Atmospheric Pressure

Next Sunday, December 5th at 5 pm, is our Christmas party.  We need to get a head count so please sign up in the foyer, or email. We ask everyone to please bring a covered dish, dessert and drinks. The church will take care of the ham and turkey. Also, if you can, please help with the clean up.

Remind everyone of their cell phones and devices and being respectful of others, both in the time of worship as well as during the time of the reading and teaching of the Word of God!

OPEN IN PRAYER!!!!

If you have your Bibles this morning, would you please turn with me to the gospel of Luke 5:15-26 and we will begin by reading this passage together.

Luke 5:15–26 ESV

15 But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. 16 But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray. 17 On one of those days, as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with him to heal. 18 And behold, some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus, 19 but finding no way to bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. 20 And when he saw their faith, he said, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” 21 And the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” 22 When Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answered them, “Why do you question in your hearts? 23 Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? 24 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the man who was paralyzed—“I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home.” 25 And immediately he rose up before them and picked up what he had been lying on and went home, glorifying God. 26 And amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, “We have seen extraordinary things today.”

Now, I believe that most of us are fairly familiar with this passage in the Bible and the miracle that took place between Yeshua and the paralytic, right?

Well, what I want to do this morning, is look at some of the particulars of this Biblical account and use them to make a point for each one of us listening today.

So, right out of the gait, look at what we are told in verse 15 about Yeshua.

In verse 15 we see something that was already mentioned in chapter 4 about Yeshua, and that is the fact that news about Him and His miracles and His teachings was spreading all over the region of their country.

And Luke records for us that LARGE crowds were gathering to, both hear Him as well as to be healed of their sicknesses by Him, which is also what we find happening in chapter 4.........the masses were seeking Him out!

So, Jesus was constantly being sought out by the people, because some were intrigued by His teachings and the things that He said, which rubbed the religious leaders of their time, the wrong way.

But also, the masses were hunting Him down so that He might heal them of their ailments!

Now, I want you to pay close attention to what Luke says next about Yeshua and of how He handled what was going on around Him.

In verse 16, Luke tells us, “But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.”

Now why is this detail important? And why does Luke mention this to us, before going into the rest of this Biblical account?

Well, let me first show you other places in the Bible that tell us the same thing about Yeshua.

Matthew 14:23 says,

Matthew 14:23 ESV

23 And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone,

Mark 1:35,

Mark 1:35 ESV

35 And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.

Mark 6:46,

Mark 6:46 ESV

46 And after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray.

Luke 6:12,

Luke 6:12 ESV

12 In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God.

Luke 11:1,

Luke 11:1 ESV

1 Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”

No matter where Yeshua was and what was going on around Him and in His life, He would intentionally take time, daily, to spend with His Father in prayer!!

And so, when Luke points out to us that the crowds were seeking Him out to listen to Him and for Him to heal their sick, Luke doesn’t tell us that Jesus responded by saying, “Alright, let’s get going!”

Or, “Absolutely, that’s what I’m supposed to be doing”................. right?

No, Luke says that our Lord “slipped” away. He “withdrew” from the presence of others into the wilderness to pray.............AND OFTEN!!

Jesus didn’t go into another room for 10 minutes and bow His head and recite to God His list of demands and His complaints and then go back to business as usual.

No, the Bible says that His time of prayer to His Father, took precedence over everything else and over everyone else and apart from them all!

We see the exact same thing taking place in Mark 1:35-39, where Yeshua was healing people and casting out demons throughout the evening and then early the next morning, He rose and went away to a “desolate place” to pray.

And when His disciples sought Him and found Him, they told Him that the crowds were looking for Him, most likely to continue the works that He was doing the night before.

So Yeshua said to them in response to their statement and after praying to His Father, “Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, so that I may preach there also; for that is what I came for.”

In other words, “I’m not going back to those people. I must going on to the next place that My Father has in store for Me to go to.”

Yeshua sought out the will of His Father in EVERYTHING and for EVERYTHING, before He did ANYTHING!

Even when it looked like a “no-brainer” situation and the proverbial writing was on the wall, as to what He was supposed to do, Yeshua didn’t move unless His Father told Him to do so!

We must learn this same lesson for our lives and for our walk with the Lord!

No matter how much, in the natural, it seems clear that we are to be doing something and that all signs seem to be pointing to the obvious, we must always, (EVERYONE SAY “ALWAYS”), always make sure that we, have been, and currently, are seeking the will of the Father for us and for our lives in that situation!

Jesus said in John 5:19, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.”

In John 8:28, Jesus said, “I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me” and again in John 12:49 Jesus said, “For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak.”

So, it wasn’t a hidden secret of Yeshua’s, as to how He said and did the things that He did, right?

He spoke as the Father told to speak and He did the things that the Father told Him to do! PERIOD!!!!

And this ruffled the feathers of many, many people of that time. This “Jesus”, couldn’t be controlled and He couldn’t be predicted!

Even within His closest circle, the 12 disciples, we see this.

The disciples mis-read His actions and His teachings and they couldn’t understand why He did the things that He did and also, why He didn’t do the things that seemed the most logical to do, IN THE NATURAL mind!!!

Luke 18:34 tells us that even when Jesus told the disciples for the third time, that He was about to die and that He would be raised from the dead, “The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about.”

Many people believe that this is why Judas actually betrayed Yeshua. Because Jesus wasn’t stepping up and becoming the messianic King that they believed Him to be.

So.......... Judas took it upon himself to try and force Yeshua’s hand and make Him declare His kingly role and thus begin His takeover of the Roman empire!

The point being, Yeshua didn’t do anything, even when it seemed like the logical thing to do, without His hearing from His Father, FIRST, and getting His will on the matter!

And this applies to the Body of Christ in the same way!!!

We are to, according to Acts 17:28, in the Lord, “To live and move and have our being”!

That is, in everything that we do in our life as a believer in Yeshua, we are do so according to His will and the will of the Father, and not of ourselves!

OK, so I believe that we established a baseline here for how and why Yeshua did ALL of the things that He did, right?

As verse 15 said, “He would withdraw to desolate places and pray.”

And just one more little bit of emphasis on this detail of the life of our Lord and His time in prayer to the Father.

Luke, like the other authors, tells us that Yeshua went to “desolate” places to pray!

That word, “desolate”, in the Greek, means, “uninhabited, deserted, absent of inhabitants. A lonely (place), remote, solitary; forsaken, the state of one deserted.”

In other, “There ain’t nobody and nothing there to bother you!”

He intentionally went to the places with the least amount of distractions and the greatest potential for speaking to, and even more importantly, HEARING from His Father!

Do you know and understand how far removed most of us are from this concept?

If the Son of God needed to position Himself in the places with the least amount of life around Him, so that NOTHING was there to distract His time in speaking with His Father and hearing from His Father, for DAILY instructions.......................why would we try and go at it any differently?

Just think about all of the things that are usually around us, that distract and compete for our time and our thoughts while we are trying to pray!

Now, I know that living in more populated areas, (in cities and neighborhoods), it is more difficult to find remote, uninhabited and barren places, right?

But we must become deliberate and purposeful in our our prayer time and create a place of separation for ourselves. Separation from everything and everyone else!

Like the movie, “War Room”, we need to go a place, (like a closet in the movie), where there is the least amount of distractions and greatest potential for intimacy with only the Lord and ourself! AND THEN WE PRAY!

E.M. Bounds said this of prayer, “Prayer is our most formidable weapon, but the one in which we are the least skilled, the most averse to its use.”

Amen?................Does everyone understand what I’m saying and what Luke and the other authors stressed to us about the Lord and His time in prayer with His Father?!!!!

OK, then let’s move forward and see what happens in this passage in Luke 5.

Luke 5:17 says the following,

Luke 5:17 ESV

17 On one of those days, as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with him to heal.

Now look at how Luke starts us off here in this verse. “On one of those days”. Well, what was, “one of those days”?

Basically, as we just saw, a “day in the life” of Yeshua consisted of praying to the Father FIRST, and then spending the rest of that day doing the will and the works of His Father!

So, it’s on “one of those days”, where we find our Lord in this passage. And if you read of this same account in Mark’s gospel, in chapter 2, verses 1-12, you will find the following detail about the place where Jesus was sitting at on this particular day and time.

Mark tells us that the place was packed out. There was no more room in the house and even outside of the door!

And guess who was a part of the large crowd that was there that day? The religious “elites” of their day and time. The Pharisees, the scribes, the Sadducees........the legal zealots, were in the house that day.

So much attention to Yeshua’s ministry was being spread throughout the region, that the legal experts of the law had made it a point to travel to hear Him, from all over the area; from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem!

How many of you know and understand, that whenever you are truly doing the works and the will of God, the enemy will always send opposition to come against you?

And in all three of the gospel accounts, we are told that there were some men (four to be exact), who carried a paralyzed man on a mat that day, in order to bring him before Yeshua, in the faith that this man would be healed.

So, this is the scene that is unfolding before us:

Jesus is sitting in a house, packed so full of people that there is no more room available, and even outside of the house, people are cramming up to the doors and the windows, in order to see and hear our Lord teach.

And within that crowd watching and listening to Yeshua, were the religious legal experts of that day and age. This would have easily created tension around the place and within the hearts of many of the people, because no one dared to challenge or oppose those men!

And then there were the four men and the paralytic who entered into the scene, via a hole that they made in the roof of the building, in which they lowered the lame man down through to get him before Jesus!

Talk about a dramatic entrance!!!

But there is one more CRUCIAL detail that Luke gives us in his gospel account, that Matthew and Mark do not mention, and it is this.

At the end of the verse in Luke 5:17, we read the following statement, “And the power of the Lord was with him to heal.”

Now if you’ve read this passage before in Luke, you may have pondered this statement for a minute or so, or you may have not even given it another thought, but this is crucial for us to understand!

“The power (the “dunamis” of God - the miraculous power and ability, the ABUNDANCE of the ability and strength of God for working miracles), was with Him to heal” at that time and in that place!

In other words, there was a supernatural presence in the air around Him and around the people there, that was drawing people for something prime to happen!

There was an “atmosphere” around them that was about to explode with the supernatural power of God in one man’s life and before the eyes of the masses; the critics and the curious alike!

And this “atmosphere” of the power of God for healing that was present that day, was in place because Yeshua had already spent time with His Father in prayer and He already knew what the Father’s will was for Him on that day!

“ATMOSPHERE”, is the prime focus of the message for today and most likely for next week as well!

We know and understand from basic science in elementary school, that there is in fact, an atmosphere that surrounds this earth and that protects us, as well as provides life for us, right?

Did you know, or do you remember, that when you and I breath in the air around us from the atmosphere, we are taking in three quarters of our nourishment, while the other quarter only is supplied by the food, (solid and liquid), of which we partake?

Everyone take in a deep breath real quick and lets feed ourselves some nourishment right now!!

And the principal parts of this nourishment that we take in with every breath are as follows: 78% of it is nitrogen, 21% is oxygen and the remaining 1% is a mix of things like, argon, carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor and neon, as well as other gases.

And if you follow the litany of information that’s constantly being spewed out about global warming and the damage to our atmosphere, then you will recognize right away, the issue we are facing with too much “methane” in the atmosphere, right?

They say that the average cow produces around 220 pounds of methane (gas) a year and the speculation is that this is the leading cause of climate-changing greenhouse gas! (This must have caught the Lord completely by surprise, right?! The fact that the cattle that He created for food are in effect destroying the very atmosphere that He created for life to exist on this planet!)

So, I offer a simple solution to this whole conundrum this morning.........let’s just start eating more beef and end the surplus of methane being produced........right?! Today, I want us all to go out and eat some beef and do our part in ending the increased gas output in the environment!

Seriously though, our atmosphere that Yahweh created for us to live in, is amazing.

I read yesterday about the atmosphere in one article and it said that, “The weight of the atmosphere is so great that its pressure upon a man of ordinary size has been computed to be about fourteen or fifteen tons. A man of large frame would have to carry one or two tons additional.”

“But because the air's pressure is lateral as well as vertical, and equal upon all sides and parts of every body, it not only does not crush or injure the frailest flower, but actually feeds and nourishes it.”

That is amazing!! The very thing that surrounds us and that has the potential of crushing us like a twig, actually protects us and nourishes us with life!

And if you tried to adjust or change any of those gases that I just mentioned, even a little in the atmosphere, life would cease to exist!

It’s because of the atmosphere around us, that you and I see the beautiful blue skies that we love to see on a warm spring day!

Without the atmosphere, there would only be black around us. But because the gases change the rays of light from the sun, they produce the illusion of the blue skies!

In fact, without the atmosphere around us, you would go from darkness at night, to instant, full blown light in your eyes in the morning , and not the gradual, comforting light at sunrise and also the beautiful sunsets at dusk!

Tell me that we do not have a loving and caring heavenly Father, who gave us such beauty as this and controlled with such power and precision!!!

The point being, there exists around us at all times, an atmosphere, that provides life for all things on this planet!

And as much as we know and understand of there being a natural “atmosphere” that surrounds us at all times, so also, is there a spiritual “atmosphere” that surrounds us at all times!

And this atmosphere is created and controlled by whatever spiritual host that you and I bring with us!

The Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 6:10-12,

Ephesians 6:10–12 ESV

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

And again in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 Paul says,

2 Corinthians 10:3–5 ESV

3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

There is a spiritual atmosphere that exists all around us, at all times, and it is within that spiritual atmosphere that we are constantly waging war against the enemy of our souls.........the devil!

As much, if not more so, that I can assure you that we are surrounded by an atmosphere of gases that affect our bodies and our health, so also are we surrounded by an atmosphere of spiritual beings that affect not only our bodies, but also our spiritual bodies and our spiritual health!!!

Right now, right here in this room, there exists an atmosphere of spiritual conflict as well as spiritual healing and power. And we, you and I, are the conduits through which this atmosphere is created and controlled by!

Have you ever walked into a room full of people and instantly been overwhelmed with a feeling of dismay and sadness and hopelessness? Or maybe you’re feeling down and you walk into a room full of people and instantly you feel uplifted and warm inside? Or even anger can instantly well up inside of you for no reason!

Or, let me ask it this way. Do you know certain people, who, when they come around you, have an air about them that changes the room when they walk in. Whether that be an air of peace and love and joy, or one of anger and bitterness, or sadness and depression?

These things are examples of the “spiritual atmospheres” that I am speaking of right now! It’s not the person, themselves who create this atmosphere, but rather, it is the spiritual hosts that they bring with them that do that!

As I just said a minute ago, we are but conduits through which these forces flow!

BUT..........we are not powerless and unable to control these forces and this atmosphere that I am speaking of.

You and I are completely in control of the “spiritual atmosphere” that I am talking about right now and we are without excuse as to the one that exists around us at all times!

If you’re one of those people who seem to walk in gloom and doom and depression all of the time and other people sense it around you (Christians and non-Christians alike), then that is a bi-product of the spiritual hosts that you invite to tag along with you!

And in like manner, if you’re filled with inexpressible joy and love and it so affects others around you (Christians and non-Christians alike), that they desire your company, then, again, that is the bi-product of the spiritual host that you invite to tag along with you!

You and I have the literal, spiritual power to transform the atmosphere around us at all times and for the good of the kingdom of God and for His glory!

Next week, we’re going to talk about this and look at ways in which we can altar and even completely change the atmosphere that exists around us at all times.

There are things that we need to embrace in our lives and there are things that we need to cut off and cut out of our lives, in order to effectively change the spiritual atmosphere around us, so that the power of God may flow in and through our lives!

So, that, it may be said of us, in accordance with the will of God, something similar to that of which Luke said of Yeshua in our passage this morning, “And the power of the Lord was with him/her to heal, or to deliver, or to witness, or to pray for ,or any other number of other things that the power of the Lord might be upon you to do!!”

I quoted awhile ago from the late E.M. Bounds about the subject of prayer. I will close with another quote of his about prayer and of how it produces a change in us and the atmosphere around us. He said, “Walking with God down the avenues of prayer we acquire something of His likeness, and unconsciously we become witnesses to others of His beauty and His grace.”

Friends, does that describe you today? Does your time in prayer to God change the atmosphere around you, as you begin to acquire something of His likeness in your life and thus affect others in their lives?