’s people with a passion, would He not do the same and more for His own people, which would fast and repent and pray and cry out to Him? The answer is, “Yes!”
THE PLAN OF FASTING
1st – Chose a one day, or one meal fast, at first. During that time, drink sixteen ounces of water and give yourself to Bible reading and prayer.
2nd – After getting use to a one-day fast over a few months, God may direct you to give yourself to a three, five or seven day fast.
Before you fast, there are a number of things you need to consider:
a. Eat healthy a few weeks before your fast.
b. Break away from coffee and sugars. Normally your body is addicted to both of these.
To go cold turkey in a fast cold bring sever headaches, so you must slowly wing yourself.
c. If you are a diabetic or on medication or have health issues, you would need to check with your doctor before going on a fast.
3rd – If you go on a three, five or seven day fast or even longer, do so only once or at the most twice a year. To fast too often on long fast could harm the body.
However, a once a week, daily fast, is very healthy for the body. Never do a two-day fast. After one day, the poisons in your body begin to break down. The second day they begin to flow from your body tissues. You need go for three days for it to benefit you from a physical standpoint.
4th – Be sure that your fast is motivated by God’s word. Be sure you are fasting for God’s glory, for spiritual insight, for souls to be saved, for your church or nation. Be sure your motive is pure.
Remember that prayer and consistent prayer is a great power with God but fasting and prayer is even greater!
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Isaiah 42
“BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM JUDGE”
In Isaiah 41, God was saying, “Be still and know that I am God.” In Isaiah 42, God is saying in so many words, “Be still and know that I am the judge of the world.”
Read Isaiah 42:1. Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
2 He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.
3 A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.
4 He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law.
Three times in these four verses Isaiah talks about God sending forth One to bring judgment to the Gentiles. He will judge by the tender of His life and the truth according to His Word.
The word for judgment is often identified with a final verdict of condemnation, or a sentenced passed upon one who is guilty.
However, the word for judgment means to “hear and determine, forming an opinion.” It is the process of gathering fact and information, then examination, and the presentation of truth.
To understand God, one must know that He is the creator of the universe, which is an awesome thought. God, (Elohim) created this world out of nothing.
He is not only the creator but He is the “Holy One,” which means He is a cut above. The purest, most innocent, most moral and righteousness person in this world is still described by Isaiah as “filthy rags” compared to the holiness of God.
God can not be approached by man. He cannot be convinced to declared any other verdict to mankind but guilty.
As the judge of the world, the Lord has declared, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” He has declared “all the world is guilty before Him.”
The world must know that God is also the judge of His creation. Every human being, every cherub, every angel, every principality and power created by the hand of God will be judged by Him.
God created man and man sinned and sinned and sinned. God did everything humanly and divinely possible to bring man back to Him. And He will judge man by the choices man makes in life.
Some people live a life trying to believe, this world is all there is. They say, so live it to the fullest and do anything and everything you please. This is ignorance.
Some religious people live this life thinking, “I have a key to sin, I will do as I please. They have no idea the dire consequences that await them.
That is why God reveals that He will judge every man’s sin. Paul writes in Romans 2:16 that, “… God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ.”
God wants man to fear that judgment, so man will abstain from sin. The understanding of His holiness and the fear of God’s judgment keeps man from sinning. Whereas, the love a person has for God, gives a person the desire to serve Him.
Let me give you a few ideas of God’s judgment.
1) A great judgment took place on a hill called Calvary 2,000 years ago. Second Corinthians 5: 21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
God placed every sin that every man would ever commit on His Son. Jesus paid for the sins of the world on Calvary through his suffering and death, and thus satisfied the Holy Father.
The sins of the world were paid for on Calvary. Every true believer will never taste of the judgment of death and hell, for God’s judgment fell on His Son.
When the pioneers were making their way across one of the central states moving west to a distant place that had been opened up for homesteading, many obstacles stood in their way.
They traveled in covered wagons drawn by oxen, and progress at a very slow speed. One day they were horrified to note a long line of smoke in the west, stretching for miles across the prairie, in front of them. It was a prairie fire.
Soon it was evident that the dried grass was burning fiercely and coming toward them rapidly. They had crossed a river the day before, but it would be impossible to go back to that before the flames would be upon them.
One man only seemed to have understanding as to what could be done. He gave the command to set fire to the grass behind them. Then when a space was burned over, the whole company moved back upon the burnt ground.
As the flames roared towards them from the west, a little girl cried out in terror, “Are you sure we shall not all be burned up?”
The leader replied, “My child, the flames cannot reach us here, for we are standing where the fire has already been!”
What a picture of the believer, who is safe in Christ! For in Christ the judgment fires of God already fell.
We who stand with Christ are safe for we are standing where the fires have already been.
On Christ, Almighty vengeance fell, which would have sunk a world into hell.
Jesus bore our sins for a chosen race, and thus He becomes our Hiding Place.
2) There is personal judgment of sin. There are consequences for personal sin. First Corinthians 11:31 For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.
Calvary took care of man’s eternal destination, which is for all who have put their faith in Jesus Christ.
But, daily, personal judgment is needed if we are to escape daily judgment.
A - Judgment fell on Korah in Numbers 16, when he murmured against Moses. The earth opened up and swallowed him and those who followed him into hell. The ground opened up and 250 people dropped into hell.
The people did not fear God. They did not behold His holiness. Rather than becoming fearful of god and repenting of their gossip and murmuring, they complained about the death of Korah and murmured against Moses.
God started a plague in the midst of Israel and people began to die like flies. Before Moses and Aaron could pray and make an atonement for the people’s sins 14,700 more people died.
B - King David loved God greatly, but he got his eyes off God and got them on a woman. Judgment fell on King David when he sinned and tried to hide that sin. That sword never left David’s house till the day he died.
With all of that in mind, Isaiah wants Israel and to know that God is Gracious in his judgment, but God is not passive.
He will judge reckless living whether it is from the wicked world or from His wayward children.
C - Israel and Judah was God’s people that were to be the head of the nations. They forfeited that privilege; because of the life of sin they lived. They lost their position in life and they lost their power with God and became a nation scattered across the earth.
D - In Revelation 2 and 3 Jesus warned the Church that it too could lose its light, its influences, its witness and its power if sin was not confessed and repented of and if His people did not live righteously.
E – In a book entitled Down to Earth, John Lawrence tells the story of a city that dared God to show Himself and paid a terrible price. It seems that the city of Messina, Sicily, was home to many wicked, irreligious people.
On December 25, 1908, a newspaper published in Messina printed a satire against God, daring Him to make Himself known by sending an earthquake.
In the Geophysical Research Abstracts, Vol. 9, printed in 2007, it is revealed that three days later, on December 28, 1908 the city and its surrounding district was devastated by a terrible quake that killed 84,000 people.
The Geophysical Research Abstract report states, “The 1908 Messina earthquake (M=7.2) is one of the strongest historical seismic events that ever occurred in Italy. It included a tsunami that killed many.
E - Charles Swindoll in The Quest For Character, gives the following story.
I read this past week of a couple (let’s call them Carl and Clara) whose twenty-five year marriage was a good one. Not the most pleasant marriage, but good. They had three grown children who loved them dearly. They were also blessed with sufficient financial security to allow them room to dream about a lakeside retirement home. They began looking.
A widower we’ll call Ben was selling his place. They liked it a lot and returned home to talk and plan. Months passed. Last fall, right out of the blue, Clara told Carl she wanted a divorce.
He went numb. After all these years, why? And how could she deceive him ... how could she have been nursing such a scheme while they were looking at a retirement home?
She said she hadn’t been. Actually, this was a recent decision now that she had found another man. Who?
Clara admitted it was Ben, the owner of the lake house, whom she inadvertently ran into several weeks after they had discussed the sale. They’d begun seeing each other. Since they were now “in love,” there was no turning back. Not even the kids, who hated the idea, could dissuade their mother.
On the day she was to leave, Carl walked through the kitchen toward the garage. Realizing she would be gone when he returned, he hesitated, “Well, hon, I guess this is the last time—” His voice dissolved as he broke into sobs. She felt uneasy, hurriedly got her things together, and drove north to join Ben.
Less than two weeks after she moved in with Ben, her new lover, he was seized with a heart attack. He lingered a few hours...and then died.
3) There will be a judgment for the believers at the Judgment Seat of Christ.
This judgment will take place in heaven prior to our return to earth for the 1,000 year millennium. There we will receive rewards and positions to reign with Christ during the Millennium or we will receive nothing at all.
This is the judgment for how we as believers lived for the Lord while on earth. If we were faithful, loving, seeking servants of God there will be many rewards.
If we were slothful, disobedient and stubborn there will be few.
Remember Paul’s words in Hebrews 12:1-2, 1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Who is our Judge?
It was the woman 10 miles walk event of the Olympic Game. The Chinese woman was leading the other athletes coming into the last phase of the competition. She had been training hard for the last few years. The distance that she covered in training was enough to go round the globe a few times.
A gold medal was in view. While she was entering the stadium, she noticed that another athlete was coming from behind, in a very fast pace. She wanted to go faster to avoid being over taken but was unable to do so without having both her feet leaving the ground.
By the definition of the game, having both feet leaving the ground at the same time is considered as running, which is against the rule. Anyone who violated this rule for three times will be disqualified. She remembered that she had violated this rule twice in the past nine over miles. She was tempted but persisted in keeping her feet down.
She saw the other athlete over took her. A gold turned silver. A short while later, another athlete came from behind. Similarly, unable to go any faster, she saw this other athlete over took her. A silver turned bronze.
The first athlete past the finished line and the crowd roar. The second athlete past the finished line there was a big applause. The Chinese athlete finished third with much disappointment. All these years of hard work only to end with a bronze medal.
When the official of the game announced the winner, to everyone's surprise, the gold medal went to the Chinese athlete because the two athletes before her had violated the rule of against running in a walk event.
Who is our judge in life? Who set the rules of our lives? Others may be receiving the applause of the world, but should we admire the applause of the world?
Shouldn't we Christians follow the laws of our loving God, which are given for our best, for it is He who will be our final judge.
4) There is yet future the Great White Throne Judgment. This is where the dead of the ages that are in hell, will be resurrected to be judged one day. Their judgment will determine their eternal damnation. It will not be a chance to escape eternal damnation, but this judgment will determine the degrees of judgment passed upon man.
Ezekiel 7:8-9
“He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy” (Prov. 29:1).
The following incident is vouched for by a Church of England clergyman who knew all the circumstances.
A young woman, who had been brought up in a Christian home and who had often had very serious convictions in regard to the importance of coming to Christ, chose instead to take the way of the world. Much against the wishes of her godly mother, she insisted on keeping company with a wild, hilarious crowd, who lived only for the passing moment and tried to forget the things of eternity. Again and again she was pleaded with to turn to Christ, but she persistently refused to heed the admonitions addressed to her.
Finally, she was taken with a very serious illness. All that medical science could do for her was done in order to bring about her recovery, but it soon became evident that the case was hopeless and death was staring her in the face. Still she was hard and obdurate when urged to turn to God in repentance and take the lost sinner’s place and trust the lost sinner’s Saviour.
One night she awoke suddenly out of a sound sleep, a frightened look in her eyes, and asked excitedly, “Mother, what is Ezekiel 7:8 and 9?”
Her mother said, “What do you mean, my dear?”
She replied that she had had a most vivid dream. She thought there was a Presence in the room, who very solemnly said to her, “Read Ezekiel 7:8-9.”
Not recalling the verses in question, the mother reached for a Bible. As she opened it, her heart sank as she saw the words, but she read them aloud to the dying girl:
“Now I will shortly pour out my fury upon thee, and accomplish mine anger upon thee: and I will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense thee for all thine abominations. And mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: I will recompense thee according to thy ways and thine abominations that are in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the Lord that smiteth.”
The poor sufferer, with a look of horror on her face, sank back on the pillow, utterly exhausted, and in a few moments she was in eternity. Once more it had been demonstrated that grace rejected brings judgment at last.
Illustrations of Bible Truth by H. A. Ironside, Moody Press, 1945, pp. 31-32
5) There are also daily judgments that fall on mankind.
In Exodus 12:12, God wrote “…I will execute judgment: I am the LORD.” It was time for judgment to fall on Egypt. They had lived to long without God. They had rejected God’s signs and wonders. Now judgment would fall. That night the death angel of God moved throughout Egypt and the first born child of every household died, where a lamb had not been slain and the blood publicly displayed.
Some of daily judgments are world wide such as the Flood, when every man and creature on the earth died except for those on the Ark. Why did God send that flood? The Bible says, “Because of the wicked imaginations of man’s heart.”
Some of God’s judgments fell on nations, towns, and individuals for their evil living. Some of the judgments were plagues that wiped out whole villages. Some of the judgments came in form of pestilence, diseases, war and natural disasters. This happened to Israel and Judah many times.
Judgment by Earthquake
January 17, 1994 a earthquake hit Southern California that cost a record $20 billion dollars.
California’s $3-billion-a-year pornographic movie industry is viewing the earthquake as God’s personal destruction of American’s most wicked city, some porn producers say.
The quake was centered in the cities of Northridge, Shatsworth, and Canoga Park, which are home to nearly all of the U.S. soft-and hard-port video industry.
Every one of the primary porn studies and distributors, a total of around 70, suffered damage.
The headquarters of the largest, VCA Pictures, collapsed, destroying equipment and mast copies of several films. At least for that moment, high-level porn studio executives and models were edgy.
An executive at World Modeling, a San Fernando Valley agency supplying actors to the porn industry, says clients are backing away from X-rated acting as a result of the cataclysm.
“Our clients have a definite lack of motivation,” says the agent for porn actors, who requested anonymity. “It’s put the fear of God in them. I’m telling you, it’s enough to give you an attack of religion.”
“Can you imagine how the fundamentalists are going to leap on this when the smoke clears?” says a porn film director who works for many Northridge studios and asked not to be identified. “They’ll say it’s God’s retribution.”
“It seems as though the earthquake forced these people to get honest,” says Jack Hayford, pastor of Church on the Way in Van Nuys. “It has stirred many to the deepest points of introspection, and if just one of them is turned away from the filth they’re involved in, it is a major victory.”
Hayford, along with Hollywood Presbyterian Church pastor Lloyd Ogilvie, and Los Angeles Archdiocese Cardinal Roger Mahony has sent a letter of protest against the Valley-based porn industry to the California legislature, asking lawmakers to draft a bill eliminating its most notorious offshoot, child pornography.
By Perucci Ferraiuolo, Christianity Today, March 7, 1994, p. 57
Looking For Loopholes
Just before the death of actor W. C. Fields, a friend visited Fields’ hospital room and was surprised to find him thumbing through a Bible. Asked what he was doing with a Bible, Fields replied, “I’m looking for loopholes.”
There are no loopholes! The person who has rejected Christ Jesus as savior will spend eternity in hell, burning forever.
The Christians who loves and lives a dedicated life to Christ will receive great rewards in the Millennium and eternity.
The believer who lives a half-hearted lost will suffer great loss. Paul said, “He will be saved yet as by fire.”
I – GOD’S GRACIOUS JUDGMENT 1-7
Isaiah 42:1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
In verse one God says, “Behold.” That is the trumpet sound that calls soldiers to attention. It is a strong word that means, stop, look and listen to what I am about to reveal to you.
What God reveals is that He is going to send His, servant, His Son, Jesus Christ, who will bring judgment to the Gentiles.
Matthew 12:18 says almost the exact words of Isaiah 42:1. Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall show judgment to the Gentiles.
Had the Jews known the Scriptures they would have known that Jesus was the Christ, prophesied by Isaiah.
The Lord reveals to the Jews that one day He will reveal to the Gentile, what He had revealed to the Jews for hundreds of years. Look at Isaiah 42:3, “…he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.”
Jesus said, “I am the truth” (John 14:6). He said, “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free” (John 8:32).
What is the truth that man must know to be free?
1) Every individual must realizes that he or she is a sinner. That person must admit their guilt. That person must realize the consequences of their sin will banish them in hell for eternity.
2) Then a person must understand Calvary. A peson must see God’s love, His mercy, His grace as He gave His Son to pay for the sins of the world. With the realization of one’s lost condition and the understanding of God’s love, under the conviction of God’s Spirit that person must repent and commit his or her life to Jesus Christ.
3) At conversion, a new love and desire will fill that person’s heart. His life will change and every thing will seem different when Jesus sits on the throne of one’s heart.
Those who will escape the judgment of death and hell are those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ as the Messiah and Savior of this world.
The reason I share this with you is because Isaiah told the Jews that Jesus Christ, the Messiah would bring light to the Gentiles and that very truth caused most of the Jews to turn away from Christ rather than accept Him.
What percentage of the world today has their faith in Jesus Christ as the only way to heaven?
If you counted every person that says, they believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, it would include less 25%, and I am being very liberal with that figure.
A Jew doesn’t go to heaven because he or she is Jewish, nor does a protestant. It doesn’t matter the denomination tag one holds. No one goes to heaven because they are protestant, or Catholic. A person must have placed their trust and faith in Jesus Christ.
That is why verse four reveals that God will set or bring judgment to all the earth.
Isaiah then reminds us of God’s graciousness and goodness and greatness. 5 Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein:
God is saying, I gave you this universe as a gift to you. I have fed you and I have taken care of you. I gave you the patriarchs and the priests and the prophets and the promises and prophecies so you could see clearly who I am. I even sent my spirit to lead you. What else can I do to show you my love?
What else did God do? He told them His Son would be holy and righteous and a light to the Gentiles again. 6 I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles;
Illustration: The nation of Nineveh was a evil nation. They warred against God’s people again and again. Jonah, God’s prophet, was commanded by God to go to Nineveh and preach that judgment was coming. The whole nation humbled their hearts and fasted and wept and prayed and God spared their lives.
Jesus Christ came to bring light to the Gentiles. He came to open blinded eyes and set the captive free. Read verse 7. 7 To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.
When Jesus came into the world, he opened the way to all the earth to heaven. He came to open blinded eyes and release those imprisoned to their sins, and to set the captive free.
God’s gracious judgment extends to the entire world.
Grace is a gift freely given to man. It is a gift that one could never repay in their lifetime. Jesus was God’s gift of grace to mankind. Jesus paid a debt of sin for us; we could never pay back in a billion years.
Isaiah was trying to say, what Paul made so clear in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, least anyone should boast.”
Now Isaiah changes his theme from God’s gracious judgment to God’s governing judgment.
II – GOD’S GOVERNING JUDGMENT 8-17
8 I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.
IMAGE OF GOD
Why does God reveal this verse to His people? God’s people were guilty of idolatry. They set up idols and bowed to them but worse they had a graven image of God in their minds. They thought incorrectly of who God was. To them, He was no longer holy. He was no longer just. He was no longer their judge.
God does not share his glory with anyone. There is one true God. His name is Jehovah. His Son is Jesus Christ. His Spirit works in hearts today. Those three are one.
Illustration: After 9-11 a Jewish Rabbi, a Catholic Priest and a Muslim clergy sat on the same platform, trying to present a picture of peace to this world. Not one of them knew the true God.
A Jewish Rabbi denies that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. The Muslim Cleric denies Jehovah and Jesus Christ. He believes all are infidels accept Muslims.
And the Catholic Priest, if He was a man of God and if he truly believed that Jesus Christ was the only way to heaven would not be sitting on the same platform with idol worshippers.
Illustration: I say this sadly, the church movement in America that is using worldly methods to bring in the youth, is not godly. It is not holy. It does not practice righteousness. It caters to man’s flesh and not man’s spirit.
It is bringing in kids to worship a graven image of God, just as Israel was doing. Many kids think of God as a loving, good O’ Joe who lets anything go.
They think of a god that allows everybody to heaven that prays a prayer and they can live just about anyway they want to. They have no idea that a person must repent in order to be saved.
Kids think that they can pray a prayer and they become believers and they continue to live in fornication and drunkenness and in rebellion. That is a false image of God.
Whenever a person comes to Christ, there is a new life. There is a conviction. There is a conversion. There is a commitment. There is a change. A person has a new desire, a new love for the things of God. If it isn’t real, if it isn’t spiritual, the emotional movement will soon pass and they will revert to their own ways again.
Isaiah moves from the image of God (v 8) to the ideas of the Millennium. (9-17)
IDEAS OF THE MILLENNIUM 9-17
God’s declaration is to praise Him (10-12).
10 Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth, ye that go down to the sea, and all that is therein; the isles, and the inhabitants thereof. This is a picture of what will happen during the millennium. But, this is a picture of what should be taking place today in the hearts of God’s children. We should sing to Him. We should praise Him (10).
11 Let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift up their voice, the villages that Kedar doth inhabit: let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains. We should lift up our voices and shout from the mountain top or tell the world of the greatest of our Lord (11).
12 Let them give glory unto the LORD, and declare his praise in the islands. The whole world will praise Him.
Isaiah now turns his attention to what Israel was doing now. He declares judgment on Israel (13-17). Why?
Look at verse 17. 17 They shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed, that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, Ye are our gods.
The judgment that God reveals in verse 13-16 is declared because Israel had a graven image of God. Israel was caught up in narcissism. They lived for self. They were proud. Their life style was more important than God’s will for them.
Paul said the same thing in Second Timothy 3:2-4. 2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
The lost world needs to hear truth. The Hindu people are said to bow to 300 million different gods. That is a very sad story. In America many worship sports, money, drugs, pleasure, TV programs, and many other gods, that no one wants to call a god.
III GOD’S GRIEVOUS JUDGMENTS 18-25
I gave the title to the last few verses as grievous or dreadful. Why? Read and you will see:
18 Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see.
19 Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent? who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the Lord's servant?
God’s servants were blind. God’s prophets were deaf. God’s people could not spiritually see or understand what God was saying or doing because they were so far from Him.
Let me give you a few examples. I preach today that a person must be convicted by the Holy Spirit to be saved. I preach a person must, when convicted, repent and then believe or commit their lives to Jesus Christ. True conversion brings a change in a person life. That change is a desire for the word of God and the things of God. Those things are righteous and pure and virtuous things. Some folks hear those words but they go on living in sin day after day after day. Why? Having ears they hear not and having eyes they see not.
Their sins have literally blinded their eyes and minds to the truths of God’s word.
Now, read verse 20 and see the sadness of it: 20 Seeing many things, but thou observest not; opening the ears, but he heareth not.
A person with a molten image of God, hears preaching but they never change. They never seem to get any closer to God. They have decided that God can only have so much of their life and that is that. Like a person going to the grocery store, they say, “I will have a pound of sugar and no more, many say, I will have a pound of God and no more.”
Isaiah gives a word of encouragement to the righteous in verse 21.
21 The LORD is well pleased for his righteousness' sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honourable.
Then he turns his attention back to the majority of the Hebrew people in the last few verses. Notice what he says:
22 But this is a people robbed and spoiled; they are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison houses: they are for a prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil, and none saith, Restore.
Do you understand that verse? Satan had robbed them of God’s blessings. They have become filled with the spoils or pleasures of the world. They were trapped in holes of pleasure so deep they could not get out. They were prisoners in their own houses, yea prisoners to sin.
Stop and think! They were blind, deft, trapped by Satan and spoiled with the sins of the world. The reason there was none to deliver them was because they did not want deliverance. They enjoyed living right where they were.
And that is why most people live where they live. They don’t see the gracious judgments of God. They don’t understand the governing judgment of God. Most people think that the economy and morality of the world is just by chance. They have no idea that God will dictate the outcome of a nation by the moral living of the people. And finally, the grievous judgments of God fell on Israel and the reason America is on a downward slope is because we have as a nation forgotten God.
Now, even though the people just don’t seem to care about spiritual things, the prophet still sends out a plea. Look at verse 23. 23 Who among you will give ear to this? who will hearken and hear for the time to come?
Then Isaiah reveals something shocking. He reveals something that many liberal religions don’t believe or preach. Look at verse 24 and 25: 24 Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? did not the LORD, he against whom we have sinned? for they would not walk in his ways, neither were they obedient unto his law.
25 Therefore he hath poured upon him the fury of his anger, and the strength of battle: and it hath set him on fire round about, yet he knew not; and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart.
God gave victory to Israel’s enemies. God allow His own people to be robbed and they did not even know what was going on.
When the natural disasters came such as famine and pestilences, the tornadoes and fires, the wars and internal turmoil with their nation, they thought it was just by chance. No! The God of heaven can giver harmony to a nation, a home and a church and the God of heaven can turn it upside down.
In Isaiah 41, God was saying, “Be still and know that I am God.” In Isaiah 42, God is saying in so many words, “Be still and know that I am the judge of the world.”
Read Isaiah 42:1. Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
2 He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.
3 A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.
4 He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law.
Three times in these four verses Isaiah talks about God sending forth One to bring judgment to the Gentiles. He will judge by the tender of His life and the truth according to His Word.
The word for judgment is often identified with a final verdict of condemnation, or a sentenced passed upon one who is guilty.
However, the word for judgment means to “hear and determine, forming an opinion.” It is the process of gathering fact and information, then examination, and the presentation of truth.
To understand God, one must know that He is the creator of the universe, which is an awesome thought. God, (Elohim) created this world out of nothing.
He is not only the creator but He is the “Holy One,” which means He is a cut above. The purest, most innocent, most moral and righteousness person in this world is still described by Isaiah as “filthy rags” compared to the holiness of God.
God can not be approached by man. He cannot be convinced to declared any other verdict to mankind but guilty.
As the judge of the world, the Lord has declared, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” He has declared “all the world is guilty before Him.”
The world must know that God is also the judge of His creation. Every human being, every cherub, every angel, every principality and power created by the hand of God will be judged by Him.
God created man and man sinned and sinned and sinned. God did everything humanly and divinely possible to bring man back to Him. And He will judge man by the choices man makes in life.
Some people live a life trying to believe, this world is all there is. They say, so live it to the fullest and do anything and everything you please. This is ignorance.
Some religious people live this life thinking, “I have a key to sin, I will do as I please. They have no idea the dire consequences that await them.
That is why God reveals that He will judge every man’s sin. Paul writes in Romans 2:16 that, “… God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ.”
God wants man to fear that judgment, so man will abstain from sin. The understanding of His holiness and the fear of God’s judgment keeps man from sinning. Whereas, the love a person has for God, gives a person the desire to serve Him.
Let me give you a few ideas of God’s judgment.
1) A great judgment took place on a hill called Calvary 2,000 years ago. Second Corinthians 5: 21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
God placed every sin that every man would ever commit on His Son. Jesus paid for the sins of the world on Calvary through his suffering and death, and thus satisfied the Holy Father.
The sins of the world were paid for on Calvary. Every true believer will never taste of the judgment of death and hell, for God’s judgment fell on His Son.
When the pioneers were making their way across one of the central states moving west to a distant place that had been opened up for homesteading, many obstacles stood in their way.
They traveled in covered wagons drawn by oxen, and progress at a very slow speed. One day they were horrified to note a long line of smoke in the west, stretching for miles across the prairie, in front of them. It was a prairie fire.
Soon it was evident that the dried grass was burning fiercely and coming toward them rapidly. They had crossed a river the day before, but it would be impossible to go back to that before the flames would be upon them.
One man only seemed to have understanding as to what could be done. He gave the command to set fire to the grass behind them. Then when a space was burned over, the whole company moved back upon the burnt ground.
As the flames roared towards them from the west, a little girl cried out in terror, “Are you sure we shall not all be burned up?”
The leader replied, “My child, the flames cannot reach us here, for we are standing where the fire has already been!”
What a picture of the believer, who is safe in Christ! For in Christ the judgment fires of God already fell.
We who stand with Christ are safe for we are standing where the fires have already been.
On Christ, Almighty vengeance fell, which would have sunk a world into hell.
Jesus bore our sins for a chosen race, and thus He becomes our Hiding Place.
2) There is personal judgment of sin. There are consequences for personal sin. First Corinthians 11:31 For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.
Calvary took care of man’s eternal destination, which is for all who have put their faith in Jesus Christ.
But, daily, personal judgment is needed if we are to escape daily judgment.
A - Judgment fell on Korah in Numbers 16, when he murmured against Moses. The earth opened up and swallowed him and those who followed him into hell. The ground opened up and 250 people dropped into hell.
The people did not fear God. They did not behold His holiness. Rather than becoming fearful of god and repenting of their gossip and murmuring, they complained about the death of Korah and murmured against Moses.
God started a plague in the midst of Israel and people began to die like flies. Before Moses and Aaron could pray and make an atonement for the people’s sins 14,700 more people died.
B - King David loved God greatly, but he got his eyes off God and got them on a woman. Judgment fell on King David when he sinned and tried to hide that sin. That sword never left David’s house till the day he died.
With all of that in mind, Isaiah wants Israel and to know that God is Gracious in his judgment, but God is not passive.
He will judge reckless living whether it is from the wicked world or from His wayward children.
C - Israel and Judah was God’s people that were to be the head of the nations. They forfeited that privilege; because of the life of sin they lived. They lost their position in life and they lost their power with God and became a nation scattered across the earth.
D - In Revelation 2 and 3 Jesus warned the Church that it too could lose its light, its influences, its witness and its power if sin was not confessed and repented of and if His people did not live righteously.
E – In a book entitled Down to Earth, John Lawrence tells the story of a city that dared God to show Himself and paid a terrible price. It seems that the city of Messina, Sicily, was home to many wicked, irreligious people.
On December 25, 1908, a newspaper published in Messina printed a satire against God, daring Him to make Himself known by sending an earthquake.
In the Geophysical Research Abstracts, Vol. 9, printed in 2007, it is revealed that three days later, on December 28, 1908 the city and its surrounding district was devastated by a terrible quake that killed 84,000 people.
The Geophysical Research Abstract report states, “The 1908 Messina earthquake (M=7.2) is one of the strongest historical seismic events that ever occurred in Italy. It included a tsunami that killed many.
E - Charles Swindoll in The Quest For Character, gives the following story.
I read this past week of a couple (let’s call them Carl and Clara) whose twenty-five year marriage was a good one. Not the most pleasant marriage, but good. They had three grown children who loved them dearly. They were also blessed with sufficient financial security to allow them room to dream about a lakeside retirement home. They began looking.
A widower we’ll call Ben was selling his place. They liked it a lot and returned home to talk and plan. Months passed. Last fall, right out of the blue, Clara told Carl she wanted a divorce.
He went numb. After all these years, why? And how could she deceive him ... how could she have been nursing such a scheme while they were looking at a retirement home?
She said she hadn’t been. Actually, this was a recent decision now that she had found another man. Who?
Clara admitted it was Ben, the owner of the lake house, whom she inadvertently ran into several weeks after they had discussed the sale. They’d begun seeing each other. Since they were now “in love,” there was no turning back. Not even the kids, who hated the idea, could dissuade their mother.
On the day she was to leave, Carl walked through the kitchen toward the garage. Realizing she would be gone when he returned, he hesitated, “Well, hon, I guess this is the last time—” His voice dissolved as he broke into sobs. She felt uneasy, hurriedly got her things together, and drove north to join Ben.
Less than two weeks after she moved in with Ben, her new lover, he was seized with a heart attack. He lingered a few hours...and then died.
3) There will be a judgment for the believers at the Judgment Seat of Christ.
This judgment will take place in heaven prior to our return to earth for the 1,000 year millennium. There we will receive rewards and positions to reign with Christ during the Millennium or we will receive nothing at all.
This is the judgment for how we as believers lived for the Lord while on earth. If we were faithful, loving, seeking servants of God there will be many rewards.
If we were slothful, disobedient and stubborn there will be few.
Remember Paul’s words in Hebrews 12:1-2, 1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Who is our Judge?
It was the woman 10 miles walk event of the Olympic Game. The Chinese woman was leading the other athletes coming into the last phase of the competition. She had been training hard for the last few years. The distance that she covered in training was enough to go round the globe a few times.
A gold medal was in view. While she was entering the stadium, she noticed that another athlete was coming from behind, in a very fast pace. She wanted to go faster to avoid being over taken but was unable to do so without having both her feet leaving the ground.
By the definition of the game, having both feet leaving the ground at the same time is considered as running, which is against the rule. Anyone who violated this rule for three times will be disqualified. She remembered that she had violated this rule twice in the past nine over miles. She was tempted but persisted in keeping her feet down.
She saw the other athlete over took her. A gold turned silver. A short while later, another athlete came from behind. Similarly, unable to go any faster, she saw this other athlete over took her. A silver turned bronze.
The first athlete past the finished line and the crowd roar. The second athlete past the finished line there was a big applause. The Chinese athlete finished third with much disappointment. All these years of hard work only to end with a bronze medal.
When the official of the game announced the winner, to everyone's surprise, the gold medal went to the Chinese athlete because the two athletes before her had violated the rule of against running in a walk event.
Who is our judge in life? Who set the rules of our lives? Others may be receiving the applause of the world, but should we admire the applause of the world?
Shouldn't we Christians follow the laws of our loving God, which are given for our best, for it is He who will be our final judge.
4) There is yet future the Great White Throne Judgment. This is where the dead of the ages that are in hell, will be resurrected to be judged one day. Their judgment will determine their eternal damnation. It will not be a chance to escape eternal damnation, but this judgment will determine the degrees of judgment passed upon man.
Ezekiel 7:8-9
“He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy” (Prov. 29:1).
The following incident is vouched for by a Church of England clergyman who knew all the circumstances.
A young woman, who had been brought up in a Christian home and who had often had very serious convictions in regard to the importance of coming to Christ, chose instead to take the way of the world. Much against the wishes of her godly mother, she insisted on keeping company with a wild, hilarious crowd, who lived only for the passing moment and tried to forget the things of eternity. Again and again she was pleaded with to turn to Christ, but she persistently refused to heed the admonitions addressed to her.
Finally, she was taken with a very serious illness. All that medical science could do for her was done in order to bring about her recovery, but it soon became evident that the case was hopeless and death was staring her in the face. Still she was hard and obdurate when urged to turn to God in repentance and take the lost sinner’s place and trust the lost sinner’s Saviour.
One night she awoke suddenly out of a sound sleep, a frightened look in her eyes, and asked excitedly, “Mother, what is Ezekiel 7:8 and 9?”
Her mother said, “What do you mean, my dear?”
She replied that she had had a most vivid dream. She thought there was a Presence in the room, who very solemnly said to her, “Read Ezekiel 7:8-9.”
Not recalling the verses in question, the mother reached for a Bible. As she opened it, her heart sank as she saw the words, but she read them aloud to the dying girl:
“Now I will shortly pour out my fury upon thee, and accomplish mine anger upon thee: and I will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense thee for all thine abominations. And mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: I will recompense thee according to thy ways and thine abominations that are in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the Lord that smiteth.”
The poor sufferer, with a look of horror on her face, sank back on the pillow, utterly exhausted, and in a few moments she was in eternity. Once more it had been demonstrated that grace rejected brings judgment at last.
Illustrations of Bible Truth by H. A. Ironside, Moody Press, 1945, pp. 31-32
5) There are also daily judgments that fall on mankind.
In Exodus 12:12, God wrote “…I will execute judgment: I am the LORD.” It was time for judgment to fall on Egypt. They had lived to long without God. They had rejected God’s signs and wonders. Now judgment would fall. That night the death angel of God moved throughout Egypt and the first born child of every household died, where a lamb had not been slain and the blood publicly displayed.
Some of daily judgments are world wide such as the Flood, when every man and creature on the earth died except for those on the Ark. Why did God send that flood? The Bible says, “Because of the wicked imaginations of man’s heart.”
Some of God’s judgments fell on nations, towns, and individuals for their evil living. Some of the judgments were plagues that wiped out whole villages. Some of the judgments came in form of pestilence, diseases, war and natural disasters. This happened to Israel and Judah many times.
Judgment by Earthquake
January 17, 1994 a earthquake hit Southern California that cost a record $20 billion dollars.
California’s $3-billion-a-year pornographic movie industry is viewing the earthquake as God’s personal destruction of American’s most wicked city, some porn producers say.
The quake was centered in the cities of Northridge, Shatsworth, and Canoga Park, which are home to nearly all of the U.S. soft-and hard-port video industry.
Every one of the primary porn studies and distributors, a total of around 70, suffered damage.
The headquarters of the largest, VCA Pictures, collapsed, destroying equipment and mast copies of several films. At least for that moment, high-level porn studio executives and models were edgy.
An executive at World Modeling, a San Fernando Valley agency supplying actors to the porn industry, says clients are backing away from X-rated acting as a result of the cataclysm.
“Our clients have a definite lack of motivation,” says the agent for porn actors, who requested anonymity. “It’s put the fear of God in them. I’m telling you, it’s enough to give you an attack of religion.”
“Can you imagine how the fundamentalists are going to leap on this when the smoke clears?” says a porn film director who works for many Northridge studios and asked not to be identified. “They’ll say it’s God’s retribution.”
“It seems as though the earthquake forced these people to get honest,” says Jack Hayford, pastor of Church on the Way in Van Nuys. “It has stirred many to the deepest points of introspection, and if just one of them is turned away from the filth they’re involved in, it is a major victory.”
Hayford, along with Hollywood Presbyterian Church pastor Lloyd Ogilvie, and Los Angeles Archdiocese Cardinal Roger Mahony has sent a letter of protest against the Valley-based porn industry to the California legislature, asking lawmakers to draft a bill eliminating its most notorious offshoot, child pornography.
By Perucci Ferraiuolo, Christianity Today, March 7, 1994, p. 57
Looking For Loopholes
Just before the death of actor W. C. Fields, a friend visited Fields’ hospital room and was surprised to find him thumbing through a Bible. Asked what he was doing with a Bible, Fields replied, “I’m looking for loopholes.”
There are no loopholes! The person who has rejected Christ Jesus as savior will spend eternity in hell, burning forever.
The Christians who loves and lives a dedicated life to Christ will receive great rewards in the Millennium and eternity.
The believer who lives a half-hearted lost will suffer great loss. Paul said, “He will be saved yet as by fire.”
I – GOD’S GRACIOUS JUDGMENT 1-7
Isaiah 42:1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
In verse one God says, “Behold.” That is the trumpet sound that calls soldiers to attention. It is a strong word that means, stop, look and listen to what I am about to reveal to you.
What God reveals is that He is going to send His, servant, His Son, Jesus Christ, who will bring judgment to the Gentiles.
Matthew 12:18 says almost the exact words of Isaiah 42:1. Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall show judgment to the Gentiles.
Had the Jews known the Scriptures they would have known that Jesus was the Christ, prophesied by Isaiah.
The Lord reveals to the Jews that one day He will reveal to the Gentile, what He had revealed to the Jews for hundreds of years. Look at Isaiah 42:3, “…he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.”
Jesus said, “I am the truth” (John 14:6). He said, “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free” (John 8:32).
What is the truth that man must know to be free?
1) Every individual must realizes that he or she is a sinner. That person must admit their guilt. That person must realize the consequences of their sin will banish them in hell for eternity.
2) Then a person must understand Calvary. A peson must see God’s love, His mercy, His grace as He gave His Son to pay for the sins of the world. With the realization of one’s lost condition and the understanding of God’s love, under the conviction of God’s Spirit that person must repent and commit his or her life to Jesus Christ.
3) At conversion, a new love and desire will fill that person’s heart. His life will change and every thing will seem different when Jesus sits on the throne of one’s heart.
Those who will escape the judgment of death and hell are those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ as the Messiah and Savior of this world.
The reason I share this with you is because Isaiah told the Jews that Jesus Christ, the Messiah would bring light to the Gentiles and that very truth caused most of the Jews to turn away from Christ rather than accept Him.
What percentage of the world today has their faith in Jesus Christ as the only way to heaven?
If you counted every person that says, they believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, it would include less 25%, and I am being very liberal with that figure.
A Jew doesn’t go to heaven because he or she is Jewish, nor does a protestant. It doesn’t matter the denomination tag one holds. No one goes to heaven because they are protestant, or Catholic. A person must have placed their trust and faith in Jesus Christ.
That is why verse four reveals that God will set or bring judgment to all the earth.
Isaiah then reminds us of God’s graciousness and goodness and greatness. 5 Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein:
God is saying, I gave you this universe as a gift to you. I have fed you and I have taken care of you. I gave you the patriarchs and the priests and the prophets and the promises and prophecies so you could see clearly who I am. I even sent my spirit to lead you. What else can I do to show you my love?
What else did God do? He told them His Son would be holy and righteous and a light to the Gentiles again. 6 I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles;
Illustration: The nation of Nineveh was a evil nation. They warred against God’s people again and again. Jonah, God’s prophet, was commanded by God to go to Nineveh and preach that judgment was coming. The whole nation humbled their hearts and fasted and wept and prayed and God spared their lives.
Jesus Christ came to bring light to the Gentiles. He came to open blinded eyes and set the captive free. Read verse 7. 7 To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.
When Jesus came into the world, he opened the way to all the earth to heaven. He came to open blinded eyes and release those imprisoned to their sins, and to set the captive free.
God’s gracious judgment extends to the entire world.
Grace is a gift freely given to man. It is a gift that one could never repay in their lifetime. Jesus was God’s gift of grace to mankind. Jesus paid a debt of sin for us; we could never pay back in a billion years.
Isaiah was trying to say, what Paul made so clear in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, least anyone should boast.”
Now Isaiah changes his theme from God’s gracious judgment to God’s governing judgment.
II – GOD’S GOVERNING JUDGMENT 8-17
8 I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.
IMAGE OF GOD
Why does God reveal this verse to His people? God’s people were guilty of idolatry. They set up idols and bowed to them but worse they had a graven image of God in their minds. They thought incorrectly of who God was. To them, He was no longer holy. He was no longer just. He was no longer their judge.
God does not share his glory with anyone. There is one true God. His name is Jehovah. His Son is Jesus Christ. His Spirit works in hearts today. Those three are one.
Illustration: After 9-11 a Jewish Rabbi, a Catholic Priest and a Muslim clergy sat on the same platform, trying to present a picture of peace to this world. Not one of them knew the true God.
A Jewish Rabbi denies that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. The Muslim Cleric denies Jehovah and Jesus Christ. He believes all are infidels accept Muslims.
And the Catholic Priest, if He was a man of God and if he truly believed that Jesus Christ was the only way to heaven would not be sitting on the same platform with idol worshippers.
Illustration: I say this sadly, the church movement in America that is using worldly methods to bring in the youth, is not godly. It is not holy. It does not practice righteousness. It caters to man’s flesh and not man’s spirit.
It is bringing in kids to worship a graven image of God, just as Israel was doing. Many kids think of God as a loving, good O’ Joe who lets anything go.
They think of a god that allows everybody to heaven that prays a prayer and they can live just about anyway they want to. They have no idea that a person must repent in order to be saved.
Kids think that they can pray a prayer and they become believers and they continue to live in fornication and drunkenness and in rebellion. That is a false image of God.
Whenever a person comes to Christ, there is a new life. There is a conviction. There is a conversion. There is a commitment. There is a change. A person has a new desire, a new love for the things of God. If it isn’t real, if it isn’t spiritual, the emotional movement will soon pass and they will revert to their own ways again.
Isaiah moves from the image of God (v 8) to the ideas of the Millennium. (9-17)
IDEAS OF THE MILLENNIUM 9-17
God’s declaration is to praise Him (10-12).
10 Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth, ye that go down to the sea, and all that is therein; the isles, and the inhabitants thereof. This is a picture of what will happen during the millennium. But, this is a picture of what should be taking place today in the hearts of God’s children. We should sing to Him. We should praise Him (10).
11 Let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift up their voice, the villages that Kedar doth inhabit: let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains. We should lift up our voices and shout from the mountain top or tell the world of the greatest of our Lord (11).
12 Let them give glory unto the LORD, and declare his praise in the islands. The whole world will praise Him.
Isaiah now turns his attention to what Israel was doing now. He declares judgment on Israel (13-17). Why?
Look at verse 17. 17 They shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed, that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, Ye are our gods.
The judgment that God reveals in verse 13-16 is declared because Israel had a graven image of God. Israel was caught up in narcissism. They lived for self. They were proud. Their life style was more important than God’s will for them.
Paul said the same thing in Second Timothy 3:2-4. 2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
The lost world needs to hear truth. The Hindu people are said to bow to 300 million different gods. That is a very sad story. In America many worship sports, money, drugs, pleasure, TV programs, and many other gods, that no one wants to call a god.
III GOD’S GRIEVOUS JUDGMENTS 18-25
I gave the title to the last few verses as grievous or dreadful. Why? Read and you will see:
18 Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see.
19 Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent? who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the Lord's servant?
God’s servants were blind. God’s prophets were deaf. God’s people could not spiritually see or understand what God was saying or doing because they were so far from Him.
Let me give you a few examples. I preach today that a person must be convicted by the Holy Spirit to be saved. I preach a person must, when convicted, repent and then believe or commit their lives to Jesus Christ. True conversion brings a change in a person life. That change is a desire for the word of God and the things of God. Those things are righteous and pure and virtuous things. Some folks hear those words but they go on living in sin day after day after day. Why? Having ears they hear not and having eyes they see not.
Their sins have literally blinded their eyes and minds to the truths of God’s word.
Now, read verse 20 and see the sadness of it: 20 Seeing many things, but thou observest not; opening the ears, but he heareth not.
A person with a molten image of God, hears preaching but they never change. They never seem to get any closer to God. They have decided that God can only have so much of their life and that is that. Like a person going to the grocery store, they say, “I will have a pound of sugar and no more, many say, I will have a pound of God and no more.”
Isaiah gives a word of encouragement to the righteous in verse 21.
21 The LORD is well pleased for his righteousness' sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honourable.
Then he turns his attention back to the majority of the Hebrew people in the last few verses. Notice what he says:
22 But this is a people robbed and spoiled; they are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison houses: they are for a prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil, and none saith, Restore.
Do you understand that verse? Satan had robbed them of God’s blessings. They have become filled with the spoils or pleasures of the world. They were trapped in holes of pleasure so deep they could not get out. They were prisoners in their own houses, yea prisoners to sin.
Stop and think! They were blind, deft, trapped by Satan and spoiled with the sins of the world. The reason there was none to deliver them was because they did not want deliverance. They enjoyed living right where they were.
And that is why most people live where they live. They don’t see the gracious judgments of God. They don’t understand the governing judgment of God. Most people think that the economy and morality of the world is just by chance. They have no idea that God will dictate the outcome of a nation by the moral living of the people. And finally, the grievous judgments of God fell on Israel and the reason America is on a downward slope is because we have as a nation forgotten God.
Now, even though the people just don’t seem to care about spiritual things, the prophet still sends out a plea. Look at verse 23. 23 Who among you will give ear to this? who will hearken and hear for the time to come?
Then Isaiah reveals something shocking. He reveals something that many liberal religions don’t believe or preach. Look at verse 24 and 25: 24 Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? did not the LORD, he against whom we have sinned? for they would not walk in his ways, neither were they obedient unto his law.
25 Therefore he hath poured upon him the fury of his anger, and the strength of battle: and it hath set him on fire round about, yet he knew not; and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart.
God gave victory to Israel’s enemies. God allow His own people to be robbed and they did not even know what was going on.
When the natural disasters came such as famine and pestilences, the tornadoes and fires, the wars and internal turmoil with their nation, they thought it was just by chance. No! The God of heaven can giver harmony to a nation, a home and a church and the God of heaven can turn it upside down.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Marriage
“THE SPIRIT OF MARRIAGE”
When God created man and woman and brought them together in marriage, He intended marriage to be the most wonderful communion on earth. That shocks most people, because most marriages anything but happy!
"To keep your marriage brimming / With love in the loving cup / Whenever you're wrong, admit it / Whenever you're right, shut up!"
“Marriage is like watching a majorette twirl a baton, or a gymnast tumbling or a person eating with chopsticks. It looks easy until you try it.”
One lady said, “The speaker at our woman's club was lecturing on marriage and asked the audience how many of us wanted to ‘mother’ our husbands. One member in the back row raised her hand.”
"You do want to mother your husband?" the speaker asked.
"Mother?" the woman echoed. "I thought you said smother."
Once when Mark Twain was lecturing in Utah, a Mormon acquaintance argued with him on the subject of polygamy. After a long and rather heated debate, the Mormon finally said, "Can you find for me a single passage of Scripture which forbids polygamy?" "Certainly," replied Twain. "No man can serve two masters.”
SCRIPTURES:
Read the following scriptures over and over till they become familiar.
Ephesians 5: 25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
33 Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Genesis 2: 7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Genesis 2: 21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
First Corinthians 11:3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.
8 For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man.
9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.
11 Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.
12 For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.
The spirit of marriage was made by God to be ecstasy. The spirit of marriage was a spirit of joy and excitement that was intended, by God, to last for a life time, not just six weeks or six months or six years.
As a carnival with music and lights and cotton candy and rides are a great thrill to a child, marriage was ordained and created by God to be just as rapturous. What has happened?
According to the above Scripture and hundreds of other verses God reveals what makes a marriage wonderful. We begin by look at two main thoughts in the message. 1) Why did God make man? 2) Why did God make the woman?
Why did God make man?
I know this is a question that many wives ask themselves a few months after marriage. Just, why did God make this man?
Now, why would most a woman ask a question like that? It may be due to the fact that most men don’t have the “spirit of marriage” that God intended for them.
Don’t get mad, men but most men in this world are egotistical, proud, arrogant, self-centered, and angry and, for some strange reason not even known to those men, they think they are God’s greatest gift on earth. Don’t stop reading!
Most men think they have all the answers even though they don’t have any questions. And sadly, to be perfectly honest, most men don’t know why they were created by God.
So, why did God create man?
-God made man for Him self.
-God made man in his image so man would bring glory to Him. -God wanted man to act like Him and to love like Him.
-God made man to sacrifice like Him, serve like Him.
-He made man to show first to his mate how absolutely loving, patience, gentle, compassionate and forgiving God is.
-Man was made for God! Man was made for God’s fellowship.
1) Man was made in the image of God (Gen 1:27).
2) He was to place himself under Christ’s authority. First Corinthians 11:3, But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ;
3) That combination would bring glory to God (I Cor 11:7). For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God…
The First of two vital aspect of the “spirit of marriage” is to be submissive.
A - SUBMISSIVE: The spirit of man to God and in marriage must be a submissive spirit.
Man is to be submissive to God’s will and way. Only then can man bring glory to the Lord. When Christ came, He said, “I have not come to do my will but the will of the Father.”
When a man is submissive, yielded to, and surrendered to the Lord Jesus Christ, God will make him a spiritual leader.
A man submissive to God’s will and word will be loving, gentle, east to be talked to, forgiving, full of mercy and good fruits. Read what James said in James 3: 17. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
A man must be under the Lord’s authority, if he is to be the spiritual leader of his home.
God will give him a tender and affectionate spirit. God will give him discernment and leadership.
Now, one more vital aspect of man’s spirit in marriage is seen in the life of Christ.
B - SERVANT: Man is to be, like Christ, a servant.
Look at Philippians 2: 6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
Jesus was equal with God and when He came into this world, He came in the form of a servant.
He set the example by a serving heart (John 13). It was Christ who took a towel and basin of water and washed the disciples feet the night before He was crucified.
It just seems that it should have been the other way around, had the disciples not been so proud, it might have been.
When Jesus completed this task he said to them in John 13: 15 For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.
Christ did not mean for us to have foot washings per say, but he meant for us to set the example in marriage in serving our mate. In other words men, don’t expect your wife to treat you any different or talk to you any different that you treat and talk to them.
Men, set the example for your wife.
If your wife loves you dearly and wants to play her role and serve you, you will have a wonderful marriage.
When marriage is a two way street it is great. When only one person is playing their role, it is difficult but manageable. But, when neither is submissive or serving, the war is on!
Men, make your wife feel like a queen and wives make your husband feel like a king.
***The biggest problem in marriage statistically proven is unkind words. Unkind words cut deep into one’s heart and soul.
Why did God make the woman?
Our next very important question is this, “Why did God make the woman? Dear ladies, I know this is the twenty-first century. I know what the philosophy of the world says about women, but I shall share with you what God says. I pray you will take this to heart.
In Genesis two, God saw that man was lonely. He causes a deep sleep to fall on Adam and then performed surgery. He took one of Adam’s ribs and made the woman and brought her to him.
Genesis 1:27 reminds us that the woman was made in the image of God as well as man. And it is vital that a woman be totally submissive first and foremost to the Lord and to His Word, just as the man.
God’s word reveals this to us in First Corinthians 11:7-9
7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.
8 For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man.
9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.
Let me bring out something very important here before I explain these verses. Many a woman has been trampled on by a man.
Many women have been deceived and treated wrongly. Many a woman has been mistreated, ridiculed, and condemned by an angry husband, or seen that life in their father and decided I won’t have any of this.
They have thus, built up a wall against the idea of being submissive to anyone, especially a man. For many women look at all men as proud, arrogant and egotistical, unkind and unloving.
If the woman had a dad or husband with a submissive and serving spirit she finds it much easier to have a “submissive and serving spirit.”
But, if a man is not under God’s authority and if he does not serve like Christ, the average woman will rebel against her husband, as the man has rebelled against God.
Look at verse 7c-9. but the woman is the glory of the man. 8 For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. 9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.
As the man was made for God, the woman was made for man. As the man plays his role and walks with God, he will live for God’s glory. He will want his life to honor the Lord. He will be loving, gentle, kind etc.
And so, a woman who will play her role and submit to God, will not mind playing her role, for she is treated royally by her husband.
If they, both, will put Jesus Christ first in their lives and live a life to please and serve Christ, their lives will become an ecstasy, a heaven and a paradise.
The spirit of marriage is a spirit of submissiveness and service.
Sure, there must be love, but love is demonstrated by one submitting to God and serving God.
Paul tells us in Ephesians 5:21, Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
I will challenge you to begin to work on those two thoughts if you want your marriage to bloom and blossom. Five things:
1 -Submit to God’s will. Learn your role and play it for God.
2 -Serve God. You serve God by obeying his commands.
3 -Don’t say an unkind word to your mate, no matter what.
4 -Don’t let Satan tell you lies about your mate. I called my mother today. She is 84. She said, Roland I’ve been trying to call you and you would not answer the phone. I said, “Mom, you may have the wrong number,” so I gave her the right number.
She said, “The devil told me you just didn’t want to talk to me. He told me you were to busy for me. He told me you didn’t love me” Men and women, don’t believe Satan lies!
5 - Do ten things each day that you would do if you really were in love. I know that if people do loving things, it will not be long before they experience the feelings that are often identified as being in love.
Love may not be in your marriage. Love is what one wills to do to make the other person happy and fulfilled. Often, we don't realize that what a person does will then influences what he feels.
In conclusion: The Spirit of marriage is one whereby both husband and wife submit to God and live a life to serve God. The way we serve God is in playing our God-given roles. Is it easy? No! But, the rewards when we meet our Lord shall be wonderful.
When God created man and woman and brought them together in marriage, He intended marriage to be the most wonderful communion on earth. That shocks most people, because most marriages anything but happy!
"To keep your marriage brimming / With love in the loving cup / Whenever you're wrong, admit it / Whenever you're right, shut up!"
“Marriage is like watching a majorette twirl a baton, or a gymnast tumbling or a person eating with chopsticks. It looks easy until you try it.”
One lady said, “The speaker at our woman's club was lecturing on marriage and asked the audience how many of us wanted to ‘mother’ our husbands. One member in the back row raised her hand.”
"You do want to mother your husband?" the speaker asked.
"Mother?" the woman echoed. "I thought you said smother."
Once when Mark Twain was lecturing in Utah, a Mormon acquaintance argued with him on the subject of polygamy. After a long and rather heated debate, the Mormon finally said, "Can you find for me a single passage of Scripture which forbids polygamy?" "Certainly," replied Twain. "No man can serve two masters.”
SCRIPTURES:
Read the following scriptures over and over till they become familiar.
Ephesians 5: 25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
33 Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Genesis 2: 7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Genesis 2: 21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
First Corinthians 11:3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.
8 For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man.
9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.
11 Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.
12 For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.
The spirit of marriage was made by God to be ecstasy. The spirit of marriage was a spirit of joy and excitement that was intended, by God, to last for a life time, not just six weeks or six months or six years.
As a carnival with music and lights and cotton candy and rides are a great thrill to a child, marriage was ordained and created by God to be just as rapturous. What has happened?
According to the above Scripture and hundreds of other verses God reveals what makes a marriage wonderful. We begin by look at two main thoughts in the message. 1) Why did God make man? 2) Why did God make the woman?
Why did God make man?
I know this is a question that many wives ask themselves a few months after marriage. Just, why did God make this man?
Now, why would most a woman ask a question like that? It may be due to the fact that most men don’t have the “spirit of marriage” that God intended for them.
Don’t get mad, men but most men in this world are egotistical, proud, arrogant, self-centered, and angry and, for some strange reason not even known to those men, they think they are God’s greatest gift on earth. Don’t stop reading!
Most men think they have all the answers even though they don’t have any questions. And sadly, to be perfectly honest, most men don’t know why they were created by God.
So, why did God create man?
-God made man for Him self.
-God made man in his image so man would bring glory to Him. -God wanted man to act like Him and to love like Him.
-God made man to sacrifice like Him, serve like Him.
-He made man to show first to his mate how absolutely loving, patience, gentle, compassionate and forgiving God is.
-Man was made for God! Man was made for God’s fellowship.
1) Man was made in the image of God (Gen 1:27).
2) He was to place himself under Christ’s authority. First Corinthians 11:3, But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ;
3) That combination would bring glory to God (I Cor 11:7). For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God…
The First of two vital aspect of the “spirit of marriage” is to be submissive.
A - SUBMISSIVE: The spirit of man to God and in marriage must be a submissive spirit.
Man is to be submissive to God’s will and way. Only then can man bring glory to the Lord. When Christ came, He said, “I have not come to do my will but the will of the Father.”
When a man is submissive, yielded to, and surrendered to the Lord Jesus Christ, God will make him a spiritual leader.
A man submissive to God’s will and word will be loving, gentle, east to be talked to, forgiving, full of mercy and good fruits. Read what James said in James 3: 17. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
A man must be under the Lord’s authority, if he is to be the spiritual leader of his home.
God will give him a tender and affectionate spirit. God will give him discernment and leadership.
Now, one more vital aspect of man’s spirit in marriage is seen in the life of Christ.
B - SERVANT: Man is to be, like Christ, a servant.
Look at Philippians 2: 6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
Jesus was equal with God and when He came into this world, He came in the form of a servant.
He set the example by a serving heart (John 13). It was Christ who took a towel and basin of water and washed the disciples feet the night before He was crucified.
It just seems that it should have been the other way around, had the disciples not been so proud, it might have been.
When Jesus completed this task he said to them in John 13: 15 For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.
Christ did not mean for us to have foot washings per say, but he meant for us to set the example in marriage in serving our mate. In other words men, don’t expect your wife to treat you any different or talk to you any different that you treat and talk to them.
Men, set the example for your wife.
If your wife loves you dearly and wants to play her role and serve you, you will have a wonderful marriage.
When marriage is a two way street it is great. When only one person is playing their role, it is difficult but manageable. But, when neither is submissive or serving, the war is on!
Men, make your wife feel like a queen and wives make your husband feel like a king.
***The biggest problem in marriage statistically proven is unkind words. Unkind words cut deep into one’s heart and soul.
Why did God make the woman?
Our next very important question is this, “Why did God make the woman? Dear ladies, I know this is the twenty-first century. I know what the philosophy of the world says about women, but I shall share with you what God says. I pray you will take this to heart.
In Genesis two, God saw that man was lonely. He causes a deep sleep to fall on Adam and then performed surgery. He took one of Adam’s ribs and made the woman and brought her to him.
Genesis 1:27 reminds us that the woman was made in the image of God as well as man. And it is vital that a woman be totally submissive first and foremost to the Lord and to His Word, just as the man.
God’s word reveals this to us in First Corinthians 11:7-9
7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.
8 For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man.
9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.
Let me bring out something very important here before I explain these verses. Many a woman has been trampled on by a man.
Many women have been deceived and treated wrongly. Many a woman has been mistreated, ridiculed, and condemned by an angry husband, or seen that life in their father and decided I won’t have any of this.
They have thus, built up a wall against the idea of being submissive to anyone, especially a man. For many women look at all men as proud, arrogant and egotistical, unkind and unloving.
If the woman had a dad or husband with a submissive and serving spirit she finds it much easier to have a “submissive and serving spirit.”
But, if a man is not under God’s authority and if he does not serve like Christ, the average woman will rebel against her husband, as the man has rebelled against God.
Look at verse 7c-9. but the woman is the glory of the man. 8 For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. 9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.
As the man was made for God, the woman was made for man. As the man plays his role and walks with God, he will live for God’s glory. He will want his life to honor the Lord. He will be loving, gentle, kind etc.
And so, a woman who will play her role and submit to God, will not mind playing her role, for she is treated royally by her husband.
If they, both, will put Jesus Christ first in their lives and live a life to please and serve Christ, their lives will become an ecstasy, a heaven and a paradise.
The spirit of marriage is a spirit of submissiveness and service.
Sure, there must be love, but love is demonstrated by one submitting to God and serving God.
Paul tells us in Ephesians 5:21, Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
I will challenge you to begin to work on those two thoughts if you want your marriage to bloom and blossom. Five things:
1 -Submit to God’s will. Learn your role and play it for God.
2 -Serve God. You serve God by obeying his commands.
3 -Don’t say an unkind word to your mate, no matter what.
4 -Don’t let Satan tell you lies about your mate. I called my mother today. She is 84. She said, Roland I’ve been trying to call you and you would not answer the phone. I said, “Mom, you may have the wrong number,” so I gave her the right number.
She said, “The devil told me you just didn’t want to talk to me. He told me you were to busy for me. He told me you didn’t love me” Men and women, don’t believe Satan lies!
5 - Do ten things each day that you would do if you really were in love. I know that if people do loving things, it will not be long before they experience the feelings that are often identified as being in love.
Love may not be in your marriage. Love is what one wills to do to make the other person happy and fulfilled. Often, we don't realize that what a person does will then influences what he feels.
In conclusion: The Spirit of marriage is one whereby both husband and wife submit to God and live a life to serve God. The way we serve God is in playing our God-given roles. Is it easy? No! But, the rewards when we meet our Lord shall be wonderful.
The Spirit of Marriage
THE FIRST MARRIAGE
In Luke 20, some men came to Jesus tempting him and said, a woman was married and her husband died and so she married his brother and he died and so she married seven brothers, for that was the custom. They asked, “Whose wife will she be in the resurrection?
Luke 20: 34 And Jesus answering said unto them, The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage:
35 But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage:
Marriage was the first human institution ordained by God. It was of course to reflect the wonder of God and the oneness man should have with God. Satan has waged war against the institution from the moment God began it.
The first marriage was quite unique, but then again, every marriage is unique. Adam didn’t go off to college to get his bride, nor was she his childhood sweetheart or neighborhood sweetheart.
God put Adam to sleep and did a little surgery. When Adam woke up and there was the most beautiful woman in the entire world.
When Adam said, “I’ve never seen a woman as beautiful as you,” he was telling the truth.
When Eve said to Adam, “You are the smartest man I’ve ever met,” she was also telling the truth.
We recall the story of the egotistical man who said to his blond wife, “Why did God make you so irresistibly beautiful and yet, so incredibly dumb?” His blond-headed wife replied. God made me beautiful so you would be attracted to me and God made me dumb so I would be attracted to you.
Now, we know that is not true, but with many couples fighting all the time, you wonder just what is wrong with the Christian idea of marriage.
Story: I am sure you all know the fictitious story of Adam speaking with God about the need of a wife. God said to Adam, “Adam, how would like a woman that would love you no matter what you did? How would you like a woman that would rub your back and feet after work? She would cook your meals, clean your house, pick up your clothes, cut the grass, take care of the garden and she would never once complain. She would meet you with a smile, sweet words and she would stay beautiful all the days of your life. Adam said, “Wow! What would that cost me?” God said, “It will cost you an arm and a leg?” Adam said, “What can I get for a rib,” and the rest is history?”
In the twenty-first century we smile or chuckle at that story simply because Biblical roles are played to much by Christians couples any more, much less by the unsaved world.
What I will bring to you in this message is marriage, God’s way. It is according to the Bible. You may take what is said and implement it into your life. If you do, I promise you a wonderful marriage.
Or, like most people you may stand shocked and amazed and continue the way you are going.
This message will reveal a few ingredients that can make marriage wonderful again.
Let us examine the first marriage God made. Turn to Genesis two.
First, there was an Operation:
We see the Doctor and the doctored.
Read Genesis 2:22. And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
The Lord is the Doctor: We learned in this last message that to have a happy marriage, both man and woman must submit to the doctor.
In verse 21 God put man to sleep and some women feel sure, that their husbands haven’t awakened yet. But, God put man to sleep and made woman.
The simple analogy is God knows what is best.
-He laid the ground rules for marriage.
-He does not need the advice of the man or woman.
-Marriage does not to be improved on.
-Marriage needs to just be lived according to what God says.
-God does not need our opinion to how a marriage should operate.
-The reason America is experiencing a 50% divorce rate is due to couples wanting to make their own rules for marriage rather than adopting the rules of God.
-If we are to truly enjoy the most fantastic union in the world we must make a vow in marriage to live a life of submission to the Lord.
I will teach Ephesians 5:21 says, “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
There are two types of submission. One is willing submission because of love; the other is obedient submission because of authority.
So often, we are obedient to God because we recognize Him as our authority and that is OK, but that is not good enough. God would prefer we obey Him, because we love and delight in Him.
How do we get to that place where we love and delight in God? It is achieved when we simply learn about Him from the Bible.
Now, let me say this, God is Awesome. I know people in the Church that spend time with the Lord. They know God is awesome. They know He is Holy. They know He is irresistibly wonderful. His love is overpowering. He is more alluring and appealing than anyone or anything on earth.
Now think! If a man will take the time to submit to God and get to know God, he can’t help, but love God.
If you adore someone, and we should adore the Lord, we then begin to act like that someone. Amen!
If a man truly loved the Lord, he would want to become like the Lord. If the Lord’s qualities are as irresistible as I have described, what will happen to the wife?
Let me show you what has happened over time: In many godly homes the Christian wife played her role of submission and enjoyed it greatly, because her husband played his role of submission to God.
The woman felt strength and security and was overwhelmed by the magnetism of her man.
Then, men began to get out from under God’s authority. They lost focus of God. They lost their magnetism and attraction.
Men began to concentrate on their outward appearance rather than their heart. They felt that money or muscles were more attractive that kindness and godliness.
Many godly women still tried to play their role, but it became more difficult. Finally many women, said, “It is just too hurtful to treat my husband like a king, when he no longer treats me like a queen. The wounds were too deep.”
Many husbands began to give their wives second, then third, then fourth place in their lives. Sports, hunting, money, friends, buddies, activities and work came before the wife.
Many men enjoyed bring children into the world, but then dumped the responsibility of the training of the children on the wife.
The wife felt forsaken and used, and many good women therefore rebelled against God’s ways and felt justified.
The wife felt more like a slave than a queen, so she began to find her friends, her activities and set her own goals in life. Who suffered most? The children suffered most and then the name of God.
There are some good men, who take the spiritual leadership and set the example for the wife and their marriage is beautiful. Thank God!
And there are some women who love to play their role to a godly man. Remember, God intended marriage to be the most wonderful facet of life. Of all activities in the world marriage was to shine the most glorious for God.
WARNING: Keep this passage in mind: Judges 21:25 reads, In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
The reason many marriages fail is because many couples make up their own rules about marriage. Here are some things that cause problems in marriage:
A – IGNORANCE: First, there are those totally ignorant of Scripture: Many folks today have no idea what the Bible teaches about marriage. They enter this union that is supposed to be sanctioned by God with little or no knowledge of Scriptural teachings at all and when everything in the home is turned upside down, they wonder why. They think because they say “I’m save” that everything is going to be great, but they are wrong.
B – REBELLION: There are those rebellious to Scripture: They say, “I know what the Bible says, but I’m going to live my life the way, I think is right in my own eyes.”
An ignorant and rebellious attitude will do three things:
1) The marriage will never reach the joyous level it could. And it might have a great reverse affect and make a marriage miserable.
2) It will destroy the object lesson God intended marriage to be which a picture of Christ and the Church. Ephesians 5:32 “This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” The love and unity and bliss a married couple should have, is to be a witness to an unsaved world.
3) Children will be disillusioned to what marriage is all about. The reason many children today reject the type of marriage mom and dad has and reject the God they worship is because, they sense such unhappiness.
The Doctored: The first marriage began with surgery. Does your marriage need surgery? If so, let God do the cutting.
Three types of surgery:
A – We need a tongue surgery. Many folks need to lay their tongues on the altar and let God cut away any unkind and hurtful words.
Paul said in Ephesians 4:29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
Grace gives people energy. It lifts people up. It is the power and desire to do the will of God. Do your words minister grace?
B – We need heart surgery. Lay your heart on the altar and let God cut away all anger and bitterness.
Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? The love in your heart is display in your actions. People see it in your eyes and they hear it in your voice. You can not hide your heart from your children. You can camouflage it around folks at church, but not at home.
C – We need brain surgery. Lay your minds on the altar and let God remove all evil thoughts and memories of past hurts.
Second Corinthians 10: 4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) 5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
The Scriptures and prayer are our weapons.
I – First, there was an Operation (Submission)
II - Second, there was an Observance (Intimacy)
Hebrews 13:4 Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.
Christlikeness: There is an intimacy in marriage far deeper then what goes on behind closed doors. Marriage was ordained by Doctor Jesus.
It was two-fold. It has a physical intimacy, but more important it has a spiritual intimacy.
Spiritual intimacy takes place in the heart. Most marriages today however are solely based on the physical. “Is he handsome?” “Is she pretty?” Or terminology today says, “Is she hot or is he hot?”
Why don’t Christians, at lease, ask the question, “Does he love Jesus?” “Does she love Jesus?” “Is he virtuous?” “Is she virtuous?” The intimacy in marriage that will see you through the good times and bad times is Christlikeness.
Chivalry: Husbands, use to live for the challenge of tapping into the deepest crevasse of a wife’s heart.
Chivalry, courtesy, good manners and politeness use to be the badge of manliness. Next to the honor of laying down his life for God, a man counted it a great honor to lay down his life for his wife.
But, the badge of chivalry has given way to a macho, non-emotional, cocky attitude that says, “I don’t need you. I don’t need anybody but me.”
The attitude that, “I can live with you or without you,” is not of God. It was never intended to be so, in the realms of marriage.
A woman was never meant to be picked up and dropped off. She was meant to be courted, wooed, loved and treated like a queen all the days of her life.
She was not taken from man’s feet to be trampled on.
She was not taken from man’s head to rule over him.
She was taken from man’s side, next to his heart, for she is to be loved, cherished and prized.
Have you quit praying with your mate? Why not take each others heart and hand and start again.
Illustration: Years ago I heard that people who have been married for years begin to look alike.
How true that is, I don’t know, but one thing I have observed to be true, in many families, is people who live together begin to act alike.
Now this can be good and this can be bad. A godly mate can cause the other to live more like God, but on the other hand, often an ungodly mate has the ability to draw the one seeking the Lord away from the Lord.
I’ve seen both sides. I know a godly girl, that married a “profession Christian man” and today is miserable.
I know a godly man that married a “professing Christian girl” and today they are at the point of divorce. Why?
They may know Christ as their Savior and I pray they do, but they don’t know the heart of God or the Word of God.
This happened in the life of Mark Twain. When Mark Twain married his wife, Olivia, who was very religious, to honor her, he went to church with her weekly. Mark began to find fault with the preacher and others. His criticism and critique of religion over the years finally caused his wife to stop going to church as well.
After many years a great crisis transpired in their life. Mark Twain said to his wife, “Dear you need to pray over this crisis.” She said to him, “Mark, I quit praying years ago.”
I – First, there was an Operation (Separation)
II - Second, there was an Observance (Intimacy)
3 - Third, there was an Oath (Vow)
Genesis 2:23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
At first every newlywed couple is the product of their parents. Since, Adam and Eve did not have parents; they did not have to deal with twenty years of how mom and dad raised them, and how the environment had an influence on their lives.
If a man and woman getting married were raised by truly godly parents, then the marriage will make a pretty easy transaction.
And let me say, just because parents live a life in church, or are preachers of deacons, does not make them godly. Nor does being raised outside of Church make your married life ungodly.
I was raised in a non-Christian home. After I was saved, I had to learn how to love, how to be a godly husband, how to properly train and raise my children. The key was a vow, I made to God and my wife.
For all who use the excuse, “I wasn’t raised right,” that is a cop out. I wasn’t raised to love and fear God, but after I was born again, I learned that God wanted me loving, kind and gentle and not selfish, mean and angry.
If a couple does not develop the submissive and serving spirit, then the opposite attitude is adopted, which is a stubborn and selfish human spirit.
The stubborn spirit says, “I want it done my way.” The selfish spirit says, “It will be done my way.”
Illustration: On a native island the custom for marriage was for the man to pay a dowry to the father-in-law. If the man felt the woman was worth one cow, he would offer one cow. If he thought she was worth more, he would offer more. The most a man had ever paid for a wife was the great sum of five cows.
On the island was a strong good looking native who showed an interest in a backward, shy and plain-looking girl. He went to her father to make an offer for her hand in marriage.
The people wondered how much he would offer for this plain girl. “Will he offer one cow or may one and a half,” they said with laughter.
When the wife to be was secured, it was discovered that the man offered to the father of this plain woman, five cows. The people were amazed.
They were married. He took her away to a distant island for ten years. When they returned, the people could not believe how beautiful the plain looking woman had become. Why?
Her husband made her beautiful by making her bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. He made her what he was.
4 - Fourth, there is an Obligation (Responsibility)
Genesis 2:24, Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Marriage is a great privilege with many benefits. But those benefits come with great responsibility. A man is to take care of his wife. He must leave his father and mother. That means, he must not be dependent on his mother and father any longer. He must be his own man.
Mothers, teach your daughters this truth, “Don’t marry a mama’s boy.” If the guy you are thinking about marrying can’t take care of himself; he can’t take care of you and he won’t.
It won’t be long before you will be taking care of him. Girls, when you get married, marry a man who works hard and provides for himself. Oh, yes, make sure he has a job, a car and a driver’s license.
-Marry a man who will be your spiritual leader, who will set an example for you. You don’t want to be a mother to a twenty-five or thirty-five year old child.
Illustration: Over ten years ago I dealt with a family that was having problems. The wife worked six days a week. The man claimed he couldn’t find a job for quite some time. He finely landed one with minimum wage. His father was pretty well off, but the boy, being spoiled most of his life, found it difficult to work, since he never had to work till he got married. His life was pretty much fun and games.
She threatened to leave him again and again. One day, he called me and asked if I could come and talk to them. I drove 150 miles to talk with the family. He didn’t want her to leave. I asked her what the problem was. She told me, “He comes home on Friday evening and goes into the back bedroom and plays Video games with a friend till Sunday night. He does that weekend after weekend. I ask the man if this was so and he said, “Yes.” We talked. He promised to change. But she left anyway. I felt sorry for the man, but I don’t blame the woman. She married a kid. O’ yes! They had three children and the oldest was 14. This was a 35 year old kid. That thought more about playing video games then taking care of his wife and family.
Girls, if the man can’t take care of his own life when you meet him, he can’t and won’t take care of you.
If he isn’t seeking God without you before you meet, once he gets you, he won’t seek the Lord with you.
Ladies, look at the man’s responsibilities towards God. If God is honored and put first, you will be honored and put first. If God is not honored and put first, neither will you be.
I believe most Christian women have a good heart. I believe many of them would be more apt to play their role, if men would play theirs. But, I know there are exceptions to that rule.
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist religion, injured his ankle one day while stepping off a platform. He was taken to a widow’s house with two children, where the widow ministered to his injury. John married that widow. I wish history revealed that they were happy, but they were miserable. She wrote letters against his ministry. They were not a happy couple. She was such a heavy burden to him, that John wrote in his diary that he felt at times, he was married to the devil.
Men, please learn your role, and women, please learn your role before you ever enter the doors of matrimony.
You might say, but I have been married for years. How are things going? Do you know your role? Are you playing your role for God’s glory? If you know it and you are playing it, you marriage will be wonderful.
Think again of the spirit of marriage. Learn God’s word and develop a submissive and a servant spirit.
5 – Fifth, there is a Oneness (Unity)
Look at Genesis 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
The quicker you seek the Lord, the quicker you become one flesh. If both are seeking the Lord, then you will become like the Lord. Love and joy and peace will flow from your lives.
If both are seeking to please self, then you have a two-headed monster in the home and that would be very frightening to the children and neighbors. Nobody likes monsters. God intended marriage to be the most beautiful flower in your yard.
Notice the words, “one flesh.” How many of you are one-flesh? I mean you have an oneness of spirit. You are in unity and harmony with each other. There is nothing between you and your mate. You are best of friends, you are prayer partners and you are lovers.
You may ask, “What does it matter?” There are many things that matter but I will give you two:
1) Your prayers will get no higher than the ceiling if things are not right between each other.
2) Your children will rebel against God or be harmed by a lack of oneness in your marriage.
If you to be “ONE FLESH.” In Christian Living that meant Parents raised their girls to be chaste, discreet, loving and gentle. A girl was taught how to love her husband and raise her children by mom. A girl was taught the Scriptures by dad.
The boy was taught how to seek the Lord, how to be the spiritual leader and how to love God. Well, when these two kids got together, they were well trained for whatever lied ahead.
The famous words that Ruth spoke are God’s word for a woman to a man. It brings oneness.
Ruth 1:16 “And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:
17 Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.”
I stand amazed at this statement because it was not made by a godly Israelite, but by a lowly Moabite. What amazing character she had, even before she knew the Lord.
Review for a moment:
God made man first. Man was made for God’s fellowship. Man was to walk and talk with God and set godly goals for his life.
God made the woman for man. The woman, soft and gentle, loving and pure was to join the man in marriage to help him reach those God-given goals.
Most of you men probably think, preacher, you talked to us a lot, but you didn’t say much to the ladies. You are right! The reason for that is because, I learned that when I began to seek the Lord and became more like Christ, God shoed me that I had to be the initiator. I had to set the example of what I wanted my wife to be.
My submission to God became my wife’s heart.
My servant spirit was an example to my wife.
My kind words were returned by kind words.
My love was returned with love.
Now, I know, there are so men and women that are going narcissist (self-absorbed, selfish) and may never change.
Listen Christian, play your role. If you live your role for the Lord, God will either bless you with a great life down here or a greater life on the other side.
Men and Ladies, we live in a culture in America that teaches just the opposite of everything I have showed you from God’s word.
Because of that, having harmony in the home becomes more and more difficult with every passing generation.
Would it not be great if every young man sought God’s face and set spiritual and Biblical goals for his life?
And think, if every young girl knew that her main calling in life was to be a good wife to a godly man.
But, because this seldom enters the minds of most married couples, after the physical bliss has worn off, troubles begin.
-Some couples seek the Lord and work things out and the joy and bliss of Godly marriage comes again.
-Some couples stubbornly are determined to do things there way and they lose their oneness, but decide to endure till the ends for pride sake or the sake of their kids.
-Other couples are so trouble; they end the marriage, hoping the next one will be better. Statistics reveal that about 68% of the time, the second marriage is more difficult than the first.
Therefore, the best way is God’s way.
6 - Sixth, there is an Openness
Genesis 2:25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
A couple must bare their souls to each other. Their must be communication. Couples must be able to talk without getting angry or fussing.
Proverbs 13: 10 Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom.
Pride brings arguments, disharmony and strife.
Couples must be open to each other’s opinions and views. Openness is essentially the willingness to grow and change.
Years ago a man once bought a new radio, brought it home, placed it on the refrigerator, plugged it in, turned it to WSM in Nashville (home of the Grand Ole Opry), and then pulled all the knobs off!
He had already tuned in all he ever wanted or expected to hear.
Some marriages are like that. They are "rutted" and rather dreary because either or both partners have yielded to the tyranny of the inevitable, "what has been will still be."
If you like the rut, you are in, stay there, but if you would like to enjoy the beauty of marriage, do it the way the maker planned it.
In Luke 20, some men came to Jesus tempting him and said, a woman was married and her husband died and so she married his brother and he died and so she married seven brothers, for that was the custom. They asked, “Whose wife will she be in the resurrection?
Luke 20: 34 And Jesus answering said unto them, The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage:
35 But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage:
Marriage was the first human institution ordained by God. It was of course to reflect the wonder of God and the oneness man should have with God. Satan has waged war against the institution from the moment God began it.
The first marriage was quite unique, but then again, every marriage is unique. Adam didn’t go off to college to get his bride, nor was she his childhood sweetheart or neighborhood sweetheart.
God put Adam to sleep and did a little surgery. When Adam woke up and there was the most beautiful woman in the entire world.
When Adam said, “I’ve never seen a woman as beautiful as you,” he was telling the truth.
When Eve said to Adam, “You are the smartest man I’ve ever met,” she was also telling the truth.
We recall the story of the egotistical man who said to his blond wife, “Why did God make you so irresistibly beautiful and yet, so incredibly dumb?” His blond-headed wife replied. God made me beautiful so you would be attracted to me and God made me dumb so I would be attracted to you.
Now, we know that is not true, but with many couples fighting all the time, you wonder just what is wrong with the Christian idea of marriage.
Story: I am sure you all know the fictitious story of Adam speaking with God about the need of a wife. God said to Adam, “Adam, how would like a woman that would love you no matter what you did? How would you like a woman that would rub your back and feet after work? She would cook your meals, clean your house, pick up your clothes, cut the grass, take care of the garden and she would never once complain. She would meet you with a smile, sweet words and she would stay beautiful all the days of your life. Adam said, “Wow! What would that cost me?” God said, “It will cost you an arm and a leg?” Adam said, “What can I get for a rib,” and the rest is history?”
In the twenty-first century we smile or chuckle at that story simply because Biblical roles are played to much by Christians couples any more, much less by the unsaved world.
What I will bring to you in this message is marriage, God’s way. It is according to the Bible. You may take what is said and implement it into your life. If you do, I promise you a wonderful marriage.
Or, like most people you may stand shocked and amazed and continue the way you are going.
This message will reveal a few ingredients that can make marriage wonderful again.
Let us examine the first marriage God made. Turn to Genesis two.
First, there was an Operation:
We see the Doctor and the doctored.
Read Genesis 2:22. And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
The Lord is the Doctor: We learned in this last message that to have a happy marriage, both man and woman must submit to the doctor.
In verse 21 God put man to sleep and some women feel sure, that their husbands haven’t awakened yet. But, God put man to sleep and made woman.
The simple analogy is God knows what is best.
-He laid the ground rules for marriage.
-He does not need the advice of the man or woman.
-Marriage does not to be improved on.
-Marriage needs to just be lived according to what God says.
-God does not need our opinion to how a marriage should operate.
-The reason America is experiencing a 50% divorce rate is due to couples wanting to make their own rules for marriage rather than adopting the rules of God.
-If we are to truly enjoy the most fantastic union in the world we must make a vow in marriage to live a life of submission to the Lord.
I will teach Ephesians 5:21 says, “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
There are two types of submission. One is willing submission because of love; the other is obedient submission because of authority.
So often, we are obedient to God because we recognize Him as our authority and that is OK, but that is not good enough. God would prefer we obey Him, because we love and delight in Him.
How do we get to that place where we love and delight in God? It is achieved when we simply learn about Him from the Bible.
Now, let me say this, God is Awesome. I know people in the Church that spend time with the Lord. They know God is awesome. They know He is Holy. They know He is irresistibly wonderful. His love is overpowering. He is more alluring and appealing than anyone or anything on earth.
Now think! If a man will take the time to submit to God and get to know God, he can’t help, but love God.
If you adore someone, and we should adore the Lord, we then begin to act like that someone. Amen!
If a man truly loved the Lord, he would want to become like the Lord. If the Lord’s qualities are as irresistible as I have described, what will happen to the wife?
Let me show you what has happened over time: In many godly homes the Christian wife played her role of submission and enjoyed it greatly, because her husband played his role of submission to God.
The woman felt strength and security and was overwhelmed by the magnetism of her man.
Then, men began to get out from under God’s authority. They lost focus of God. They lost their magnetism and attraction.
Men began to concentrate on their outward appearance rather than their heart. They felt that money or muscles were more attractive that kindness and godliness.
Many godly women still tried to play their role, but it became more difficult. Finally many women, said, “It is just too hurtful to treat my husband like a king, when he no longer treats me like a queen. The wounds were too deep.”
Many husbands began to give their wives second, then third, then fourth place in their lives. Sports, hunting, money, friends, buddies, activities and work came before the wife.
Many men enjoyed bring children into the world, but then dumped the responsibility of the training of the children on the wife.
The wife felt forsaken and used, and many good women therefore rebelled against God’s ways and felt justified.
The wife felt more like a slave than a queen, so she began to find her friends, her activities and set her own goals in life. Who suffered most? The children suffered most and then the name of God.
There are some good men, who take the spiritual leadership and set the example for the wife and their marriage is beautiful. Thank God!
And there are some women who love to play their role to a godly man. Remember, God intended marriage to be the most wonderful facet of life. Of all activities in the world marriage was to shine the most glorious for God.
WARNING: Keep this passage in mind: Judges 21:25 reads, In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
The reason many marriages fail is because many couples make up their own rules about marriage. Here are some things that cause problems in marriage:
A – IGNORANCE: First, there are those totally ignorant of Scripture: Many folks today have no idea what the Bible teaches about marriage. They enter this union that is supposed to be sanctioned by God with little or no knowledge of Scriptural teachings at all and when everything in the home is turned upside down, they wonder why. They think because they say “I’m save” that everything is going to be great, but they are wrong.
B – REBELLION: There are those rebellious to Scripture: They say, “I know what the Bible says, but I’m going to live my life the way, I think is right in my own eyes.”
An ignorant and rebellious attitude will do three things:
1) The marriage will never reach the joyous level it could. And it might have a great reverse affect and make a marriage miserable.
2) It will destroy the object lesson God intended marriage to be which a picture of Christ and the Church. Ephesians 5:32 “This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” The love and unity and bliss a married couple should have, is to be a witness to an unsaved world.
3) Children will be disillusioned to what marriage is all about. The reason many children today reject the type of marriage mom and dad has and reject the God they worship is because, they sense such unhappiness.
The Doctored: The first marriage began with surgery. Does your marriage need surgery? If so, let God do the cutting.
Three types of surgery:
A – We need a tongue surgery. Many folks need to lay their tongues on the altar and let God cut away any unkind and hurtful words.
Paul said in Ephesians 4:29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
Grace gives people energy. It lifts people up. It is the power and desire to do the will of God. Do your words minister grace?
B – We need heart surgery. Lay your heart on the altar and let God cut away all anger and bitterness.
Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? The love in your heart is display in your actions. People see it in your eyes and they hear it in your voice. You can not hide your heart from your children. You can camouflage it around folks at church, but not at home.
C – We need brain surgery. Lay your minds on the altar and let God remove all evil thoughts and memories of past hurts.
Second Corinthians 10: 4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) 5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
The Scriptures and prayer are our weapons.
I – First, there was an Operation (Submission)
II - Second, there was an Observance (Intimacy)
Hebrews 13:4 Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.
Christlikeness: There is an intimacy in marriage far deeper then what goes on behind closed doors. Marriage was ordained by Doctor Jesus.
It was two-fold. It has a physical intimacy, but more important it has a spiritual intimacy.
Spiritual intimacy takes place in the heart. Most marriages today however are solely based on the physical. “Is he handsome?” “Is she pretty?” Or terminology today says, “Is she hot or is he hot?”
Why don’t Christians, at lease, ask the question, “Does he love Jesus?” “Does she love Jesus?” “Is he virtuous?” “Is she virtuous?” The intimacy in marriage that will see you through the good times and bad times is Christlikeness.
Chivalry: Husbands, use to live for the challenge of tapping into the deepest crevasse of a wife’s heart.
Chivalry, courtesy, good manners and politeness use to be the badge of manliness. Next to the honor of laying down his life for God, a man counted it a great honor to lay down his life for his wife.
But, the badge of chivalry has given way to a macho, non-emotional, cocky attitude that says, “I don’t need you. I don’t need anybody but me.”
The attitude that, “I can live with you or without you,” is not of God. It was never intended to be so, in the realms of marriage.
A woman was never meant to be picked up and dropped off. She was meant to be courted, wooed, loved and treated like a queen all the days of her life.
She was not taken from man’s feet to be trampled on.
She was not taken from man’s head to rule over him.
She was taken from man’s side, next to his heart, for she is to be loved, cherished and prized.
Have you quit praying with your mate? Why not take each others heart and hand and start again.
Illustration: Years ago I heard that people who have been married for years begin to look alike.
How true that is, I don’t know, but one thing I have observed to be true, in many families, is people who live together begin to act alike.
Now this can be good and this can be bad. A godly mate can cause the other to live more like God, but on the other hand, often an ungodly mate has the ability to draw the one seeking the Lord away from the Lord.
I’ve seen both sides. I know a godly girl, that married a “profession Christian man” and today is miserable.
I know a godly man that married a “professing Christian girl” and today they are at the point of divorce. Why?
They may know Christ as their Savior and I pray they do, but they don’t know the heart of God or the Word of God.
This happened in the life of Mark Twain. When Mark Twain married his wife, Olivia, who was very religious, to honor her, he went to church with her weekly. Mark began to find fault with the preacher and others. His criticism and critique of religion over the years finally caused his wife to stop going to church as well.
After many years a great crisis transpired in their life. Mark Twain said to his wife, “Dear you need to pray over this crisis.” She said to him, “Mark, I quit praying years ago.”
I – First, there was an Operation (Separation)
II - Second, there was an Observance (Intimacy)
3 - Third, there was an Oath (Vow)
Genesis 2:23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
At first every newlywed couple is the product of their parents. Since, Adam and Eve did not have parents; they did not have to deal with twenty years of how mom and dad raised them, and how the environment had an influence on their lives.
If a man and woman getting married were raised by truly godly parents, then the marriage will make a pretty easy transaction.
And let me say, just because parents live a life in church, or are preachers of deacons, does not make them godly. Nor does being raised outside of Church make your married life ungodly.
I was raised in a non-Christian home. After I was saved, I had to learn how to love, how to be a godly husband, how to properly train and raise my children. The key was a vow, I made to God and my wife.
For all who use the excuse, “I wasn’t raised right,” that is a cop out. I wasn’t raised to love and fear God, but after I was born again, I learned that God wanted me loving, kind and gentle and not selfish, mean and angry.
If a couple does not develop the submissive and serving spirit, then the opposite attitude is adopted, which is a stubborn and selfish human spirit.
The stubborn spirit says, “I want it done my way.” The selfish spirit says, “It will be done my way.”
Illustration: On a native island the custom for marriage was for the man to pay a dowry to the father-in-law. If the man felt the woman was worth one cow, he would offer one cow. If he thought she was worth more, he would offer more. The most a man had ever paid for a wife was the great sum of five cows.
On the island was a strong good looking native who showed an interest in a backward, shy and plain-looking girl. He went to her father to make an offer for her hand in marriage.
The people wondered how much he would offer for this plain girl. “Will he offer one cow or may one and a half,” they said with laughter.
When the wife to be was secured, it was discovered that the man offered to the father of this plain woman, five cows. The people were amazed.
They were married. He took her away to a distant island for ten years. When they returned, the people could not believe how beautiful the plain looking woman had become. Why?
Her husband made her beautiful by making her bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. He made her what he was.
4 - Fourth, there is an Obligation (Responsibility)
Genesis 2:24, Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Marriage is a great privilege with many benefits. But those benefits come with great responsibility. A man is to take care of his wife. He must leave his father and mother. That means, he must not be dependent on his mother and father any longer. He must be his own man.
Mothers, teach your daughters this truth, “Don’t marry a mama’s boy.” If the guy you are thinking about marrying can’t take care of himself; he can’t take care of you and he won’t.
It won’t be long before you will be taking care of him. Girls, when you get married, marry a man who works hard and provides for himself. Oh, yes, make sure he has a job, a car and a driver’s license.
-Marry a man who will be your spiritual leader, who will set an example for you. You don’t want to be a mother to a twenty-five or thirty-five year old child.
Illustration: Over ten years ago I dealt with a family that was having problems. The wife worked six days a week. The man claimed he couldn’t find a job for quite some time. He finely landed one with minimum wage. His father was pretty well off, but the boy, being spoiled most of his life, found it difficult to work, since he never had to work till he got married. His life was pretty much fun and games.
She threatened to leave him again and again. One day, he called me and asked if I could come and talk to them. I drove 150 miles to talk with the family. He didn’t want her to leave. I asked her what the problem was. She told me, “He comes home on Friday evening and goes into the back bedroom and plays Video games with a friend till Sunday night. He does that weekend after weekend. I ask the man if this was so and he said, “Yes.” We talked. He promised to change. But she left anyway. I felt sorry for the man, but I don’t blame the woman. She married a kid. O’ yes! They had three children and the oldest was 14. This was a 35 year old kid. That thought more about playing video games then taking care of his wife and family.
Girls, if the man can’t take care of his own life when you meet him, he can’t and won’t take care of you.
If he isn’t seeking God without you before you meet, once he gets you, he won’t seek the Lord with you.
Ladies, look at the man’s responsibilities towards God. If God is honored and put first, you will be honored and put first. If God is not honored and put first, neither will you be.
I believe most Christian women have a good heart. I believe many of them would be more apt to play their role, if men would play theirs. But, I know there are exceptions to that rule.
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist religion, injured his ankle one day while stepping off a platform. He was taken to a widow’s house with two children, where the widow ministered to his injury. John married that widow. I wish history revealed that they were happy, but they were miserable. She wrote letters against his ministry. They were not a happy couple. She was such a heavy burden to him, that John wrote in his diary that he felt at times, he was married to the devil.
Men, please learn your role, and women, please learn your role before you ever enter the doors of matrimony.
You might say, but I have been married for years. How are things going? Do you know your role? Are you playing your role for God’s glory? If you know it and you are playing it, you marriage will be wonderful.
Think again of the spirit of marriage. Learn God’s word and develop a submissive and a servant spirit.
5 – Fifth, there is a Oneness (Unity)
Look at Genesis 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
The quicker you seek the Lord, the quicker you become one flesh. If both are seeking the Lord, then you will become like the Lord. Love and joy and peace will flow from your lives.
If both are seeking to please self, then you have a two-headed monster in the home and that would be very frightening to the children and neighbors. Nobody likes monsters. God intended marriage to be the most beautiful flower in your yard.
Notice the words, “one flesh.” How many of you are one-flesh? I mean you have an oneness of spirit. You are in unity and harmony with each other. There is nothing between you and your mate. You are best of friends, you are prayer partners and you are lovers.
You may ask, “What does it matter?” There are many things that matter but I will give you two:
1) Your prayers will get no higher than the ceiling if things are not right between each other.
2) Your children will rebel against God or be harmed by a lack of oneness in your marriage.
If you to be “ONE FLESH.” In Christian Living that meant Parents raised their girls to be chaste, discreet, loving and gentle. A girl was taught how to love her husband and raise her children by mom. A girl was taught the Scriptures by dad.
The boy was taught how to seek the Lord, how to be the spiritual leader and how to love God. Well, when these two kids got together, they were well trained for whatever lied ahead.
The famous words that Ruth spoke are God’s word for a woman to a man. It brings oneness.
Ruth 1:16 “And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:
17 Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.”
I stand amazed at this statement because it was not made by a godly Israelite, but by a lowly Moabite. What amazing character she had, even before she knew the Lord.
Review for a moment:
God made man first. Man was made for God’s fellowship. Man was to walk and talk with God and set godly goals for his life.
God made the woman for man. The woman, soft and gentle, loving and pure was to join the man in marriage to help him reach those God-given goals.
Most of you men probably think, preacher, you talked to us a lot, but you didn’t say much to the ladies. You are right! The reason for that is because, I learned that when I began to seek the Lord and became more like Christ, God shoed me that I had to be the initiator. I had to set the example of what I wanted my wife to be.
My submission to God became my wife’s heart.
My servant spirit was an example to my wife.
My kind words were returned by kind words.
My love was returned with love.
Now, I know, there are so men and women that are going narcissist (self-absorbed, selfish) and may never change.
Listen Christian, play your role. If you live your role for the Lord, God will either bless you with a great life down here or a greater life on the other side.
Men and Ladies, we live in a culture in America that teaches just the opposite of everything I have showed you from God’s word.
Because of that, having harmony in the home becomes more and more difficult with every passing generation.
Would it not be great if every young man sought God’s face and set spiritual and Biblical goals for his life?
And think, if every young girl knew that her main calling in life was to be a good wife to a godly man.
But, because this seldom enters the minds of most married couples, after the physical bliss has worn off, troubles begin.
-Some couples seek the Lord and work things out and the joy and bliss of Godly marriage comes again.
-Some couples stubbornly are determined to do things there way and they lose their oneness, but decide to endure till the ends for pride sake or the sake of their kids.
-Other couples are so trouble; they end the marriage, hoping the next one will be better. Statistics reveal that about 68% of the time, the second marriage is more difficult than the first.
Therefore, the best way is God’s way.
6 - Sixth, there is an Openness
Genesis 2:25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
A couple must bare their souls to each other. Their must be communication. Couples must be able to talk without getting angry or fussing.
Proverbs 13: 10 Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom.
Pride brings arguments, disharmony and strife.
Couples must be open to each other’s opinions and views. Openness is essentially the willingness to grow and change.
Years ago a man once bought a new radio, brought it home, placed it on the refrigerator, plugged it in, turned it to WSM in Nashville (home of the Grand Ole Opry), and then pulled all the knobs off!
He had already tuned in all he ever wanted or expected to hear.
Some marriages are like that. They are "rutted" and rather dreary because either or both partners have yielded to the tyranny of the inevitable, "what has been will still be."
If you like the rut, you are in, stay there, but if you would like to enjoy the beauty of marriage, do it the way the maker planned it.
The Prince of Peace
THE PRINCE OF PEACE
Isaiah 40:31, But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
Isaiah described our Savior, Jesus Christ, as the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace, in Isaiah 9:6. In Isaiah 40 he expounds on each of these aspects of Christ’s life.
This message deals with Christ as our “Prince of peace.” The Bible offers us peace with God and the peace of God. To reject either will bring tragic consequences.
Peace with God comes when we surrender our hearts to Jesus Christ in Salvation. Peace of God comes when we walk with Him daily.
Living for Christ and given Him proper place in our lives, which should be first place will make you peaceful.
So, what is peace?
-It is the assurance a person has, because heaven will be their home.
-It is the comfort one has, because they are in fellowship with Christ.
-It is the contentment one has, because one trust in the Lord.
However, many people will get so busy making a living, they fail to make a life.
Many people will build a house, but will never enjoy their home.
Some will have children, but never enjoy a family.
Some will make money, but never enjoy wealth.
Everybody desires peace or a life free of war within their own souls and their own families. But, a person does not have peace, because he is rich or poor. A person does not have peace because he owns his own company or if he is on welfare. Peace only comes from the Prince of peace.
Isaiah knew this for this happened to his own people. So, he ends this chapter by giving us words that will direct us to a life of peace.
1. FIRST, WE SEE THE PLACE OF PEACE is spending time with God.
28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding.
For thirty-nine chapters, Isaiah revealed that God must judge the nations of the world, as well as His own people, because they had all forgotten Him.
Sadly, Israel came to the place where they were more concerned with making peace with the enemy, than making peace with Him.
Analogy: In America many folks are troubled about the political, economic and moral condition of our country. We must first look within our own homes and ask this question: “How are we running our homes from a Biblical aspect? How are we taking care of our finances? How is the moral condition of our hearts?
Don’t worry and don’t fret about the world until we have peace with the Lord by spending time with Him.
The story is told of a man who had a long day at work. When he arrived home, his little five year old boy came bouncing in and jumped on dad’s lap and said, “Dad lets play?” Well, dad needed a few minutes to just get his thoughts together so he said to the boy, “Hand me my newspaper?” In the newspaper that day was a picture of the world from a satellite. Dad took a knife and cut the picture in about 25 pieces and said to his son, “Let’s play a game, take this tape and when you put this picture together, we’ll play.” Dad was hoping to get about a hour of rest. In about 10 minutes the little boy came bouncing in the room. ‘Here, dad, I’m finished.”
Sure enough the boy was done. “How did you do that so fast,” the dad asked? The little boy turned the picture of the world over and showed his dad a picture of a man. He said, “Dad, on the back side of the world was a picture of a man. I thought if I could put the man back together the world would take care of itself.”
Isaiah says in verse 28, “Hast thou not known,” or don’t you know God?” Don’t you know that the way to peace, in a world gone crazy with sin, will first be a war? We find this in Matthew 10:34.
Jesus said, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword (Matthew 10:34).
-Christ came with a two-edged sword to separate good from evil.
-When a person receives Christ, He separates the sinner from sin.
-He separates the saints from the world.
Jesus does not bring peace through compromise. Some think, “Well if God would meet me half way, I would live for Him.” The truth of the matter is God came all the way.
He made us. He gave us life. He provided this world for us to live in. He gives us our air to breath and keeps our heart beating.
We sinned. We rebelled against Him. We ignored Him and walked our way.
Then God sent His Son into this world. Jesus Christ showed us the love of the Father and we nailed Him to a tree. But, He came further. He conquered death after we nailed Him to a tree.
But, He rose again. He made a way for all who will receive Him to obtain eternal life.
We can do God’s will and walk God’s way and have both the peace of God and peace with God or our lives can remain in disorder and disarray. But, remember, Jesus will not compromise.
When He returns to set up His kingdom in this world, He will not sit down with the United Nations or some governmental peace organization and draw up a compromised peace treaty.
When the Lord returns to the earth, all the world will submit to His will and there will then be peace on earth.
But, first, there will be a war. A two-hundred-million man army will organized and fight against the Lord when He returns, in the Valley of Megiddo, in the Middle East. It is called the Battle of Armageddon.
The Lord will destroy those men and governments of the earth that have rejected His Son. Christ will then set up His kingdom. And everything will go according to what “Thus saith the Lord.”
I tell you that story, because the same thing happens in the life of both a saved and lost man. Before salvation comes, when God’s Spirit convicts and desires to move into a man’s life, the flesh fights God’s Spirit. But, when a person surrenders his life to Christ, God’s peace floods that soul.
If a believer is “waiting on God” he will be joyful and content, but if he is not, he will lack serenity and calmness with
The nation of Judah, at this time, was weary because of the circumstances that surrounded them. Judgment had come and judgment was coming.
That not only happened in Isaiah’s day and shortly thereafter, but the world today is standing on the verge of God’s judgment falling again.
Now Isaiah reveals how God’s children can have that wonderful peace and not live a wearisome life.
First, God shows us that our He has everything in control. He never faints or grows weary, verse 28 reads.
You get weary and I get weary, but God never grows weary.
The word “faint” means to grow weak. The word “weary” (28) means to feel fatigue. It is the natural result of labor and toil that reduces strength. It can also mean to be disillusioned or dishearten. Many people feel that way today.
How many of you are part of the “fraternity of the fatigued?”
You go to bed weary, you wake up weary and you long for some peace and quiet.
So many believers have allowed the Christian pilgrimage to degenerate into a rat race, and the rats are winning!
A - The Signs of Fatigue:
1) When worship isn’t worship:
Worship brings peace in one’s soul. When I pray, meditate, cry out to God, and give myself to the Lord, I have peace.
Satan has tricked many a Christian to “worship their work. Work at their play. And play at their worship.” That must change if we are to have the peace of God and the God of peace.
2) When our priorities are out of place:
There seems to be so many demands on people today that many folks are pulled in many different directions, but realize that the way to have peace is to have right priorities.
I was knocking on doors one day and I knocked on the door of a Jewish man. I told him who I was and what I was doing. He invited me in. We talked about the Lord and many things, but one thing he said, I won’t forget. He said, “In America, folks are to busy to enjoy life.”
Listen and tell me if this isn’t true. Most folks wake up at the last minute each morning, with just enough time to rush and get ready for the day. They rush and eat breakfast, so they can rush off to work.
Mama rushes and gets the kids ready for school, so she can rush and go to work, or to do whatever she needs to do.
Now, mom and dad both know that after work, they have to rush and get the kids and go to some type of ball practice or event.
After the event, they go out to eat or to a friends house. They rush home, turn on the TV, craw in bed late and start all over again the next morning.
Then Friday night comes. For some reason people think, they can stay up late, late, late. They have a thousand things to do on Saturday, then when Sunday comes, there is little spiritual joy and peace, because most people have neglected time with the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace.
Many have sold them selves to the American way of living at a breakneck pace.
Many are living in the fast lane, involved in everything that comes their way. And some proudly say, “I would rather burn out than rust out.” Well, my friend, either way you are out!
3) When our desire to live for God is gone, it is a sign of fatigue.
LIVING GOD’S WAY IS NOT A RAT RACE. If God is truly first in our lives, we will enjoy worshipping the Lord in Church. We will love our mates and family. We will spend time with God in the Scriptures.
The signs of fatigue and weariness are easily seen… 1) in married relationships that have gone stale, 2) in churches services that are routine, 3) in jobs that are boring, and 4) in a Christian’s life that is mundane.
A - We looked at the Signs of Fatigue, now look at…
B - The Sources of Fatigue: What are the culprits that weary us?
* Bad eating habits: Most people start their day with a physical breakfast, but not a spiritual breakfast.
While I am here, let me say this, most people don’t eat healthy. If you start your day with pop-tarts, cereal, waffles with syrup, or microwave hot-pockets, you may not feel the best in a couple of hours.
Eat fresh eggs, fresh bread, fresh juice, fresh fruit, and fresh oat meal. You will feel better and live longer.
For lunch eat fresh fruits, salads, vegetables and a lean piece of meat. These are vital to prevent man’s fatigue. Six glasses of water daily, not soda and juices, is vital. Healthy meals are important. Take time to make and eat a healthy breakfast. Micro-wave meals won’t do it!
Analogy: But, wait! As it takes time to slow down and eat a good breakfast or lunch, if we are to not grow weary spiritually, we need a good healthy spiritual breakfast with the Lord. Amen?
* Bad work habits: Another source of fatigue is bad working habits. To get the right job, pray about the right job God wants you to have. If your job wearies you ask God to redirect your life.
If you stay weary and worn out, to the point where your wife and children suffer, ask God to make some changes in your work.
The problem could be your eating habits. It may be your work habits. Remember, God said, to work as unto the Lord.
A first-grader wondered why her father brought home a briefcase full of work every evening. Her mother explained, “Daddy has so much to do that he can’t finish it all at the office.” “Well, then,” asked the child innocently, “why don’t they put him in a slower group?”
* People: People can fatigue you. Hang around the right type of people. Find a good friend that gives you energy. I actually have two friends. Jesus is my best friend, but my second best friend is my wife. She gives me energy. She encourages me and lifts me up.
There will be two types of people that you will meet in the world. There are those who give you energy. They speak kindly, they lift you up and they encourage you. They are like a breath of fresh air. I like those, don’t you?
There are those who will take your energy. They will wear you down with their problems. They are negative and critical. The glass is always half empty and the stars are falling to these folks. Doom and gloom is their life.
You get around them and they start talking and draining energy from your soul. And when they walk away, you think, man am I tired. They are called energy takers. Hey, find a friend that gives energy.
How many of you have someone that every time you talk with them, you go away feeling encouraged. Find someone like that, and…be someone like that.
* Trials: Trials will drain your spiritual energy. You and I are going to have trials. Everyone has trials. Job was a godly man, but he had trials. David was a man after God’s heart and he had trials. Elijah was the great prophet of God and he had trials. Jesus was the son of God and he had trials. Trials can be stumbling blocks of stepping stones. It is all in how you use them. Remember two verses of Scripture:
Romans 8:28, “All things work together for good to them that love the Lord to them that are called according to His purpose. God wants to make you like His Son, don’t fight Him.
I Corinthians 10:13, 13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. Don’t think for a second that you are the only one experiencing what you are experiencing.
1. THE PLACE OF PEACE is spending time with God. “Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. (Psalms 16:11).
2. THE POWER OF PEACE is seeking God.
29 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. 30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: 31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
God offers power or energy or muscle to the weak.
He has a reservoir of power and strength for the entire world. But, like a mighty Dam, all the millions of gallons of water will generate no electricity and give no power to one single household unless the water is allowed to turn the turbine within that Dam.
One must let the waters of God’s word, flow through his soul if he is to experience God’s powerful peace. If God’s light is to shine in one’s soul and if that person is to give energy to others, God’s waters must flow.
Verse thirty makes it clear that it is not one’s youth that gives strength. It is the power of God’s word flowing in our lives, springing up in our soul.
If God holds all the power and peace we need and this world needs, why don’t we have both?
The answer may seem too simple to be true. But, there it is in God’s holy, inspired Word, in Isaiah 40:31. “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength.” People simply will not wait on God.
Here is what waiting is:
1 - Waiting on God is spending time with God. It is worshipping, fellowshipping and singing with God’s people in God’s house.
2 - Waiting on God is seeking God’s face. Seeking God is pursuing God. It is while you are seeking God, privately, that you will discover His will and walk in His way (Matthew 6:33).
3 - Waiting on God is sitting at His feet. Whereas “seeking God” involves study, research and learning, “sitting at God’s feet,” is an intimate time, where you reveal your soul to God and God reveals His will to you.
4 – Waiting on God is serving Him. The Levites waited on the service of the Tabernacle. As we wait for the Lord to return, serve Him. As we wait for an answer of prayer, serve Him.
This is the well of refreshment that gives us energy level. It is here that one’s life is made new every day.
(Spend time with God, Seek His face, Sit at His feet and Serve Him.)
Look at the Psalms. Psalm 27:14 “Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.”
In Isaiah 40:31 the word “wait” is a Hebrew word kawvaw that means to wait patiently, to look for, to expect, and to bind together.”
The noun means a “rope.” As we wait on God, our lives become bound together with His life, like a rope twisted together. We get so wrapped up in Him, that He becomes our encouragement and our strength and our life.
You would think we could shut the Bible now and go home. There is the answer, “Wait on God, but how can we learn to does wait?
1 – Learn from a positive standpoint:
Noah waited 120 years. Abraham waited 25 years. Moses waited 40 years. Elijah waited 3 ½ years. Daniel prayed and waited for 3 weeks for an answer. Jesus fasted and prayed for 40 days. It means to spend time with God and never get ahead of God.
A – When Problems come, wait on God.
Get alone with the Lord. Break open His bread.
Drink from His fountain. Lay down in the green pastures.
Stroll by the rippling brook. Turn off the TV. Turn off the radio.
Turn off the computers. Turn off you telephone and spend time with Jesus Christ.
Picture a man going to the doctor and the man says, “Doc, I have the shakes. I don’t know what to do, I just can’t stop shaking.” The doctor examines the man and the Doc says, “Do you want to get rid of the shakes?” “Yes,” the man cries. The doc says, “Every day for thirty minutes, get by yourself read the Bible and open your heart in prayer to God, and your shakes will leave.” Do you think the man would do it? Lots of folks have the worldly shakes. They are agitated, troubled, stressed out by so much going on everywhere. There seems to be so much to do. Doctor Jesus says, “If you will wait on me, if you will spend time with me, I’ll calm your heart, I will relieve your fears, I will reveal to you things you can give up so you can once again, love me, your family and your church.
2 – Learn from a negative standpoint:
Most Christian I know have a serious “wait problem.” No, not a w-e-i-g-h-t problem, but a w-a-i-t problem. And no physical diet or exercise program in this world can remedy it!
You have heard the American prayer, “Lord, give me patience. And I want it right now!” Well that is how many people think and live.
We live in the microwave generation. If we didn’t have microwave and junk food, most people would starve to death.
The Urban dictionary actually describes “Microwave generation” as a generation that wants instant gratification.
It says this generation has become so impatient that they tap their foot saying to the microwave, “Ok, hurry up, it has been 15 seconds.”
We have instant potatoes, frozen dinners in 3 minutes, microwave stuffing in 6 minutes.
We even have micro-wave marriages. That is right. You can drive up to a wedding window in Nevada, and have a wedding ceremony, and you don’t even have to get out of your car. They will play wedding music, present the bride with a rose and the groom with a boutonniere. You will receive 9, 4X6 color photos and a marriage license. The Nevada Sales tax, the minister and the witnesses are included for only $265.00.
Don’t be surprised if one of these days, you can get the same day divorce. It is coming because many in America have lost their mind.
*But, let it be known there is no microwave peace.
*There is no microwave power with God or answers to prayers.
*Peace with God is a life-long commitment.
Now get this straight, waiting is not sitting on the couch, or doing nothing, or simple idleness. It is not wondering around thinking, “Ok, God I’m waiting on you. When are you going to do something for me? When are you going to show me your will?”
1 – THE PLACE OF PEACE is spending time with God (28)
2 – THE POWER OF PEACE is seeking God (29-31A)
3. – THE PRODUCT OF PEACE is the strength of God (31B)
31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
We see three thoughts in this passage:
A - Spiritual Rising: “Mount up with wings as eagles.” That’s soaring. God wants to give you strength to soar like an eagle, not simply to be a barnyard turkey. If you have ever been on a turkey farm, you hear “gobble, gobble” all day long. Every turkey is saying the same thing to the point where it is monotonous. All they talk about are the problems around them, taxes, global warming, government, sports, games, and people.
A barnyard turkey is one of the largest of domestic feather fowl. But, nonetheless, it is just a bird that can’t get off the ground. He pecks at the dust and dirt of the world all the days of his life.
On the other hand, the mighty eagle soars above all other birds. He is the mightiest of all the birds of the air.
He can soar as high as 5,000 feet. He can dive at 200 mph. He can fly at speeds over 100 mph. He can spot a rabbit in the grass 2 miles away. He is our national bird and the monarch of the sky in statue and in flight.
Don’t be like other religious turkeys, friend, talking about the world conditions and problems and fretting all the time. They simply chat about non essential trivial matters that have no eternal value.
Be like the mighty monarch of the sky by spending time with the Lord. Soar and live closer to God then you do to this world. And when problems come, just stretch forth your spiritual wings and soar above those problems. (Spend time with God, Seek His face, Sit at His feet and Serve Him.) Engage in prayer. Claim God’s promises. Have faith. Don’t compromise.
An eagle won’t fight with smaller birds, he simply soars higher. You can fuss and fight and argue or you can soar for God.
B - Strenuous Running: “They shall run and not be weary.”
I am getting older and my ability to compete in any type of sport is waning. As I was getting older in life, my boys would ask me to play some ball at the gym. Well, if I had not run in a month, when I played ball with them, I could hardly get up off the couch for a week. I was sore and tired. I would even do a little moaning hoping for a little sympathy from my wife.
But recently, I have started running some. When I get through running a few miles I am tired and weary for a short while. I get the water, food and rest I need and I am ready to go again the next day. It is the resting that gives me strength to run again the next day.
Christians are part of a great spiritual race. It is a rigorous race. It is a distance race, not a dash. It is race for our Lord. It isn’t run just on Sunday, but every day of the week. And every day we need to rest, we need to wait on the Lord and renew our strength.
It is also a relay race. Those before us, prayed, studied and witness for the Lord. They have handed the baton to us.
The instructions are all the same. Before you begin, sit down, pray, study the scriptures and then, go for God. Let me say that again, every day, sit down, pray, study the scriptures and go for God. This is strength to run and not be weary.
Not only is it a spiritual rising and strenuous running but…
C - Steady Routine. “They shall walk and not be faint.”
As we get older we can’t run as we once did for God, physically, now we must go for God spiritually. Walking for God is being faithful. Maybe you can’t sing, teach or preach, but you can be sure, steady and faithful. You can pray and worship.
A man was born in 1788 named Adoniram Judson. He was saved at the age of twenty. He gave up his dream to fortune and fame. He studied for the ministry and in 1812 he left America to go and win the lost to Christ in India, with his wife of seven days.
The India government would not allow him passage into India, so he had to go to Rangoon, Burma and wait on God. He was said to be the first English missionary in Rangoon, Burma. There were actually three before him, but none stayed very long.
God blessed them with a baby boy, Roger William Judson, but eight months later he died.
Adoniram preached for six years and had no converts to Jesus Christ. He continued to pray, study, witness and wait on God. After twelve years, he had but eighteen converts.
A war broke out in Burma and he spent twenty-one months in prison waiting on God. He was tortured and hung upside down with chains and dragged through the desert sands as he waited on God.
When he was released from prison, he went home to a sick wife and an empty church. He prayed and waited on God. There were no members of his church left, and shortly after his release from prison, he buried his wife. Six months later he buried his last son and he waited on God.
As he patiently waited on God, God sent him another helpmeet, name Sarah. God gave them eight children. He continued to serve, pray, preach, witness and wait on God.
His lived by this phrase, “Plan a life to please the Lord.” Adoniram never quit. He never gave up on the people God called him to serve.
He stayed and witnessed and a few were saved here and there. He died at sixty-one years of age. Some years later a survey was taken in this Muslim country of Burma of the religion of the land and one out of every fifty-eight people professed to have put their faith in Jesus Christ. That was 210,000 people. As of 2008, 1.6 million Burmese people profess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, all because a man leaned to wait on God.
Isaiah 40:31, But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
Isaiah described our Savior, Jesus Christ, as the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace, in Isaiah 9:6. In Isaiah 40 he expounds on each of these aspects of Christ’s life.
This message deals with Christ as our “Prince of peace.” The Bible offers us peace with God and the peace of God. To reject either will bring tragic consequences.
Peace with God comes when we surrender our hearts to Jesus Christ in Salvation. Peace of God comes when we walk with Him daily.
Living for Christ and given Him proper place in our lives, which should be first place will make you peaceful.
So, what is peace?
-It is the assurance a person has, because heaven will be their home.
-It is the comfort one has, because they are in fellowship with Christ.
-It is the contentment one has, because one trust in the Lord.
However, many people will get so busy making a living, they fail to make a life.
Many people will build a house, but will never enjoy their home.
Some will have children, but never enjoy a family.
Some will make money, but never enjoy wealth.
Everybody desires peace or a life free of war within their own souls and their own families. But, a person does not have peace, because he is rich or poor. A person does not have peace because he owns his own company or if he is on welfare. Peace only comes from the Prince of peace.
Isaiah knew this for this happened to his own people. So, he ends this chapter by giving us words that will direct us to a life of peace.
1. FIRST, WE SEE THE PLACE OF PEACE is spending time with God.
28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding.
For thirty-nine chapters, Isaiah revealed that God must judge the nations of the world, as well as His own people, because they had all forgotten Him.
Sadly, Israel came to the place where they were more concerned with making peace with the enemy, than making peace with Him.
Analogy: In America many folks are troubled about the political, economic and moral condition of our country. We must first look within our own homes and ask this question: “How are we running our homes from a Biblical aspect? How are we taking care of our finances? How is the moral condition of our hearts?
Don’t worry and don’t fret about the world until we have peace with the Lord by spending time with Him.
The story is told of a man who had a long day at work. When he arrived home, his little five year old boy came bouncing in and jumped on dad’s lap and said, “Dad lets play?” Well, dad needed a few minutes to just get his thoughts together so he said to the boy, “Hand me my newspaper?” In the newspaper that day was a picture of the world from a satellite. Dad took a knife and cut the picture in about 25 pieces and said to his son, “Let’s play a game, take this tape and when you put this picture together, we’ll play.” Dad was hoping to get about a hour of rest. In about 10 minutes the little boy came bouncing in the room. ‘Here, dad, I’m finished.”
Sure enough the boy was done. “How did you do that so fast,” the dad asked? The little boy turned the picture of the world over and showed his dad a picture of a man. He said, “Dad, on the back side of the world was a picture of a man. I thought if I could put the man back together the world would take care of itself.”
Isaiah says in verse 28, “Hast thou not known,” or don’t you know God?” Don’t you know that the way to peace, in a world gone crazy with sin, will first be a war? We find this in Matthew 10:34.
Jesus said, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword (Matthew 10:34).
-Christ came with a two-edged sword to separate good from evil.
-When a person receives Christ, He separates the sinner from sin.
-He separates the saints from the world.
Jesus does not bring peace through compromise. Some think, “Well if God would meet me half way, I would live for Him.” The truth of the matter is God came all the way.
He made us. He gave us life. He provided this world for us to live in. He gives us our air to breath and keeps our heart beating.
We sinned. We rebelled against Him. We ignored Him and walked our way.
Then God sent His Son into this world. Jesus Christ showed us the love of the Father and we nailed Him to a tree. But, He came further. He conquered death after we nailed Him to a tree.
But, He rose again. He made a way for all who will receive Him to obtain eternal life.
We can do God’s will and walk God’s way and have both the peace of God and peace with God or our lives can remain in disorder and disarray. But, remember, Jesus will not compromise.
When He returns to set up His kingdom in this world, He will not sit down with the United Nations or some governmental peace organization and draw up a compromised peace treaty.
When the Lord returns to the earth, all the world will submit to His will and there will then be peace on earth.
But, first, there will be a war. A two-hundred-million man army will organized and fight against the Lord when He returns, in the Valley of Megiddo, in the Middle East. It is called the Battle of Armageddon.
The Lord will destroy those men and governments of the earth that have rejected His Son. Christ will then set up His kingdom. And everything will go according to what “Thus saith the Lord.”
I tell you that story, because the same thing happens in the life of both a saved and lost man. Before salvation comes, when God’s Spirit convicts and desires to move into a man’s life, the flesh fights God’s Spirit. But, when a person surrenders his life to Christ, God’s peace floods that soul.
If a believer is “waiting on God” he will be joyful and content, but if he is not, he will lack serenity and calmness with
The nation of Judah, at this time, was weary because of the circumstances that surrounded them. Judgment had come and judgment was coming.
That not only happened in Isaiah’s day and shortly thereafter, but the world today is standing on the verge of God’s judgment falling again.
Now Isaiah reveals how God’s children can have that wonderful peace and not live a wearisome life.
First, God shows us that our He has everything in control. He never faints or grows weary, verse 28 reads.
You get weary and I get weary, but God never grows weary.
The word “faint” means to grow weak. The word “weary” (28) means to feel fatigue. It is the natural result of labor and toil that reduces strength. It can also mean to be disillusioned or dishearten. Many people feel that way today.
How many of you are part of the “fraternity of the fatigued?”
You go to bed weary, you wake up weary and you long for some peace and quiet.
So many believers have allowed the Christian pilgrimage to degenerate into a rat race, and the rats are winning!
A - The Signs of Fatigue:
1) When worship isn’t worship:
Worship brings peace in one’s soul. When I pray, meditate, cry out to God, and give myself to the Lord, I have peace.
Satan has tricked many a Christian to “worship their work. Work at their play. And play at their worship.” That must change if we are to have the peace of God and the God of peace.
2) When our priorities are out of place:
There seems to be so many demands on people today that many folks are pulled in many different directions, but realize that the way to have peace is to have right priorities.
I was knocking on doors one day and I knocked on the door of a Jewish man. I told him who I was and what I was doing. He invited me in. We talked about the Lord and many things, but one thing he said, I won’t forget. He said, “In America, folks are to busy to enjoy life.”
Listen and tell me if this isn’t true. Most folks wake up at the last minute each morning, with just enough time to rush and get ready for the day. They rush and eat breakfast, so they can rush off to work.
Mama rushes and gets the kids ready for school, so she can rush and go to work, or to do whatever she needs to do.
Now, mom and dad both know that after work, they have to rush and get the kids and go to some type of ball practice or event.
After the event, they go out to eat or to a friends house. They rush home, turn on the TV, craw in bed late and start all over again the next morning.
Then Friday night comes. For some reason people think, they can stay up late, late, late. They have a thousand things to do on Saturday, then when Sunday comes, there is little spiritual joy and peace, because most people have neglected time with the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace.
Many have sold them selves to the American way of living at a breakneck pace.
Many are living in the fast lane, involved in everything that comes their way. And some proudly say, “I would rather burn out than rust out.” Well, my friend, either way you are out!
3) When our desire to live for God is gone, it is a sign of fatigue.
LIVING GOD’S WAY IS NOT A RAT RACE. If God is truly first in our lives, we will enjoy worshipping the Lord in Church. We will love our mates and family. We will spend time with God in the Scriptures.
The signs of fatigue and weariness are easily seen… 1) in married relationships that have gone stale, 2) in churches services that are routine, 3) in jobs that are boring, and 4) in a Christian’s life that is mundane.
A - We looked at the Signs of Fatigue, now look at…
B - The Sources of Fatigue: What are the culprits that weary us?
* Bad eating habits: Most people start their day with a physical breakfast, but not a spiritual breakfast.
While I am here, let me say this, most people don’t eat healthy. If you start your day with pop-tarts, cereal, waffles with syrup, or microwave hot-pockets, you may not feel the best in a couple of hours.
Eat fresh eggs, fresh bread, fresh juice, fresh fruit, and fresh oat meal. You will feel better and live longer.
For lunch eat fresh fruits, salads, vegetables and a lean piece of meat. These are vital to prevent man’s fatigue. Six glasses of water daily, not soda and juices, is vital. Healthy meals are important. Take time to make and eat a healthy breakfast. Micro-wave meals won’t do it!
Analogy: But, wait! As it takes time to slow down and eat a good breakfast or lunch, if we are to not grow weary spiritually, we need a good healthy spiritual breakfast with the Lord. Amen?
* Bad work habits: Another source of fatigue is bad working habits. To get the right job, pray about the right job God wants you to have. If your job wearies you ask God to redirect your life.
If you stay weary and worn out, to the point where your wife and children suffer, ask God to make some changes in your work.
The problem could be your eating habits. It may be your work habits. Remember, God said, to work as unto the Lord.
A first-grader wondered why her father brought home a briefcase full of work every evening. Her mother explained, “Daddy has so much to do that he can’t finish it all at the office.” “Well, then,” asked the child innocently, “why don’t they put him in a slower group?”
* People: People can fatigue you. Hang around the right type of people. Find a good friend that gives you energy. I actually have two friends. Jesus is my best friend, but my second best friend is my wife. She gives me energy. She encourages me and lifts me up.
There will be two types of people that you will meet in the world. There are those who give you energy. They speak kindly, they lift you up and they encourage you. They are like a breath of fresh air. I like those, don’t you?
There are those who will take your energy. They will wear you down with their problems. They are negative and critical. The glass is always half empty and the stars are falling to these folks. Doom and gloom is their life.
You get around them and they start talking and draining energy from your soul. And when they walk away, you think, man am I tired. They are called energy takers. Hey, find a friend that gives energy.
How many of you have someone that every time you talk with them, you go away feeling encouraged. Find someone like that, and…be someone like that.
* Trials: Trials will drain your spiritual energy. You and I are going to have trials. Everyone has trials. Job was a godly man, but he had trials. David was a man after God’s heart and he had trials. Elijah was the great prophet of God and he had trials. Jesus was the son of God and he had trials. Trials can be stumbling blocks of stepping stones. It is all in how you use them. Remember two verses of Scripture:
Romans 8:28, “All things work together for good to them that love the Lord to them that are called according to His purpose. God wants to make you like His Son, don’t fight Him.
I Corinthians 10:13, 13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. Don’t think for a second that you are the only one experiencing what you are experiencing.
1. THE PLACE OF PEACE is spending time with God. “Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. (Psalms 16:11).
2. THE POWER OF PEACE is seeking God.
29 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. 30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: 31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
God offers power or energy or muscle to the weak.
He has a reservoir of power and strength for the entire world. But, like a mighty Dam, all the millions of gallons of water will generate no electricity and give no power to one single household unless the water is allowed to turn the turbine within that Dam.
One must let the waters of God’s word, flow through his soul if he is to experience God’s powerful peace. If God’s light is to shine in one’s soul and if that person is to give energy to others, God’s waters must flow.
Verse thirty makes it clear that it is not one’s youth that gives strength. It is the power of God’s word flowing in our lives, springing up in our soul.
If God holds all the power and peace we need and this world needs, why don’t we have both?
The answer may seem too simple to be true. But, there it is in God’s holy, inspired Word, in Isaiah 40:31. “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength.” People simply will not wait on God.
Here is what waiting is:
1 - Waiting on God is spending time with God. It is worshipping, fellowshipping and singing with God’s people in God’s house.
2 - Waiting on God is seeking God’s face. Seeking God is pursuing God. It is while you are seeking God, privately, that you will discover His will and walk in His way (Matthew 6:33).
3 - Waiting on God is sitting at His feet. Whereas “seeking God” involves study, research and learning, “sitting at God’s feet,” is an intimate time, where you reveal your soul to God and God reveals His will to you.
4 – Waiting on God is serving Him. The Levites waited on the service of the Tabernacle. As we wait for the Lord to return, serve Him. As we wait for an answer of prayer, serve Him.
This is the well of refreshment that gives us energy level. It is here that one’s life is made new every day.
(Spend time with God, Seek His face, Sit at His feet and Serve Him.)
Look at the Psalms. Psalm 27:14 “Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.”
In Isaiah 40:31 the word “wait” is a Hebrew word kawvaw that means to wait patiently, to look for, to expect, and to bind together.”
The noun means a “rope.” As we wait on God, our lives become bound together with His life, like a rope twisted together. We get so wrapped up in Him, that He becomes our encouragement and our strength and our life.
You would think we could shut the Bible now and go home. There is the answer, “Wait on God, but how can we learn to does wait?
1 – Learn from a positive standpoint:
Noah waited 120 years. Abraham waited 25 years. Moses waited 40 years. Elijah waited 3 ½ years. Daniel prayed and waited for 3 weeks for an answer. Jesus fasted and prayed for 40 days. It means to spend time with God and never get ahead of God.
A – When Problems come, wait on God.
Get alone with the Lord. Break open His bread.
Drink from His fountain. Lay down in the green pastures.
Stroll by the rippling brook. Turn off the TV. Turn off the radio.
Turn off the computers. Turn off you telephone and spend time with Jesus Christ.
Picture a man going to the doctor and the man says, “Doc, I have the shakes. I don’t know what to do, I just can’t stop shaking.” The doctor examines the man and the Doc says, “Do you want to get rid of the shakes?” “Yes,” the man cries. The doc says, “Every day for thirty minutes, get by yourself read the Bible and open your heart in prayer to God, and your shakes will leave.” Do you think the man would do it? Lots of folks have the worldly shakes. They are agitated, troubled, stressed out by so much going on everywhere. There seems to be so much to do. Doctor Jesus says, “If you will wait on me, if you will spend time with me, I’ll calm your heart, I will relieve your fears, I will reveal to you things you can give up so you can once again, love me, your family and your church.
2 – Learn from a negative standpoint:
Most Christian I know have a serious “wait problem.” No, not a w-e-i-g-h-t problem, but a w-a-i-t problem. And no physical diet or exercise program in this world can remedy it!
You have heard the American prayer, “Lord, give me patience. And I want it right now!” Well that is how many people think and live.
We live in the microwave generation. If we didn’t have microwave and junk food, most people would starve to death.
The Urban dictionary actually describes “Microwave generation” as a generation that wants instant gratification.
It says this generation has become so impatient that they tap their foot saying to the microwave, “Ok, hurry up, it has been 15 seconds.”
We have instant potatoes, frozen dinners in 3 minutes, microwave stuffing in 6 minutes.
We even have micro-wave marriages. That is right. You can drive up to a wedding window in Nevada, and have a wedding ceremony, and you don’t even have to get out of your car. They will play wedding music, present the bride with a rose and the groom with a boutonniere. You will receive 9, 4X6 color photos and a marriage license. The Nevada Sales tax, the minister and the witnesses are included for only $265.00.
Don’t be surprised if one of these days, you can get the same day divorce. It is coming because many in America have lost their mind.
*But, let it be known there is no microwave peace.
*There is no microwave power with God or answers to prayers.
*Peace with God is a life-long commitment.
Now get this straight, waiting is not sitting on the couch, or doing nothing, or simple idleness. It is not wondering around thinking, “Ok, God I’m waiting on you. When are you going to do something for me? When are you going to show me your will?”
1 – THE PLACE OF PEACE is spending time with God (28)
2 – THE POWER OF PEACE is seeking God (29-31A)
3. – THE PRODUCT OF PEACE is the strength of God (31B)
31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
We see three thoughts in this passage:
A - Spiritual Rising: “Mount up with wings as eagles.” That’s soaring. God wants to give you strength to soar like an eagle, not simply to be a barnyard turkey. If you have ever been on a turkey farm, you hear “gobble, gobble” all day long. Every turkey is saying the same thing to the point where it is monotonous. All they talk about are the problems around them, taxes, global warming, government, sports, games, and people.
A barnyard turkey is one of the largest of domestic feather fowl. But, nonetheless, it is just a bird that can’t get off the ground. He pecks at the dust and dirt of the world all the days of his life.
On the other hand, the mighty eagle soars above all other birds. He is the mightiest of all the birds of the air.
He can soar as high as 5,000 feet. He can dive at 200 mph. He can fly at speeds over 100 mph. He can spot a rabbit in the grass 2 miles away. He is our national bird and the monarch of the sky in statue and in flight.
Don’t be like other religious turkeys, friend, talking about the world conditions and problems and fretting all the time. They simply chat about non essential trivial matters that have no eternal value.
Be like the mighty monarch of the sky by spending time with the Lord. Soar and live closer to God then you do to this world. And when problems come, just stretch forth your spiritual wings and soar above those problems. (Spend time with God, Seek His face, Sit at His feet and Serve Him.) Engage in prayer. Claim God’s promises. Have faith. Don’t compromise.
An eagle won’t fight with smaller birds, he simply soars higher. You can fuss and fight and argue or you can soar for God.
B - Strenuous Running: “They shall run and not be weary.”
I am getting older and my ability to compete in any type of sport is waning. As I was getting older in life, my boys would ask me to play some ball at the gym. Well, if I had not run in a month, when I played ball with them, I could hardly get up off the couch for a week. I was sore and tired. I would even do a little moaning hoping for a little sympathy from my wife.
But recently, I have started running some. When I get through running a few miles I am tired and weary for a short while. I get the water, food and rest I need and I am ready to go again the next day. It is the resting that gives me strength to run again the next day.
Christians are part of a great spiritual race. It is a rigorous race. It is a distance race, not a dash. It is race for our Lord. It isn’t run just on Sunday, but every day of the week. And every day we need to rest, we need to wait on the Lord and renew our strength.
It is also a relay race. Those before us, prayed, studied and witness for the Lord. They have handed the baton to us.
The instructions are all the same. Before you begin, sit down, pray, study the scriptures and then, go for God. Let me say that again, every day, sit down, pray, study the scriptures and go for God. This is strength to run and not be weary.
Not only is it a spiritual rising and strenuous running but…
C - Steady Routine. “They shall walk and not be faint.”
As we get older we can’t run as we once did for God, physically, now we must go for God spiritually. Walking for God is being faithful. Maybe you can’t sing, teach or preach, but you can be sure, steady and faithful. You can pray and worship.
A man was born in 1788 named Adoniram Judson. He was saved at the age of twenty. He gave up his dream to fortune and fame. He studied for the ministry and in 1812 he left America to go and win the lost to Christ in India, with his wife of seven days.
The India government would not allow him passage into India, so he had to go to Rangoon, Burma and wait on God. He was said to be the first English missionary in Rangoon, Burma. There were actually three before him, but none stayed very long.
God blessed them with a baby boy, Roger William Judson, but eight months later he died.
Adoniram preached for six years and had no converts to Jesus Christ. He continued to pray, study, witness and wait on God. After twelve years, he had but eighteen converts.
A war broke out in Burma and he spent twenty-one months in prison waiting on God. He was tortured and hung upside down with chains and dragged through the desert sands as he waited on God.
When he was released from prison, he went home to a sick wife and an empty church. He prayed and waited on God. There were no members of his church left, and shortly after his release from prison, he buried his wife. Six months later he buried his last son and he waited on God.
As he patiently waited on God, God sent him another helpmeet, name Sarah. God gave them eight children. He continued to serve, pray, preach, witness and wait on God.
His lived by this phrase, “Plan a life to please the Lord.” Adoniram never quit. He never gave up on the people God called him to serve.
He stayed and witnessed and a few were saved here and there. He died at sixty-one years of age. Some years later a survey was taken in this Muslim country of Burma of the religion of the land and one out of every fifty-eight people professed to have put their faith in Jesus Christ. That was 210,000 people. As of 2008, 1.6 million Burmese people profess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, all because a man leaned to wait on God.
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