God Has Spoken - Let the Church Say Amen
Notes
Transcript
Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 1219 No Time for “Car Joke”
1219 No Time For “Car Joke”
A “smart” salesman in the city of Bodoe, Norway, recently lost a sixteen-car sale. The story goes as follows.
A young man in a sweater, overalls, and rubber boots entered a car dealer’s shop in this city just north of the Arctic Circle.
“Have you got cars on hand?”
“Sure we have,” the salesman answered.
“I want sixteen cars, if I like the model.”
“I have no time for jokes—buzz off,” answered the salesman.
The man did—right across the street to another car dealer, selling a different make of cars.
He made similar inquiries and got full service. The man in overalls really wanted sixteen cars and paid in cash—500,000 Norwegian kroner ($77,000).
He belonged to a sixteen-man crew of a Norwegian trawler that caught record quantities of herring last season. Each fisherman netted 70,000 kroner during the season. They decided to buy new cars and to buy all sixteen at once, to get the highest possible discount.
—Prairie Overcomer
Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 1220 How Often!
How often we trust each other.
And only doubt our Lord.
We take the word of mortals,
And yet distrust His word;
But, oh, what light and glory
Would shine o’er all our days,
If we always would remember
God means just what He says.
Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”
People ask why some Christians get their prayers answered, some churches experience phenomenal growth, some preachers have explosive impacts. Well, actually, those people who aren’t having those experiences either ask that question, or try to ignore it by saying it isn’t real.
Being a Christian means more than just believing in the existence of “God the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord… and in the Holy Spirit...” Being a Christian means believing that the Triune God is your God, the God who is for you!
It isn’t blind faith, nor is it an assumption, to believe that the Creator of the ends of the earth is for you. When God’s chosen people, Israel became discouraged because of their subjugation to Babylon, God sends a word of encouragement through the words given by the Holy Spirit to the Prophet Isaiah:
Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God”? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
It isn’t presumption to say that, by virtue of your baptism, you are no longer God’s enemy, but His beloved child. As it was then, so it is now. It isn’t the absence of trials or tribulation that marks you as God’s chosen; it is God’s declaration in His Word that makes it so. God is the one who makes that claim:
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.
It is the strong Word that determines that God’s favor is upon you, no matter how many angels, authorities, and powers are seeking your destruction.
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
There are those baptized children of God who, not knowing of God’s exceeding great and precious promises, live as if they were not His children at all. having been set free from sin, they live as if they were still in bondage to it. Instead of walking in the Spirit, they continue to fulfill the lusts of the flesh. Instead of resisting the devil, they desire to do his will. It is this lack of trust in the promise of God that makes them leave the safety of His Word:
Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.” The Jews said to him, “Now we know that you have a demon! Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, ‘If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.’ Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?” Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’ But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word.
Jesus prayed for us to the Father while on earth, and the Bible says that He continues His prayer ministry even now. Unlike the priests who ministered under the Old Covenant, whose priesthood ended with their death, Jesus is our Great High Priest according to the Order of Melchizedek. His priesthood is an untransferable one:
The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
Why then, do we act as if Jesus is a liar? He promised to send the Holy Spirit to us, and showed His faithfulness on the Day of Pentecost, but we lose patience, cast away our confidence, and put more trust in man than we do in the Son of God. We wonder why God does not move in our midst as He did for Martin Luther, or Charles Wesley, or Charles Mason, or Norman Brandt. Do we pray like they did? Do we seek the Lord like they did? Do we put our trust in Him like they did?
If God says that He plays no favorites, why do we act as if He were a liar? We treat God as if He made their lives smooth and easy, but makes our way hard. NO! WE make our way hard by not trusting in Him. WE make ministry hard by not leaning on the Lord, and WE make the way of the Lord darkness instead of dwelling in His marvelous light. Jesus didn’t cast away His Bride, we just don’t LISTEN to our Groom!
When you say that you need money to have a successful ministry, you are calling Jesus a liar, because He said that we have received everything that we need:
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
What we need to fulfill our divine purpose is the same thing that the Apostles needed, the same thing that the 70 needed, and the same thing that every other Christian congregation needs - the power of the Holy Spirit. That is exactly what our Lord gives to us when we are united with Christ and grafted into the Body of Christ by the Holy Spirit. That is why we confess, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Christian Church, the Communion of saints.”
We confess that which is true - for our Lord Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is the One who baptizes us with the Holy Spirit. It is Christ Who, through the Holy Spirit, enables us to do all things.
We have no right to say that we cannot, when God says, “you can.” We have no authority to say, “we are weak” when God says, “Be strong and courageous.” We have no reason to say, “we are dead, and have no hope,” when Jesus says, “I am the Resurrection and the life; the one who lives and believes in me will never die.”
So get up and go - go and baptize, go and preach, go and serve. And let the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.