"When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?" Those are the words of Jesus Christ in Luke 18:8. And it makes you wonder, this phrase makes me wonder. I wondered, is that a prophecy? Is it saying that when Christ comes He might not find faith on the earth? In some ways, it might be kind of scary saying that the church of God might be lacking faith, that I might be found lacking faith if I'm here when Christ returns. If or when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth? Can we take that as a warning that our own faith unbeknownst to us might actually be insufficient?

I want to tell a little story about many years ago on Facebook, which I don't do a lot with Facebook anymore, but one thing, it went through kind of an evolution, if you've been on Facebook for a while, where, I mean, we just accepted friend request willy-nilly, no consequences. Just, you know, didn't matter if they're from other countries, especially if they're friends with anybody else that we know from the church of God circles.

And I remember taking many such friend requests of that type, several of them from people in Africa that just seemed too eager to connect with their brethren in the church. You do have to watch out, though, as we've all learned for spammers and scammers, and people that, you know, they start asking for money, and it's gotten very bad.

But there was one of these gentlemen who seemed very sincere that I spoke with at that time, man from Africa. And we just started up a conversation about faith and some of the struggles he face in his country, struggles I face, different things. It was pretty wonderful, pretty wonderful. Seems like those kind of interactions are more rare now on Facebook than they were in that time when that was kind of new.

But one of the interesting things he talked about was a struggle of faith that you and I don't have much experience with. And he wrote to me and he told me about how people in his country, not necessarily in the church, but people just, by and large, would pray and pray and pray to God for rain because they had been in a terrible drought for a long time. They didn't have kind of the access to those branches of the supply chain to make up for things like that. They depended on local production. They would pray for rain, and it wasn't raining. And it kept going. This year didn't get the rain again, year after year. And people would lose faith in God, whatever faith they had, thinking, "God doesn't care about us, or maybe there's not a God. We're asking for rain and it's not coming. People living on a very thin margin like that, I mean, they risk dying. They were starving to death in conditions like that. It's very serious.

Droughts can cause doubts. They've always happened, but now I think we've come to a situation in modern society... I mean, you know, you've seen the news we are in major droughts in many different parts of the world, including the United States. And the big difference, even though there's been droughts all throughout history in various places, is that now we have millions and millions of people living in these areas that really can't support them when you come to one of these droughts. The American Southwest that's in I think 42% of the U.S. is under moderate to exceptional drought.

I mean, we've got whole cities, massive populations living in what is otherwise a desert siphoning off from these reservoirs that are at historic lows. They said it's the worst drought in 1200 years. We've got our landmark, these famous rivers and lakes and reservoirs drying up, Lake Powell, Lake Mead, the Colorado River. People living there require record amounts of water, not just for daily use but for the agriculture that takes place that feeds them, and for the livestock that also feeds them, and all these things.

I mean, it's just one more hammer to the world that we've had in the last few years. And again, it's not just the U.S., it's also taking place in China. What's happening there has been described as the worst drought anywhere on record in terms of the number of people affected, the size of the area, the extreme temperatures they're experiencing, very bad situation.

And what's happening through all of this, you know, they're facing a very real crunch on their ability to produce. Their factories are being shut down because they don't have enough electricity. They rely on hydroelectric power for a lot of their electricity. They also have a higher demand for air conditioners because of the number of people and the extreme heat that's going on, so it's slowing down production. There goes another poor supply chain. It's like every time I speak, like, something else has happened to the supply chain that's just crushing it. I would feel very bad if I was the supply chain this year.

In Europe, experts are saying the drought in Europe could become the worst in 500 years, so another record drought there. The Rhine River in Germany has fallen to levels too low for the thriving dinner cruise industry that's taken root there. People can't get their nice pleasant cruise down the Rhine because the water level is too low for the ships to pass, but guess what? Ships transporting raw materials for factories also can't pass. That's a major route. So, again, just more and more disruption, more and more.

And on top of that, you've got crop failure taking hold in various places. In France, about half the corn crop, last time I checked, is going to be unsuitable for human consumption because of the drought going on. They've got these very ominous hunger stones that are being revealed as the rivers recede. And doesn't that sound bad, a hunger stone, like you're going to be hungry after you see it? And people have known this for a long time, whenever there's a bad drought and the river levels get low enough and you see that rock, were in trouble. So, what they do is they would write the year on it. So, you know, some of these, they haven't been revealed for hundreds of years. And they can see the inscriptions like, oh, wow, yeah, we're in a bad one. We're in a bad one.

All of this is happening. We can really see how the world is teetering on the edge of disaster more and more, where we've got the suspension of modern comforts down to things that are very life-threatening going on in the world today. It all has a very prophetic feel to it. We wonder, especially with this happening in Europe, is this something that's going to drive European nations together and be one more kind of catalyst for the rise of the beast power? The realignment of power we know is coming in Europe that will most likely be led by Germany, as we understand. Could be the beginning of a puzzle piece like that.

And we know that droughts are a precursor to famine. This is one of the things that the alarm has been sounded on for almost a year now that we are headed for a famine. We got fertilizer shortages, all the many things. And here we are with these awful droughts. They're talking about these bad famines before the droughts really were making the news the way they are. So, what's happening now? Well, here's the fact, whether by drought or other factors, we know that there are going to be unprecedented famines before the return of Christ. That's something that's promised, one of the four horsemen.

Also, there will specifically be droughts because when the two witnesses begin their ministry, they're given the power to shut up heaven so that it doesn't rain in the days of their ministry. There are going to be droughts. Doesn't seem like we're in the big one just yet. We haven't seen the two witnesses. There are also many other things that haven't happened yet, but it does make us start to feel like we ought to be prepared.

Now physical preparations, we talk about from time to time, those are a matter of just earthly wisdom. Honestly, we can have a bad tornado any day of the week and you might be without electricity for a few days, without running water. It's good to have a supply of things on hand, emergency food for a few days, whatever it is. You know, those kind of things happen in all parts of the world periodically. That's just normal. It's good, though, not to overdo that physical preparation to the point where we're trusting in it. God warns us very specifically against that. Our trust is not in the flesh or in the physical, our trust is in God.

So, that brings us to the other way that we can and must prepare. The way that you can never over-prepare is to spiritually prepare. Our spiritual preparations for famines and droughts and whatever may come is absolutely paramount. What we need is the kind of faith in God that can endure even through very intense and very prolonged trials, if necessary.

So, today, I'd like to talk about what does that kind of faith look like? The kind of faith that can endure a terrible drought and famine, what does that look like? How can I make sure that I have enough faith so that when Christ returns, He will find faith on the earth? We can answer that in the affirmative. This is something that relates to...we talked about during baptism counseling. So, for those that I've counseled in baptism or talked with those things about faith is one of the cornerstones of what it takes to have a relationship with God. For many of us, it might have been a very long time since we've gone over those fundamentals of what faith are, so it's good to remember. Turn with me to Hebrews 11, and we'll get started. Hebrews 11, of course, is known as the "Heroes of Faith" chapter or the "Faith" chapter. And it teaches us a lot in a very short span. We'll start in verse 1, and begin reading. Now verse 1 is for many people a memory scripture. It can be a little bit opaque I think, so we're going to break it down.

Hebrews 11:1 It says "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

I think for me those words always just seem very mysterious. You know, what do you mean it's the evidence of things not seen? Like, my faith is evidence that there is a God, like, because I believe? Is that what it's saying? And actually, no, no, that's not what it's saying. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." The word evidence there, the other translations put that as being conviction of things not seen. It's being convinced that they're there, even though we don't see them.

So much of what God has done through all of history is unseen to us. There are forces like the force of gravity. We can see its effects but we don't see gravity. It'd be kind of weird if we did. Wonder what it would look like. So much of what God has done since creation is unseen. In fact, if we get down to it, the entirety of the events of the Word of God are unseen to me and you. We heard about that in the sermonette, you know, blessed are we if we have not seen and yet believe. We have witnessed testimony that is reliable, we can test it and understand it, but ultimately, it comes down to an exercise of faith if we're going to believe the Word of God or not.

Verse 2, so we're learning about faith. Faith is some kind of conviction of things not seen, right? It's a belief, right? That's the sense we're getting out there. Faith involves belief. You already knew that, I know. But we're going to parcel it out and we'll get to a more concrete working definition of faith as we go. Faith involves belief.

Hebrews 11:2 "For by it," that is by faith, "the elders obtained a good testimony."

In this chapter, if you've read it before, you know it's got a lot of examples of people doing things by faith, acting out their faith in their life by obeying God even through difficult circumstances, and there's examples of all the different things they've done. So, by faith, a person can obtain a good testimony. Faith, if it's going to result in a good testimony, it's because not just a person believes but they are doing something as a result of their belief. You don't really get a good testimony just from sitting around thinking good thoughts. That doesn't get you anywhere really. It doesn't move you in any direction. Faith, therefore, is going to involve actions. Specifically, it's got to be a willingness to act on the things we feel convicted about. It's fundamental to faith.

Hebrews 11:3 "By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible."

Okay, so verse 3 gets kind of interesting. What we're getting told here is a specific article of faith. In other words, this is something non-negotiable that you and I have to believe if we're going to say we have faith in the God of the Bible. We can't bend on this. By faith we understand. So, if we don't understand this, it's really not faith. "By faith we understand the worlds were framed by the Word of God." That all this visible stuff was made out of invisible stuff, that it came to be through the Words of God. In the beginning, He said, "Let there be light."

I mean, there's a big, big challenge to that in the world today, isn't there? We know our young people face that at schools, many of us face that in college. We might face it from coworkers, people we talk with, just because somebody is pushing us and pushing us and pushing us to accept a secular narrative on those things. They're not more informed than the Bible. In fact, they're totally the wrong way. Atheism has become in its own right a false religion that evangelizes harder than anybody. Really, these evangelical atheists, I like to call them in my mind, they've very fervently done so under the guise of public education. They've more or less taken over the enterprise, not the starship.

And they spread absolute foolishness on these things about, you know, well, there's always been matter, there's always been energy, these things are eternal. And they kind of miss the connection that, oh, so you're saying that something has always existed. And the concept of existence loses its meaningness, and it's a lot of confusion that they get themselves in, but they prop it up in a very intellectual style to make us feel like they know better than us, and they don't. They're not speaking according to the Word of God. They just don't.

And thankfully, there's a lot of scientists today that are pushing back against that, that are speaking out. And sometimes having awful repercussions for their jobs for it depending on where they're employed. And they're sharing how their study of science strengthens their belief in a creator, how it supports a belief in a creator, whereas many will ignore whatever in their discipline would support the existence of God.

One organization that does a really great job of that that I've been tapped into for a while, I wanted to share just in case you're interested or want a good resource. They have a weekly newsletter. It's called the Discovery Institute. They do very good work, the Discovery Institute, about kind of that age-old argument between science and religion, are they incompatible? You know, and is there a creator? Does the evidence point to a creator or not? They do a very good job answering in the affirmative that there is a creator.

Hebrews 11:6 Talking about faith. "Without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him."

Did you notice the word must? More things that are non-negotiable here. We must do these two things, at least. We must believe that God is. In other words, the belief that there is a creator is non-negotiable. If we don't have that, we don't have faith, and none of the good things promised in the Bible can apply to us if we don't believe that. We also have to believe that He's a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. As part of believing that God is good, it's part of understanding that God has a law that's for our good and that it's something that has to be sought out and sought after.

In other words, the faith that leads to salvation requires certain beliefs about God, not just any belief will do. People can have faith in a whole lot of nonsense and falsehood. And so they do very often. This is a belief in the truth. God's truth is objective reality. It's not based on any one person's individual feelings or experience of what is true or what's not. People want to talk all the time around this in the world. This is the way of the world today. It's creeping in more and more to say that, "Well, I have my truth, I'm going to live my truth, speak my truth," as though they have a truth, you have a truth. We can have separate truths and they're both equally valid. Well, no, no, there is a truth with God.

If we're going to...not to walk that back, but to give perspective, yeah, everybody does have their own valid lived experience, okay? And it's good for us to be compassionate towards people, to listen patiently to people about the hardships that they've had, to try to understand the best we can where they're coming from, not to be presumptuous to think that we can, in our minds, reduce a whole person's life experience down to something that I can understand easily. But we have to also be grounded in the reality that there's only one truth, there's not multiple contradictory forms of truth. God, the Father, is the one that actually knows the one truth in all its fullness. And through His Spirit, He reveals certain facts and things about that to us through His Word and His Spirit. And very thankfully, God has given all judgment of that one truth, the objective reality. He's given that judgment to Jesus Christ, and He judges perfectly by the perfect standards of God's righteousness.

It's an amazing fact that you and I cannot even understand or perceive the truth of God unless He has first opened our eyes to it. That's a humbling thing. And every one of us is blessed in that very special way. We've been called to the truth. In fact, very often, within the church of God, people don't ask, how did you come into the church? We ask, how did you come into the truth? I always like hearing it that way.

One older gentleman asked me in a certain way, he said, "When did you first receive these truths?" Sounded kind of poetic, I thought. I like that. You know, actually, just reading through the Psalms very recently, I always thought that was just kind of what we call church speak, you know, things that we say that aren't really in the Bible, we kind of made them up and they sound good. No, no, no. If you read through the Psalms, I was reading through maybe starting in Psalm 60, through 70-something, somewhere in that number, I saw over and over again, David talks about, "We walk in the truth. God's mercy and truth follow Him." There's an emphasis on the truth in the pages of Scripture and were well founded in asking people, how did you come into the truth? You cannot have the faith described in the Bible without being founded and grounded in certain revealed truths of God. That's just a fact.

And the church of God consists of those that God has revealed that truth to by His indwelling Spirit that He's put in us. He's called His Spirit to dwell in us so that He may guide us into all truth. That's a fundamental thing that we understand about the action of the Spirit. And it happens a little bit at a time, and much of that work is left undone, even by the time we finish our race because we're imperfect. We are only capable of so much.

You know, as an organization, the United Church of God, we do our best to codify what we have collectively understood by the Spirit as the revealed truth of God regarding the teachings of Scripture. We put that into our fundamental beliefs the best we can, we put that into our booklets the best we can. I put that in my sermons as best I can. You put that into your speech with others as best you can.

Believing in the truth. I have three things that are essential to faith. The very first one is believing in the truth. In my notes, I put in the truth in all caps. That way, I would know I needed to either yell it or tell you it was really important. Because it's not enough just to believe. You have to believe the right things. You have to believe in the truth of God. The second one, which we've also seen here in Hebrews 11, the second one is obedience to God's law. Belief in the truth is essential to faith, but secondly, obedience to God's law is also essential to faith.

For that, let's turn over to James 2, the Book right after Hebrews. James 2:18-20. In fact, this is probably the most poignant explanation of the difference between belief and faith that you can get, that can even be made. This is as good as it gets and it's powerful.

James 2:18-19 "Someone will say 'You have faith, and I have works.' Show me your faith without your works, and I'll show you my faith by my works." I mean, that's already a mic-drop moment right there, isn't it? It's like, "Okay, show me your faith that doesn't have any action behind it, I'll demonstrate my faith by my actions." That's powerful enough, but get this. Verse 19, "You believe there's one God." Okay, you've got to believe in the truth. "And you do well. Even the demons believe- and tremble!"

The demons, if you think about it, they believe in the truth of God. They believe in the one God completely. They don't deny His existence. They don't question over who He is. They even know enough to be afraid of God. "But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?" You know, for demons, if they 100% know, no doubts, that God exists, that He created all things, that there's no other God, etc., they know what the will of God is, what's the difference? They just aren't willing to obey. Think about that. They know the will of God, they just aren't willing to obey it. Because they don't obey, their belief in the truth does them absolutely no good. They come up 100% empty and unfruitful. Even perfect belief without obedience, it does no good. "Faith without works is dead." You can't just know it, you've got to show it, and you've got to keep showing it. That's the third point.

You really have to continue steadfastly in faith. That's the third point that's essential to faith, it's continuing steadfastly because faith that is lost along the way, faith that is abandoned and left behind, well, that faith doesn't do any good at all. The only faith that will benefit a person is living faith, faith that is ongoing, faith that is growing.

Let's talk about how that happens. And really I want to divert for a few minutes on some things that get in the way, part of our own perspective. I think all of us, well, I can speak from my experience, I struggle with faith sometimes. I think we all struggle with faith sometimes. We wonder if we are lacking in faith, just like that verse.

Luke 18:8 says, "Will He really find faith on the earth?"

Well, if He's depending on me, I don't know if I'm doing good or not, God. How do I judge that? Let's talk about some situations, some questions we might ask ourselves that rattle around in our head that do not necessarily indicate a lack of faith. Number one, just taking action on our own as opposed to waiting on God, does that mean we're lacking faith? And think, "Well, I'm taking something into my own hands instead of waiting for God to work it out." Is that a lack of faith? Well, it can be, but that's a very nuanced question. Depends on what you mean. For example, if we break God's law because we're lacking faith or we're tired of waiting on God, we break His law in order to expedite something, yeah, that's lacking faith if we've... I mean, the pillars of faith are obedience and belief. So, if I stop obeying, I'm lacking faith because faith would have me obey.

Saul did that. One of his first, I mean, big problems as king, he had to go into a battle. He knew he needed God's blessing, he knew they needed a sacrifice, but they didn't have a priest, so he's looking around waiting for Samuel. And what does he do? Instead of waiting for God to work it out, he goes ahead and does the sacrifice. Problem with that is not that...I mean, wanting to sacrifice to God, that's a good thing after all, but God had been very specific in His law that only a priest was qualified to offer sacrifice. Saul swept that aside, thought, "Well, this is just what's got to get done to get God's blessing, and so I'm going to go ahead and do this, even though this is not the way God would want me to do it. It blew up in his face. Big mistake.

Here's a hypothetical that...Somebody actually posed this to me back. Many years ago, I was doing some private tutoring, and this gentleman, his family had been Jewish, they weren't religious at all by his generation. And he told me the story of why. This is a challenge I've heard come up in other ways from people. It's just a common scenario people like to challenge us with for whatever reason, I don't know why.

But this was how he put it. So, his grandfather was Jewish and he moved to this rural area where he didn't have anyone around, no support, and he was down to his last scraps of food. And he goes out and the only thing there, only thing he can find to eat is a pig, a big fat pig. And he looked up at God and he looked down at the pig. Of course, he slaughtered the pig and fed his family, and now the family is not Jewish anymore.

People have asked me that in other contexts. I thought it was a very interesting story just the way he told it because I've always thought it was just a hypothetical scenario people pose. I've heard people pose that and, you know, if that were the case, if we were starving, our family starving, what do you do? What folks like to do is put you down in a little box that you feel like you can't get out of, okay? If I really think about it, well, I mean, do I have neighbors? Where's the nearest person I can go and beg for food? Can I do something else to get out of this? Probably. You can just wait and see how God works it out. You ain't got to eat right then. Anyway.

Okay, so if we're breaking God's law to take a matter in our own hands, absolutely that's a lack of faith. No way to get around it. But the question to remind us, taking action on our own instead of waiting on God, does that mean we're lacking faith? Well, here's how not necessarily. If we are taking reasonable responsibility for what is in our power to control, that is not a lack of faith. That's why as fall approaches, you are not going to look up at your gutters and you're not just going to pray, God, I hope you clear out those gutters for me. I have faith that you are going to clean out those gutters and I won't have to lift a finger. You better get up there and clean your gutters. God makes you responsible for certain things, doesn't He? He does.

Another example, maybe this hits closer to home. A lot of times this comes up over medical issues, am I lacking faith by seeking treatment on this? Where do we draw the line on that? If I've got a broken arm and my arm is snapped in half, and it's the bloody bone sticking out, am I just going to pray that God puts this back right? I think God expects me to take reasonable action and at least put a cast on that thing and get the bloody nub back connected where it's supposed to go.

But we do this with our children. When Elena asks for something, right? If it's something that I know she can be responsible for on her own, sometimes I won't do it. I'll tell her "No, that's your responsibility. You need to put those shoes away. You can go get your own water bottle. It's right over there. You've got two legs."

Even when...I like that phrase. When Israel was crossing the Red Sea, right? They were stuck there at the edge of the sea, nothing they can do, and God did not pick them up and put them on the other side of the water. He opened a way. "You got two legs, walk." He didn't say it that way but it's true. Yes, we need to pray for the things only God can do, but we also have responsibility to do what we reasonably can for ourselves. With God, we always have to put in our part in the relationship. Most often, our parts really involves more than just believing and just asking. That's part of putting it in God's hands, but another part is also doing what we reasonably can to help our situation.

Faith means believing that God can do what we can't do, while also taking responsibility for what we can. Part of that is just humbly admitting our limits compared with God's greatness, knowing even that God's answer might be no, or not yet. We don't know what God is going to do in a lot of cases, but it's important that we believe that He can help. It's important we believe that He hears us.

Second question, sometimes get in the way of faith. What about, does this feeling inadequate, or feeling weak, or feeling worried, or feeling anxious about a big heavy situation, or even feeling depressed over what's going on around us, does that mean I'm lacking faith? Is anybody here afraid of flying? None in this room. I don't see any hands. Well, we all know how this goes. A lot of people do have a fear of flying. My dad was afraid of flying. He still would take a plane once in a while, but he didn't like it the whole way through. That's the thing. So many people do this. They know on paper it's the safest way that mankind has yet devised to travel, and they book their ticket, they purchase it, and they are kept up sweating at night because they know they're going to have to get on a plane in three weeks. And they get there and they're nervous the whole time they board. They're nervous while they're waiting to take off, they're nervous while they take off. They are nervous the whole time they're sitting in that seat, whether there's turbulence or not. They're nervous and anxious about it until they're on the ground. They exercise faith, faith that, yeah, I know this plane is going to make it through. They weren't comfortable with the situation, but they had faith.

Luke 12:50. This isn't just a nice analogy. It helps us understand, but it represents a reality that is even revealed through the person of Jesus Christ in His ministry. Luke 12:50. And this comes right in the middle of just a lot of Christ's teachings to His disciples. The guys really did not understand a lot of what Jesus said, especially anything concerning His death and resurrection. We know it was just that the blinders were kept on by God for that until after it happened. So, here in the middle of a bunch of other teachings, He bursts in talking about something that was clearly on His mind. It comes real quick, if you read through the whole section, but we'll just look at Luke 12:50.

Luke 12:50 It says, "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am until it's accomplished!"

What were the disciples thinking on that one? Like, "Guys, He was already baptized, remember? We already saw that happen. What's He talking about?" Of course, we know Jesus was talking about His death that was to take place. His baptism had pictured His death, and He actually had that death on the cross to go through. And look at how it affected our Savior. "How distressed I am until it is accomplished!" I mean, Jesus felt distressed. Yes, He did.

We might have read over, I know I've read over that many times without fully processing it there. We might imagine Jesus just waking up, getting out of bed every day, didn't have any aches or pains. He felt great and ready to face every day like He was not caring the world, smile in His face, pep in His step. He's sitting here telling us He's distressed and probably all the works of ministry that He did were a welcome distraction.

From the awful events that He knew were going to take place that He was really not looking forward to. I'm sure He woke up just feeling terrible looking at the things He knew were ahead that were coming and He couldn't stop it. He knew it was the right thing that He had to go through. He went on with His duty anyway. It's a perfect example for us to follow, in fact. We have that duty to obey God even when it's hard, inconvenient, distressing, or depressing, not just when everything is going great.

The key here is that Jesus Christ did not ever, ever, ever lack faith. That's not what is happening here when He is feeling distressed. That can only mean that to feel that way, whether we're feeling distressed, depressed, powerless, or distraught is not a lack of faith. It can represent a temptation to lack faith or to act against our faith. Maybe if we because we're feeling that distress want to do something wrong or whatever it is to get ourselves out of a situation that we're just ready to be out of. It can be a temptation that we choose not to act on. The feeling itself is not in any way simple or an indication that we're lacking faith. Those feelings are just part of the human condition. And Jesus Christ also wrestled with His humanity, and He overcame it. Just like He overcame the temptations of satan the devil, He overcame the weaknesses of the flesh by resisting the temptations His own body had against Him. It shows it's possible for us.

Turn to Luke 22:41. We see this in a little more depth when He actually gets to that point. I like to show that in Luke 12 because it shows how it was on His mind day-to-day even when He had a whole line of people to heal and a whole crowd of people to teach, it was there coming into His mind. Like, He couldn't stop it. We get that way sometimes when we're tested. Luke 22:41. Now this is where He's at the point. This is where the Passover Supper has ended. He knows Judas is out there about to come with a mob to betray Him and take Him over. This stuff is imminent. And look at how He's feeling.

Luke 22:41-42 "He was withdrawn from them about a stone's throw. He knelt down and prayed, saying, 'Father, if it's Your will, take this cup away from me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours.’"

I mean, He was in pretty bad shape. He's up all night praying because He obviously can't sleep knowing what's going on, didn't even try to, it seems like, and praying to God through it.

Luke 22:43 "An angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him."

You might think, "Well, that's nice, you know, Jesus just talk to angels sometimes." No, He was at a low point and He certainly needed to be strengthened, so God gave Him the help that He needed under exceptionally difficult circumstances because He needed it because He was feeling it, just like you and I feel it sometimes. Verse 44 puts it bluntly.

Luke 22:44 "Being in agony, He prayed more earnestly." He kept going to God about this whole night. "And His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground."

His body was just betraying Him, you know. He knew He wanted to do the will of God and His body was just not cooperating with that in the moment. That's deeply uncomfortable, sounds like, physically, mentally, emotionally, all of it. But faith is what kept Jesus Christ doing the will of God, anyway, right up to the end. How do we get more faith? What does that even really mean? Turn with me back to Luke 18:8 now. This is the quote that I started with.

Luke 18:8 Christ says starting in the middle of the verse, "Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?"

So, I was considering this passage, I went looked at the Greek there and found that there's actually a definite article with the word faith. It's not just faith, it's the faith or this faith, that's what the definite article is. Not just any faith, but the faith or this faith in Greek. And we can ponder that for a second, will He really find the faith on the earth? Does that question make sense? Might think, well, okay, not all faith is created equal. Certainly, there's going to be some kind of faith, there's going to be faith in falsehood, false doctrines, all this stuff, lies, and evil. Is He saying that...? Will He really find the faith on the earth? Like, will He really find the church of God being faithful?

Well, there's a problem with that view why it can't be that because Christ had already said that He had founded the church of God on this rock, the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. There was a promise from God that the church of God would be there, and here is a clue. It would not be the church of God if the people didn't have faith. "Without faith, it's impossible to please Him." It's all that in Hebrews.

So, it's not saying the faith. So, what about the other way? The definite article can go is it's saying, will He really find this faith? And that just begs the question, well, what faith? What faith is this faith? What's He referring to? You got to look at the context. So, we're going to go back and do that. At the beginning of 18:1.

Luke 18:1-5 "He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart." Again, the only faith that matters is that that endures, continuing steadfastly in faith. So, here's a parable, so that "men always ought to pray and not lose heart. He said, 'There was, in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. There was a widow in that city and she came to him saying, 'get justice for me for my adversary.' And he wouldn't for a while; but afterwards he said in himself, 'Though I do not fear God nor regard man, and because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.'"

Okay? So, he didn't care that she was a widow, and hard on her luck. Didn't care that the law of God said specifically to uphold the cause of the widow. They didn't care about any of that, but just because she kept bothering him about it, kept coming to him about it, that was enough for the unjust judge to take action in her favor. So, here's the resolution of the parable in verse 6.

Luke 18:6 "The Lord said, 'Hear what the unjust judge said, and shall not God avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears along with them?"

You know, the people of God would not be crying out day and night if there was nothing wrong. There's plenty wrong, always has been, always will be since sin entered the world. It always will be until, you know, God sets those things right. Let me qualify that. "His own elect that cry out day and night to Him, though He bears along with them."

Do we ever give up hope and stop asking God for the solution to our problems? If that were the case, that might be an occasion where we're lacking faith because we've stopped asking God, stopped believing that God can and will address it, whether it's now or whether in the kingdom. We need to be praying to God always.

And I'm not trying to just wave my hands in here and comfort people with false hope saying, "Your faith is enough, don't worry about it," well, we have to worry about it. Absolutely have to. We all have room to grow in faith, even absent truly prophetic trials, the Great Tribulation. We don't have to be going through the Great Tribulation to be greatly tested. In fact, I think every person has been, every person who's been in the faith has been.

Well, we need to understand if we think we're struggling with faith, we have to remember these fundamentals of what faith really is. So, when Christ said, "Will this faith be found on the earth?" He meant a faith that keeps on asking.

Here are the different parts of faith and the things we might struggle with if we are truly struggling with faith. Faith struggle number one, am I struggling with belief in the truth? You know, if we struggle with that, if we're really struggling to believe that God is there that He's listening, whatever it is, we can ask God for help with that part.

In fact, there's a good example of that, Mark 9, where a man, his child has died and he's coming to Christ asking for help. And he says, "Lord, I believe help my unbelief." And what does Christ do? Of course, He resurrected that child from the dead, you know, and that's an immensely difficult situation this guy was in. That was a crisis. And he found himself maybe not believing God could do this because he's never seen anything like that done. Said, "I believe help my unbelief." If I don't have it, help me get it. That's a step we can take with God.

We might struggle at times with such basic things. We can all end up struggling with this just from the experiences we have. We might struggle to believe that God exists, we might struggle to believe that He really will forgive my sins, awful as they are when I repent. We might struggle to believe that He really will provide a future that will make the hardships that I face today feel irrelevant by comparison. And our faith has to be grounded in the truth. We need to be constantly reading the Word of God and taking it to heart, constantly seeking understanding. "He's a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." If we're seeking Him, He does lead us in His truth. Whatever the truth part of it, we need to know that at that point. We got to be sure we're not just ticking the generic box of belief in God, but that we actually are maintaining a relationship with Him through His work, which is the source of truth for us. Seeking to understand the truth of what He's doing in the broken world around us. Asking God to help us believe when we're in doubt. Those are keys to overcoming the struggles of the belief side of faith or struggling with the belief side of faith.

Well, the second struggle in the faith is the struggle to obey God, right? That's the other part of faith. You've got belief in the truth, you've got obedience. So, am I struggling to believe in the truth or am I struggling to obey God's law? Let me tell you if you're struggling to obey God in any way, that's absolutely normal, absolutely expected. We know that we're here in these physical bodies that are weak and subject to temptations. They just are. It's the situation we're in because we're supposed to overcome. Even Jesus Christ felt temptation and had to spiritually, mentally, physically prepare and show up to a fight with satan in the wilderness being tested. He had to show up in prayer before God that night when He was going to be delivered over, and He did so, He depended on God The answer is to keep asking God, "Lead me out of temptation, deliver me from the evil one. God, give me what it takes to obey you."We can't ever think that, "Well, you know, God will understand I'm under extreme duress here. I know this thing is wrong to do, but I'm going to go ahead and do it." Can't do that. Don't lose faith that God can and will deliver us if we continue obeying Him, even if it's not going to be yet, even if we're going to suffer in one way or another.

The third struggle of faith I think is really all summarized in this is that we have to endure to the end. It's the hardest because we can get worn down over time. Some trials last a lifetime for people, and they're waiting right down to their last breath and they're not delivered yet. It's going to be in the kingdom of God. Keep the faith. Things are hard. When help seems very far away, or when the wicked prosper and it doesn't seem fair, or when your plans don't work out when everything goes wrong, when you're being delivered over to death, when you're burdened, when you're weary, keep the faith.

Endurance means this, you don't ever let the hardships of physical life cause you to abandon those other two pillars, belief in the truth and obedience. Even when the whole world is hungry and starving to death in a massive famine at the end times, even when homes are destroyed, when people's lives are wrecked, when the economies of the world crumble and wars are ravaging everything, even when false prophets are prevailing and everyone around you is accepting lies that caused them to do wickedness and violence against other people, maybe including you and wanting you to turn unrighteousness, too, keep the faith.

Whether we end up living through the tribulation and whether we're all the way there in the end times or not, trials, 100% will make a struggle. Every one of us is going to struggle. But faith is believing in God's truth, anyway. Faith is doing God's will and following His law, anyway. Faith is never giving up the hope of the promises of God and Jesus Christ.

[Steve Myers] How is your hearing? It's pretty good? I heard the story about an older man was getting concerned about his wife. He was worried she was kind of losing her hearing a little bit, so he thought, "I'm going to do an experiment." So one night, he came up to the kitchen and she was getting dinner ready. And so, he stood at the door, she didn't notice he was there and he said to her, "What's for dinner?" No response. So he came up a little bit closer behind her, and she didn't know he was there, so he said a little bit louder, he said, "What's for dinner?" No response. So he came up right behind her and he said, "What's for dinner?" And she said, for the third time, "Spaghetti."

So how is your hearing? Hearing is such an important attribute, to listen when we're spoken to. Now you won't find it in 1 Corinthians 12. Our A.B.C. students know 1 Corinthians 12 is what chapter? The spiritual gifts chapter. It's not a spiritual gift. Listening is something that we've all been given, something we all can do. It's kind of an ability or a skill that God has given everyone and yet, one, that we have to improve. And one you might not think of as being particularly spiritual but the connections to spirituality are undeniable.

Now when I was very young, I learned for the first time when my mother was our den mother, back in Cub Scouts. She used to do this thing that, you know how boys can be pretty rowdy when they're seven, eight years old, to get our attention. You know what she would do? In fact, if you've ever been to camp, the tradition continues. Leader would put up their hand and then everybody would start putting up their hand when they noticed the leader has their hand up. And why did they do? That they do that at camp, right? Shake your head. Yes, they do, they do. Well, why aren't your hands up? Okay, everybody's quiet now. Because it means listen up. Listen up, something important is coming. And so, the hand goes up, the mouth goes shut, and you pay attention.

And there's many times throughout Scripture that God does that very thing. In fact, He in a way, metaphorically, puts up His hand and says, "Listen up," in fact, I think He adds to it, He says, "Listen up and live." Listen up and live. We heard about the parables a little bit earlier, and it's interesting if you looked through those parables, whether you look in Matthew, Mark or Luke as well, it's interesting how many times a parable begins with, "Hear the story of," or concludes with the words, "He who has an ear, let him hear." I have to take some time maybe later today on the Sabbath to notice how many times Christ actually says that. In fact, if you see that connection to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3, guess what is also said to those churches, to us by extension as well, it says, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." Same type of thing. In a way, God raises His hand and says, "Listen up and live," because listening is something that is critical for all of us as God's people. He wants us to hear and listen.

And if we don't, how can we do the things that God wants us to do? I mean, is it fair to say, I can't be an encourager if I don't listen? How can I support someone if I really don't hear them out? Can I grow if I'm not willing to listen? What kind of husband am I, or what kind of wife are you if you're a lousy listener? Kind of make things pretty challenging if that's the case, that we're not a good listener. In fact, when it comes to being a disciple, can I truly be a disciple of Jesus Christ without the ability to listen? You see, I think it is such a critical thing. In order to fulfill the calling that God has given us, there is an intricate connection between listening and being a disciple, between listening and the Kingdom of God. Listening and, I think you can say, salvation. It is critical to all of these things. Even though it may not seem like it's that big a deal, the connection is undeniable.

And so, I thought it might be helpful to take some time this afternoon to recognize that connection between listening and truly being the kind of a disciple that God really wants us to be. And think about it for a moment. Can you break a connection between listening and, first of all, spiritual growth? Is there any connection between those two things? If I'm going to grow spiritually, if I'm going to bear fruit, do I have to be a good listener? You already guess the answer? The answer is yes. Yes, you do. In fact, one of the parables focuses on this. Maybe we haven't really read it before, it's a very familiar parable, we heard about the “Parable of the Sower.” If you'll turn, not to Matthew but turn over to Luke this time, Luke 8:4, discusses a very familiar parable. It's about the farmer who sows the seed, the one who is throwing out the seed to grow, we're familiar with this.

But what I'd like you to notice is something that may have escaped us a little bit when it came to this particular lesson that Christ was teaching. So if you go over to Luke 8, notice verse 4. Luke 8:4, Christ begins teaching this parable about the sower and we're familiar with it. Verse 5, he goes out to sow, to plant the seed and we know it went on all kinds of various places. So verse 6, "some fell on the rock but it withered away." "Some fell on thorns," verse 7, "and it sprang up in the weeds, the thorns choked it." Verse 8, "Some fell on good ground." And what happened to the stuff on the good ground? That seed? Well, it grew and it “yielded a crop” it says, "a hundredfold."

And then, what does Christ say? The end of verse 8, He says, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." Now I don't know if the sower was planting corn and Christ was using a little pun about ears to hear or not, probably not. Probably not. But it's interesting to see this connection because what's the difference between these? We might say, "Well, the difference is you got weeds and thorns and you got good soil and bad soil. Well, that's the obvious difference.” Well, if we fast-forward just a little bit to Christ's explanation, look at verse 15 when He talks about the ones on the good ground. He says, "But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience." So what we begin to see here, a direct connection between spiritual growth, bearing fruit and listening to God, hearing His Word, hearing it sometimes with patience, as He said here, and then putting it into practice.

In fact, it's kind of interesting when you compare the record of the different parables in the different Gospels, if we see the same parable over in the gospel of Luke, let's go now to Matthew. Go over to Matthew, we compare these two versions because Matthew has a little bit of information that Luke doesn't include for some reason. So if we go over to Matthew 13, notice something interesting that is recorded here that isn't over there in the book of Luke. So if we look at Matthew 13, notice verse 9. Matthew 13:9, here we have the parable begin and, as we see the story, He says, "He who has an ear to hear, let him hear!” The disciples are wondering, "Well, why do you speak in parables?" Christ begins to explain that. Not the point of the sermon today, but it's interesting, in that explanation, He says, in verse 13, Matthew 13:13, "I speak in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand." And then, to add to this, He quotes the book of Isaiah. He quotes Isaiah 6:9, where He says… verse 14, "Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive; for the hearts of this people have grown dull. And their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they've closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them."

And so we can't help but ask the question, "Are my eyes really open? Are my ears really hearing? Not just to perceive sounds but so that I can understand." I mean, Christ says to His followers, "Blessed are your eyes, they see, and your ears, they hear." And so, He begins to draw this connection, in this parable and the lesson, that it's not just about hearing because there's a vast difference between hearing and understanding. Or hearing and, sometimes the way the Word is used for listening, listening. Now it's kind of interesting when you see this word for hearing, some hear and they hear and others hear and they don't hear. It's referring to the understanding, but the same Greek word is used here but definitely different meanings. The meaning is different because when you hear, what kind of effort does it take to hear? Well you just do. You just do, it just happens, right? Hearing just simply happens.

So you might be around the house and you can hear the vacuum going or you can hear the dishwasher running. But if the television is on, that may take a little bit more. It takes a little bit more effort to listen or hear the T.V., especially if I'm going to grasp what's going on. You see what you do different in those things? Well, some might just listen, it's just there. When it comes to the hearing that Christ related to understanding, that's something you consciously have to decide to do. You consciously make a decision, I'm choosing to hear and understand and listen to those words. So what does it take? It takes concentration, it takes effort, it takes attention to do those very things, so that your brain then, instead of just saying, "Oh yeah that's the vacuum," it processes the meaning of the words and the sentences. And so we begin to understand and we see the intent of these things.

And so Christ once again, after quoting Isaiah, says a similar thing recorded here in Matthew. If you look down to verse 23, "He who receives seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it,” they put their brain in gear, allow God to work in them and through them and they get it, they understand and it goes to work in their lives. And so, what happens, it says, "it indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty." And so, Christ draws this tremendous difference between just hearing something and then having a depth of understanding. And that understanding is critical. If we're going to grow spiritually, if we're going to produce, it's not good enough just, "Oh, yeah, I know that passage," but if it doesn't speak to you, we hear the voice of truth that speaks to us, if it doesn't impact our thinking, if our brain isn't engaged to say, "You know, that's something I have to do. I need to change. I can't keep doing that. I have to have that perception and attention to what the words and what the story is really all about, so that it impacts my life and I change and I change and I grow.” And fruit, spiritual fruit, is born from the perception and the understanding of what God gives us through His Word. And so God says, "Listen up and see how that word should impact your life," because it is intricately connected to spiritual growth.

All too often, we hear it but we may fall into the category of some of those that weren’t listening to Christ. Yeah, they hear it but they're not really getting it. They're not really getting it. In fact, I was reminded of a story, I read it in a commentary on the book of James by Vernon McGee. And he tells the story about the famous Greek philosopher Socrates and how so many people wanted to learn from this great philosopher. And so, he tells the story in this commentary about a young man who came to Socrates and he wanted him to be his teacher, he wanted to be a student. And so, this young man came to Socrates and just was going on and on about how great Socrates was and what a great teacher he would be and how much he wanted to be his student. And he kept talking and talking and talking and going on, so Socrates couldn't even get a word in edgewise. Until finally Socrates put his hand over his mouth to make him be quiet and he said, "I'll be your teacher but it's going to cost you twice as much."

The young man went, "Well, what do you mean it's going to cost me twice as much as everybody else?" He said, "Why would that be?" Socrates said, "Because I've got at least two things to teach you." He said, "First, you need to learn how to hold your tongue and listen. Then you need to learn to use your tongue correctly." And the point being, yeah, the Greeks loved eloquent speech. They used to love to hear the debates, they loved to hear the latest, they loved the speakers, the teachings and all those. But the point was you can't teach until you can listen, until you learn to listen you really don't have much to say. He was just going on and on and on and on and not saying a word. You ever find yourself maybe doing that? Sometimes we talk, we talk, talk, talk and chirp, chirp, chirp. Was that from The Music Man I think? But not much to say. And so, God certainly wants us to see this connection from listening to spiritual growth. And so, in a way, yes, God raises His hand and says, "Listen up and live."

It's also interesting to see this connection to understanding. Not only growth and bearing fruit but spiritual understanding is intricately connected to listening to God, listening to His Word and applying it in our lives. There's an interesting passage over in Colossians 1, that speaks to this second aspect of why we need to listen so intently to what God has for us in our life. Colossians 1:5, here Paul is speaking to God's people in Colossae. And it's interesting as he points out something that is so important as he speaks the truth of God's Word, speaking the gospel and the hope for mankind, God's plan, and how he connects it for the people to really give them a visual of the importance of spiritual understanding. Notice Colossians 1:5, we'll kind of jump in the middle of the thought here. He says, "because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, which has come to you."

So, okay, yeah, I've heard the gospel, I know what the plan is, I know what God's purpose is. I know these things. But he also says this message “has gone out in all the world," and as a result, he says, in verse 6, "it is bringing forth fruit, as it is also among you since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth." Because what is he pointing out here? What he's saying, "Colossians, there was a time you recognized the fact you didn't understand God, you didn't know His way, you had little depth of spiritual understanding. But since you have heard, God has opened your mind to the truth, you let it impact your thinking, you basically admitted you didn't know anything." I mean, he really is saying listening starts this process of us admitting we don't know everything we should know. And, in fact, maybe taking you a step farther, it also admits there's a lot we don't know that we don't know. Does that make sense? There's a lot we don't know and we don't even know that we don't know it.

And he's telling the Colossians here, this is such a critical thing, Hearing the Word of truth and allowing it to work in your life through God's Holy Spirit, we can gain a depth of understanding. But the understanding alone isn't the purpose, just to have understanding. Yes, it's something that vital, something that is absolutely necessary, something that we need to ask God for that spiritual understanding. So we should do that even before we read the Bible. Can we ask God and petition Him, "God, help me as I'm studying Your Word, help me to grasp what You're telling me. Let me hear Your voice, speak to me so I can understand more effectively." And hopefully, you did that before you came to church today, that you prayed for understanding before services so that God's Word can impact your life, something that King David often prayed about, that God's Word would impact his thinking, that he could listen in a way that something he hadn't noticed before, something he hadn't thought about that applied to his life would jump out at him and impact his thinking, so he would change.

In fact, in the longest psalm in the Bible, Psalm 119, it's recorded for us that very thought. If you want to turn over to Psalm 119, let's notice verse 34. Notice this connection between listening and spiritual understanding, praying to God and asking for Him to impact our thinking through His voice, through His Word, through His plan. Psalm 119, somewhere right there near the very middle of your Bible. We noticed verse 34, notice the connection here, Psalm 119:34, it says, "Give me understanding," so we can see praying for that understanding. And as a result, "I shall keep your law. Yes, I shall observe it with my whole heart." And I think it's important. “Well, does that mean I pray to God and ask for understanding and now I see it, I figured this out, I know now?" See, what's a little off with those statements? Is it that I now have this great perception that I understand these things and I can grasp it? Now I know... No.

You see, what we recognize here when we asked God for understanding and we pray about that, like Psalm 119 here, "Give me understanding," we're recognizing something so important, that God is the source of understanding. We're praying and asking Him to remove the wrong ideas out of our minds, to get ourselves out of the way. It's not that I know, it's not that anyone else can grant us spiritual understanding. So it's not my Sabbath school teacher, if you had your lessons today, it's not a deacon or an elder or even the pastor or the ministry. No. God certainly can use them to help us understand but we got to go to the source. We've got to go to the source. The ability to understand God's Word and His way and His will is something that God grants to us. God opens our mind to His truth. And so, we can pray and ask God to help us with the understanding that we need to recognize so we do get it, so that we do see, so we have those eyes to see and ears to hear. Because if we think we already know, we're not really getting it.

And I think those of us who have been parents, you understand this, right? I mean you've got kids or you've had kids, maybe they're grown up now. Has this ever happened to you? "All right, this is what I want you to do," and you just start telling them and they start running off to do it. It's like, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Listen to all the instructions first before you run off and try to do the wrong thing." Because that's what happens. And I think, in a way, God wants us to recognize we're His kids, we're His children, we're God's children, we shouldn't want to miss out. If we think we already know, "Oh, I know that, I know, I know, I know, I know," and then we go and we do the wrong thing. And we're like our little kids that they thought they got it, they thought they listened well enough but then they missed the point. You see, and I think if we see ourselves as God's children, we're going to be looking to God, we're going to be understanding we need His direction, we need His insight, we need God's spiritual understanding given to us, so that we can draw the right concepts from His word, so we can understand these things then and see how they fit in our life.

In fact, He kind of builds on that a little bit later in this psalm, if you turn over a page or so to verse 144. Psalm 119:144. We see the impact of truly listening as a child of God. He says, "The righteousness of Your testimonies is everlasting; give me understanding, and I will live." Give me understanding. He couldn't work it up on his own. No, that wasn't going to happen. Through God's will, through His testimonies and He opens our mind, we can live. We can live, we can understand. And so, God does say then, "Little children, listen up. Listen up, this is critical, this is important. This is important." Because what it begins to open up, I think, is a third aspect that is so critical as well. When we recognize this, how can I live? How can I have eternal life? How can I be a part of God's family? I have to have a relationship with Him, I have to know Him. God has to be my Father, Christ has to be my elder Brother. I have to know them intimately. And listening develops relationships.

Listening develops relationship. How do you get to know anybody? How do you get to know anybody? I mean, through listening, conversation, we gain an understanding. We understand each other. And so, we learn information about them, we hear their experiences, we know, you know, how old they are, what their family is like. We understand about each other. And the challenge is, especially for us in this world that we live in, oftentimes, we don't do this. We don't really develop the relationships that we should. And it's a detriment in the congregation of God, it's detriment to all of us when we don't really know each other. We don't take the time because we live in this Facebook world, this Twitter limited number of characters kind of a world, or a soundbite kind of world, that's how we live. And so, "Give it to me in a nutshell and that's good enough. Let's go on."

But that's not what God wants. God isn't into this Facebook kind of world in that sense. Right? In fact, I read an interesting article that Facebook is destroying the world. And it was basically pointing that very fact out, that it's a bigger detriment to relationships than anything else. Because we think we can summarize a life in a picture, "Look at my beautiful picture." "Boy, they must have everything together. Look at how beautiful they are, they're happy, they're smiling." And yet, underlying is all these problems and difficulties. But I can put a pretty face on it and stamp it with the smiley face and everything's great. But that's not the case and God doesn't want us to just put a smiley face on things.

And the challenge then is how do we develop relationships in this world that we live in where true listening is really declining? Because when you listen, you're supposed to concentrate, you're supposed to focus, you're not supposed to be thinking of other things or looking at my phone and flipping through the next notification. Not thinking about “What's happening at volleyball tonight and who's our first team that we play and what's going on with that?” And, "Wow, what's on my to-do list? And after Sabbath, I got to get this done." No, we can't do that. God doesn't want… how are we going to develop a relationship with God and focus on what His Word says and speaks to us if that's where we're at? Not going to happen. It's not going to happen.

Or sometimes we may fall into another problem. How many of us have selective hearing? Yeah, we have selective hearing. Yeah, I've been accused of that, my wife complains that I never listen to her or something like that she says. I'm not exactly sure. Or she insists that I have this selective hearing. It's kind of a running joke in the house, if she really wants to get my attention, she starts with something about, "Well, the Green Bay Packers did this," it's like, "What did you say? What was that?" And I begin to start paying more attention to that if she wants a reply out of me. Or sometimes it's like, "Didn't you hear anything that I've said?" And I'll think, "That's a strange way to start a conversation. Why would you begin that way?"

Now the challenge is, are we that way when it comes to our spiritual relationship with God? It's like, "God, why are you starting there for? What was that all about?" You know, I think it reflects that we have this deep need that we need to be heard. And when we recognize the fact that we need to hear God, we can begin to recognize, "Boy, when somebody's not listening to us," you're trying to have a conversation with someone and they're like, "Well, I don't know. Let's see, is there anybody else I can talk to?" How do you feel when that happens?
Oh, I feel loved. I feel like they really care about me when they're looking at their watch and can't wait to get on to the next story.” No, you don't feel people care. And it's interesting when you consider it, "All right, developing relationships that sounds kind of mm-hmm. Guys especially sounds more feminine. I don't know if I'm into that kind of thing." But wait a second. When you really get down to it, being listened to is really a lot like being loved because it's showing somebody cares about you. When you listen and you show that concern, you show that compassion, you show that care, you're showing love. You're showing love.

And, of course, the fact is God always listens to us. God is always ready and willing and able to show us love and care and concern. And there are so many passages we could turn to to show that God is reaching out, striving to develop that relationship with us and sometimes we're like, "Yeah, I know, God, but, you know, I'm kind of in a hurry and I got this going and it’s so busy. You know how life is," and we end up in that frame of mind. And sometimes you just feel like nobody's listening. Is God really listening? Absolutely. Absolutely.

I was reminded of this, I was reading an interesting story, it was in a book called 40 Days of Encouragement. It was written by an author named Terry Slachter. And he was writing about Franklin Roosevelt, F.D.R., and all these welcoming parties, all these banquets that he would have to have and go through, all these various lines of meeting, dignitaries and people and senators and all this sort of thing. And I'm not sure if the story is true or not but he tells the story as though it's a true thing, that F.D.R. basically got to the point, he felt nobody in those lines have paid a bit of attention to what he said because they were always telling him how great he was and what he was doing and all those kinds of things.

And so, one day after going through this feeling like nobody really cared, he decided to have a little experiment. So there was this big welcoming line that everybody wanted to meet him at the White House and so he decided he'd try something totally different. So, as he was introduced to someone, the very first person, he decided, "I'm going to say the same thing to everybody and see what happens." So he met the first person and he mentioned kind of quietly, "I murdered my grandmother this morning." They said, "Well, it's good to meet you. I'm really glad. I've looked forward to the time that I could come and see you." And then, he said it to the next person, "I murdered my grandmother this morning." "Marvelous. Keep up the good work. We're so proud of what you're doing." "I murdered my grandmother this morning." "Bless you, sir. You are such an honor to meet and it's so wonderful I finally got this… I've always wanted to meet…" And this went on and on and on and on till he finally gets to the end of the line and supposedly there was the ambassador from Bolivia. And he says to him, "I murdered my grandmother this morning." And the Bolivian ambassador kind of looked at him kind of funny and said, "I'll bet she deserved it."

Now it sounds kind of like a phony story but he tells it as though it's true. And I think, if nothing else, it certainly tells us when we feel somebody's just, you know, patting us on the head and say, "Oh, it's nice to see you. I hope things are great. You know, how are things?" "They're terrible." "Well, good. I'm glad it's going well." You know, it does reflect whether we care or not about people. And so, when we recognize that, listening means we're paying attention to that person. And it's building trust, it builds trust. Listening develops relationships by building trust. Now can we trust God? I mean, does God give us full attention or not? You see, I think it's no different that when we focus on someone, you know, if I'm going to have a conversation with my wife, I better shut my laptop, I better turn off the TV, put down the phone face down and focus. Right? And focus because it shows I'm not interjecting, "Oh, well, wait." No, it's not the time for my opinions or my judgment or my advice. It's time to… I can't finish her sentences, I'm not supposed to do that. No, that's not good. I'm showing I care and that I trust, she can trust me. She's got a confidence that I have her best interests at heart. And that's exactly what God does. We can trust God no matter what. No matter what.

In fact, there's an amazing example as Paul wrote to Timothy, and you think about that relationship, that's kind of an interesting one. We have the elder statesman, the elder apostle Paul and this young minister Timothy, a young man that he met when he was just a little teenager. Paul kind of took him under his wing and they built this amazing relationship. And over in 2 Timothy 1, this relationship that they have is even built on I think a stronger foundation, in a sense, as Paul is relating to Timothy some of the challenges that he's had. And even though you look at the situation that Paul was going through and the difficulties, he's explaining to Timothy that there's such a foundation of trust between God and Paul, that Paul wasn't worried about it. It didn't impact Paul to lose his faith. And so, he's telling Timothy about this, I think, to help build up Timothy as well.

So in 2 Timothy 1, notice verse 12. I'm going to read this out of the New Living, it might be just a little different than your version, but New Living, 2 Timothy 1:12, Paul says, "For this reason, I also suffer these things," because being imprisoned that was a terrible thing. And yet, Paul says, "I'm not ashamed." Why? He says, "For I know whom I have believed." In other words, “I'm not just acquainted with God,” it's not just like, "Yeah, I kind of know Him sort of. I mean He's a Facebook friend but He's not really that close.” “No, it's not that I'm just acquainted, I know Him. I know whom I believe and I'm convinced, there's no doubt, there's no concern in my mind, there is no doubt, I am convinced that He's able to guard what I've entrusted to Him until that day." And, of course, Paul entrusted his whole life, his whole being, not only his ministry but everything, everything about him he trusted God. He entrusted himself to God. So he had that absolute confidence, it was unshakable confidence and trust that he had in God.

And he's telling Timothy that the relationship between God and Paul was built on trust. Not so much that God could trust Paul, but it was undoubted that Paul could trust God. And kind of reminiscent of Psalm 25:3, where we're told, "No one that hopes in You God will ever be put to shame." You see, we have a great God who is on our side, who we can trust. And, of course, when you think of the word trust, maybe a more spiritual word comes to mind. When you think of confidence and having an assurance, what we can count on. Is there a word that maybe comes to mind? You know, maybe the word faith. Because I think God raises His hand, in a way, and says, "Listen up. Live, build your faith, increase your faith." And listening builds faith. It increases confidence, it can increase and I think expound commitment and dedication as well.

When you think about faith, maybe there's a chapter in the Bible that comes to mind. Well, before we go there, let's go a couple of pages before that, in Hebrews 2. Hebrews 2, right at the very beginning of that section of Hebrews, notice this connection between growing in faith and truly listening to God, truly listening. Hebrews 2:1, says, "Therefore we must give the more earnest heed” what is earnest heed? I've really got to pay attention to this, give the earnest, really listen up. Therefore, "give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard lest we drift away." If we're going to listen up and live, we better really focus, really recognize, or we could end up somewhere else. Verse 2, he says, "For if the word spoken through angels prove steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience receives a just reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?"

So there's an undeniable connection between listening, paying the earnest heed, hearing the word that's spoken and whether or not we're going to neglect our salvation, whether we're going to drift away from the truth, whether we're going to do the things that aren't appropriate for us as disciples of Christ. He says, "These things were first spoken by the Lord, that was confirmed to us by those who heard him." And so, we see this connection between listening and hearing and understanding and application as well. And so it starts with that, "Can I count on who spoke these things? Can I have confidence in that? Is this something that I can certainly, absolutely, undeniably reflect on and have this confidence and faith that it's true?" Who backs it up? Well, God does. And it's, yes, absolutely. If you go over to Hebrews 11 then, we're reminded of this faith and this connection to listening and where that faith is really founded in that sense.

So when we see what Hebrews reminds us of in Hebrews 11, right at the very beginning of that chapter, it says, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” And it goes on and discusses these things. “By faith we understand” well, when we recognize these things, we have a confidence. We have an absolute conviction they're true, that it is going to happen, so we have substance, we have evidence. And where is that based? Not that I work this up, not that it's dependent only on me, I recognize if God said it, God promised it, God's going to bring. I have faith and confidence in Him. I believe Him. He spoke this Word, it's recorded for me and I give the earnest heed to that Word and I can trust God. And He can increase my faith because, first and foremost, God is faithful. God is faithful. And so, because God is faithful, I can have faith in Him. Because God is faithful, I can have confidence in the things I can't see. "I can't see it. But you know, God, I trust You and I know You. And You promised this. And even though I can't see it, I know it's real. I know it's real. And so, I can have the trust in You. I can have that trust in You."

Because I think it's just a page or two later here in chapter 13. Chapter 13, verse 5, he points out something, I think, that becomes critical then. What can I have faith in? Well, at the end of verse 5, it says, "He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you or forsake you.' So we may boldly say.” in faith, in confidence, in assurance, in commitment, "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear." What can my boss do to me? “What can man do to me?” What can anyone do to me? Because I trust, I have faith, I have a relationship with God and He can increase my confidence in Him because He's not going anywhere. He’s telling me, "I'm not going to let you down. I'm never going to walk off and leave you. Not going to happen. I'll always be there." I think if you look that up in The Message, He actually says something like that, "I'll never let you down and I'm not going anywhere. Not walking off and leaving you."

And so, we can have an increase of faith recognizing we have a faithful God who is there, who speaks to us, and speaks words of life in this dead world. He speaks life to us. In fact, God does speak. We sing that song, don't we? “God speaks to us.” Are we listening? Are we listening? Because it should have an impact more than just the hearing. Certainly, Paul said the similar thing to the Romans, Romans 10. Romans 10 reminds us of where it begins, Romans 10, let's see where should we begin. How about verse 14? Romans 10:14, a familiar passage, as we're reminded, "How shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?" Well, if you don't believe it, you don't believe it. It says, "How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? How shall they hear without a preacher? How shall they preach unless they're sent?" So we see this connection with listening, with listening. Verse 16, "No, not everyone obeys the gospel," and a quote from Isaiah again, "Lord, who has believed our report?" But what's the factor that really makes all the difference? Well, verse 17, "So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."

And so, it's not just the audible sounds, not just reading the Word but it's what effect that Word has on us so that we have true understanding so that it builds our faith, it builds that dedication that we have for God. Yes, it says, "Have they not heard? Yes, indeed: ‘Their sound has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.’" The gospel is going out, yes, but, all too often, people hear but they're not hearing. But for us, it should have that impact in our life that it changes who we are and we increase our faith. Because God does, in a way, raise up His hand and say, "Listen up. Listen up and live," because this should motivate us to action. Listening should impact us to godly action and that's really the goal that God has in mind for us. It's not just the fact that we understand or we know things, it's not just the fact that we have great faith. But that faith has to be put into action. We have to act on that faith, we have to live that faith. Because when you consider those types of things, we better do the Word. Right? We have to be doers. We have to be doers.

You might see why I was reading James' commentary. James 1 talks about that, doesn't it? James 1, look at verse 19. If we allow God to work in our life and we're really hearing to understand, listening leads to godly action. Listening leads to godly action, James certainly bears that point out. James 1:19, right at the very beginning of this general letter that James writes, he says, "My beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath." You see, when we're ready to listen, the result is godly actually. If we're not ready to listen, likelihood of something going wrong after that is going to definitely increase. He says, "If we're not, we might be quick to wrath," and what does he say? "The wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God." And so, listening to the Word of God, and the application of that Word of God says we will have the help we need, verse 21, "to lay aside filthiness, the overflow of wickedness."

And that Word then by listening and seeking to understand how it applies to us, it says, it's implanted, “receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” And this connection to eternal life that it impacts our life not just that we know, not just that we understand, but that we begin to live that way. And so he says, verse 22, "Be doers of the word, and not hearers only," because, otherwise, we're deceived. “If you're a hearer of the word and not a doer,” well, you're like this guy that looks in the mirror, sees his face, “goes away and forgets what kind of man he was. But” verse 25, "he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it," yeah, that ongoing action, godly actions that are ongoing, "continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer" not a selective hearer. Not that they say, "Well, that doesn't apply to me. Boy, that was an interesting sermon but I hope they got it." They're not that kind of hearer “but a doer of the work,” it says, "this one will be blessed in what he does.” So it needs to turn into action in our lives where we're looking into these things. That's what we're to be doing, be doers of the Word.

"Look perfectly," it says, "look into the perfect law of liberty." And that's kind of a listening kind of thing as well. If you look up the Greek word here, I was reminded of my grandfather. Grandfather was hard of hearing and so you know what he would do when he wanted to hear something? He leaned over and say, What?" You put your hand to your ear like grandpa used to do. Well, "Looks into," really carries that kind of a meaning, "I'm bending over trying to understand." Which points to us. Is that the kind of hearer that we are? That we are so intent on what God has in mind for us in our life that we're bending over and we want to get every word, we want to understand it, we want to apply it in our life. That's the kind of hearer we're supposed to be, one that's looking into God's Word, and then continuing in and not forgetting about it, not taking it lightly but looking intently into that Word, examining that Word to see the intent for me. Because if I'm just have a casual listener, "It doesn't matter that much, I guess that applies to somebody else," you know, we see that instead of seeing how it applies to us.

And so, certainly, we can't be that way. And maybe that's what we need to do. We need to stoop over, just a little bit and look at our own life, "Is there evidence of the fact that I am a forgetful hearer in my life?" And that can show itself in so many different ways. It can show itself in attitudes. It can show in ourselves, "What just came to my mind? What am I thinking? Have I really put that Word in an implanted way? Is that Word truly implanted in my mind, in my heart, so that's what comes out of me? Are the relationships in my life built on that kind of hearing and listening?" You see, those are the types of questions that I think we really need to ask ourselves. Because I think what James is telling us here, there's this intricate connection between listening and truly choosing to listen and then acting upon what we've heard. Or maybe to say it a little bit differently, listening is a choice that requires action. Listening is a choice that requires action.

It's nice to come here today and feel good about life and “I heard the Word.” But if we don't do anything, it doesn't impact us in that way, well, what's happened? Well, nothing, nothing's happened. And so, we certainly have to make sure that we're choosing to listen and that we're then having the required action. So what do we have to do? Well, we've got to… well, it's like shutting down the computer, turning off the T.V., turning over the phone. I have to intentionally turn away from every distraction that would cause me to slip up or trip, and I've got to turn toward God and His Word and His way and show Him that I am choosing to pay attention to Him. God has got His hand up for me and He's saying, "Listen up, listen up, because if you want to grow spiritually, you've got to hear Me out. You want deeper spiritual understanding? Listen to understand. If we're going to grow in our relationship, I'm reaching out to you but you're turning your back on Me, you're not listening. I want a relationship with you.” That's what God wants. But what is our reaction? Do we have the Facebook, Twitter response to God? He says, "No, don't do that. I want to build your faith, you need to increase your faith. I'm a faithful God who is reaching out to you."

And, of course, when we respond, it turns into action in our life. And so perhaps, as we think about these things this week, something we can certainly pray about. We can certainly pray and ask God, "Open my ears, open my spiritual… not just these ears, but my spiritual ears to help me to really listen to You. Help me to hear Your voice. Help me to hear Your voice as You speak to me through Your Word, help me hear Your voice as I talk with others, as I recognize You and Your guidance from other people. Help me with Your insights, help me with Your strengths, let me see Your values in my life. Help me to see the words that You speak with an understanding that I've never had before, so that, ultimately, it helps me to do, it helps me put those things into action."

Because God... Well, doesn't Christ stand at the door and knock? Are we going to open and truly listen? Well, if we're going to, we've got to get that door open and listen with our hearts and our minds and then allow that to be put into action. Maybe thinking about it just a little bit differently as we conclude. John 14:15 says, "If you love Me, keep My commandments." "If you love Me, keep My commandments." And maybe if we put that into other words, in a way, it's saying, "Listen to what I say and prove that you heard it by doing what I requested." Isn't that really what Christ is saying here? "If you love Me, keep My… Listen to what I say and prove that you actually heard it and understood it by doing what I ask." Or maybe just a little bit differently, "Listen up and live."

[Mr. Frank Dunkle]: We have given some thought to health concerns lately. Haven't we? With COVID in the air and all these prayer requests, it's certainly something we have on our minds. And so, it seemed like an appropriate topic to speak on today. Now, I will caution, I spoke on this topic in the a.m. service a few weeks ago, so I'm sorry for those of you that might be hearing it a second time, but I discussed it with Mr. Myers and he thought it was a good topic. I want to talk about some of that and COVID is going through and, you know, I'll confess my family recently had their experience. And we were fortunate enough to be some of the ones with a mild case. I did have the odd experience of coming down with it a couple of days before the rest of the family and we were hoping they wouldn't get it. So, I was isolated, stuck in the guest bedroom for two or three days. And boy, that was an experience - one I'm not eager to repeat. I'm looking for water here. And my son came down with it. It was interesting because we've tested him four or five or six times. And all those other times it came back negative. And what's interesting is when you get that negative test, you go, “Phew, it's just a cold.” It's just a cold you'll get over that. And if you haven't had the experience with fear about COVID, most of us have had a head cold or something like that, a case of the sniffles. And you just think, yeah, that's something you get over. Have you ever stopped to think, well, how do you know? Why are you so confident that you'll get over it?

I'm guessing because you have before and that's the way it goes for us. The same thing happens if you have a minor cut. You get a cut you might bleed a little bit and you, you know, maybe you put a Band-Aid on it or just let it go the natural way. And if you can ignore it and not keep irritating it, a little while later, it'll be gone. If it's mild enough, you don't even have a scar. I say that, as I was thinking about this message always propped up on the bed, looking over my notes. I looked down on my ankle and I've got a scar that's been there for more than 50 years. An unfortunate incident of my ankle meeting a bicycle chain. And it was so long ago, I don't even remember the particulars but, you know, I've got that reminder. Still, it cleared up and I got better. You know, broken bones are like that, right? Matter of fact, we've had that experience in the human body we know you break a bone, you set it properly, six weeks. It's almost like clockwork. And six weeks, the bones, the cells will regrow, they'll knit together and will be like new. They'll maybe not exactly like new, but, you know, it's functional. It works, you know, normally.

These things happen, well not, I just think because we know God designed some processes that He made our bodies to do that are, I think, astounding, they do it without us giving a thought. And that applies to cuts, scrapes, and a lot of sicknesses. You know, we've probably heard more about antibodies in the last year and a half than we ever cared to know, but it is interesting that our bodies have this built into us, the means to recognize something that's foreign and that's damaging and to create a countermeasure. It does it without us giving thought to it. You don't have to go down in your bathroom and or sit in your bedroom and say, “Okay, now I'm gonna direct my body to produce antibodies.” It just happens, in the same way, like if you get that cut. I think this summer, I got to go canoeing in the wilderness and I've got a bad habit perhaps of wearing shorts when I do that. And often my legs come out looking like I've been in a battle zone - cuts, scrapes, scratches, and I never give it a thought as a kid, I always had cuts and scrapes on me. But, you know, a scab is a pretty amazing thing.

It's not the most appetizing thing to think about, but, you know, a little blood comes out and suddenly it forms, I call it God's Band-Aid, it's just automatic. It covers, but this never occurred to me besides taking it for granted until I was reading a book by a Michael Behe called "Darwin's Black Box." It's been around quite a few years, I'm guessing several of you have read it. It makes the case for intelligent design for the fact that the amazing complexity of creation makes it obvious that there was a creator, a designer who planned all this, and blood clotting is one of those things. You know, it's amazing how when the blood comes out, there is some type of chemical trigger that makes it start to clot and form that scab. But it also stops at just the right time. It's one of those processes that had to work right the first time. Now, of course, if it doesn't work at all, people can bleed to death. And there are some that have rare defects that that's a worry. But until I read Mr. Behe's book, it hadn't occurred to me that if it doesn't stop working, your blood would keep solidifying right up into the veins and all through your body. And we can't survive that. So, God created it just right.

And when I think of some things, it brings to mind a scripture I'll quote, without turning there, it's in Psalm 139:14. You can jot it down if you like. It's one you'll instantly recognize. King David, we believe was the author, and he said, “I will praise You for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Boy, are we fearfully and wonderfully made. Our bodies are amazingly complex and capable. So much so that getting over a seasonal cold or healing from a cut or even a broken bone can seem routine. As I said, you take the COVID test and it comes back negative and you go, “Whoa, I know I'm gonna recover from this in a couple of days,” but I think it's a miracle. I like to term it a miracle of creation. When we think if God creating the life in the first place was miraculous and certainly, it was, it was God's divine power that made us and gave us life, the fact that He built into us, these amazing qualities of being able to heal and recuperate is nothing short of miraculous. And the reason I bring that up today and wanna speak on it by way of introduction to our topic is without having realized it, I think we could say each and every one of us have experienced divine healing in the fact that God built into our bodies that ability to heal. And it's something given to us by Him.

Of course, sadly, we know that it doesn't always work. Some injuries are so traumatic, they end life. Although our bodies are designed to recognize and fight and overcome bacteria and invading viruses, there are some infections that become overwhelming. You know, when the normal miracle of our body's own immune systems just aren't enough, we can go beyond that. And the thing I wanna talk about today is that we can go beyond that and claim a benefit that God offers to His people to ask for healing. Divine healing is a benefit and a blessing that God makes available. And it's not something begrudging or forced, it's something He wants us to have. And we've been thinking about it now, more than ever. I'm confident as we get those prayer requests and we plead to God to intervene and hear those requests. I know I've anointed people and sent out cloths and many of our other elders have. You know, we think about divine healing and we probably have some questions and the Bible has answers. If you will turn towards Exodus 15:26, the first thing I wanna establish about this though is that this idea of appealing to God for divine healing - it's His idea. It's not something people initiated and went to God and said, “Oh, can You grant us some healing?” And He said, “Well, maybe I'll think about it.” You know, no, it came from God.

I want to read in Exodus 15:26. This is as God was bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt and on the way they were having difficulty finding water eventually so much that He brought it out of a rock for them. But at one point they found a pool of water, but it was bitter, it was inedible, perhaps even dangerous. And they appealed to God who directed Moses to cut down a branch of a tree. Some translations say a whole tree, threw it in, the waters were made safe and good. And God told them something. In Exodus 15:26 God said, “If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord, your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I'll put none of the diseases on you, which I brought on the Egyptians for I am the Lord who heals you.” Mr. Myers mentioned this in his message to us that he sent out last night. The Hebrew for this is Yahweh Ropheka. It refers to the eternal God who heals. That's a name or a title that God wants to be known for. He introduced Himself as a healing God. Now, I don't think it's a coincidence that in this passage He linked it to obedience to His laws. You know, not only does He bless rather than curse those who obey Him. But if you study through the laws that God gave to ancient Israel, we see that He gave them principles of healthful living that applied down through the ages. He gave them direction of proper diet, of good hygiene. And, you know, of the principle of quarantine to stop the spread of disease.

Interestingly, of course, human beings at that time had not learned about microorganisms, but God knew all about them. And He introduced this idea of healing. It's worth considering also that healing was a significant part of the ministry of Jesus Christ. If we turn to the book of Matthew, I wanna read a couple of passages there, starting in Matthew 4:23. Matthew 4 is a good summary. It says, “Jesus went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing all kinds of sickness, all kinds of disease among the people.” If you just do even a casual, superficial reading of the gospel accounts, you can't help but notice that Jesus healed people. Everywhere He went, people flocked to Him because they knew He did that and they wanted to get that benefit. You know, I don't have time to go through a detailed analysis of all those cases, but you pay close attention and you read them, one of the things you see, that's very clear is that the healing was often linked to Christ's compassion. It often says He had compassion on a person and then He healed. So, we say, Jesus didn't heal only to get attention. It brought attention to His ministry and that was valuable. But I don't think He healed only for that reason. I don't think He healed to get people to stop bugging Him. You know, He cared about people. He was a God of love, compassion.

He hated the people, let me say that in English, He hated to see people suffer. If we look in Mark, sorry, not Mark, Matthew 8, just a few pages ahead. I know that's what's missing, it's really quiet in here. It's supposed to be quiet during services. I should be used to that. Matthew 8 beginning at the start of the chapter. When He, that is Jesus had come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed Him, and behold a leper came and worshiped Him saying, “ ‘Lord, if You're willing, You can make me clean.’ Jesus put out His hand and touched him and He said, ‘I am willing, be cleansed.’ ” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. It's noteworthy, one thing that Christ was willing to touch a leper. That's something you did not do. It was a dread disease and people were properly afraid of it spreading. Lepers were commanded to keep separate, it was built into the law. And thus this man, depending on how long he'd had leprosy might have gone without human contact for months, years. And that's one thing I never had that much insight. I thought that might be a terrible thing. But as I said, I had two and a half days of being quarantined to the guest room in our house. I thought I can't imagine doing this for months and years, not being able to touch people or be around them.

Christ reached out and touched him. But more than that, He said, “I am willing.” It was in Christ's desire to heal the man, no indication that it was grudging or just to get rid of an annoyance. And I think that's an important lesson for us. These qualities that we see in Jesus Christ and God, the Father, I believe, I believe They still feel that way. I think They want to grant healing. When we appeal to God and ask Him to make us well, He doesn't see us as a nuisance or somebody who wants to get out of the way. Think of Him as a loving parent, who wants to make His children feel well. Now, that could raise the question of then why doesn't He heal us all instantly? Put that in the back of your mind, I will come back to that a bit later. But let's see a little bit more about this. Here in Matthew 8, if you look down to verse four after the leper was healed, Jesus said, “Well, see that you tell no one,” - so He wasn't trying to get attention from the healing - “But go your way and show yourself to the priest, offer the gift that Moses commanded as a testimony to them.”

You know, some reasons Christ wanted the man to go do this seemed to be to give proper thanks to God and to be a witness to the priest. But I mention it because it does indicate to us and remind us that healing had a place in the ritual system. You know, there were aspects of that system that referred to God intervening and healing. And I don't wanna examine that today because we know that Christ's sacrifice replaced that system. We don't offer sacrifice and I don't have to bring two birds and dip one of them in blood and set it free if I'm healed from a skin disease, which I'm very glad for that. But with Christ's priesthood and the New Testament, it shouldn't surprise us though that there is a procedure, a method, a specific action that God tells us to take in regard to healing. I'd like to turn to James 5, you're probably thinking of that. James 5 beginning in verse 15, this is central to any discussion of asking God for healing because He raises the question, “Is anyone among you sick?” - This is James 5:14. - “If you're sick, let this person call for the elders of the church. Let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise him up. And if,” - if as a pretty big word there – “he's committed sins, there'll be forgiven.”

And this describes a specific procedure, not a pro-specific procedure. And it includes a particular role for the ministers of Jesus Christ. You know, I've heard some people raise the question since it is in the plural, do you have to have more than one elder to lay hands on. And that's not the way we've interpreted it. It's certainly not wrong to do that. Some translations say rather than call the elders invite from among the elders of the assembly that elders to lay on hands and anoint. We see examples in the Scripture of one person, you know, laying hands on someone and then being healed. The point is this is a procedure to follow. I might note also that I don't think it's limited to a sickness, an infection. It's also appropriate for injury. You know, we can see examples in Scripture of divine healing for injury. The one that comes to my mind, first of all, is in the garden of Gethsemane. As you know, the soldiers came to apprehend Christ and Peter whipped out that sword, swung it, chopped off the ear of the high priest servant. And Jesus put away the sword, those who live by the sword will die by the sword. And He, you know, I imagined He did it this way. He picked up that piece of ear and put it back on his head and healed him.

You know, healing for injury is just as valid. James 5 notes that anointing is done with prayer and laying on of hands. You know, most of us have probably had this experience. I would say, if you never have, you might be intimidated as much as I was. I still recall very clearly the verse, the very first time I was anointed, I was 15 years old and I developed a sports injury. I was on the track team in high school and I developed a bad case of shin splints, very painful. It's a type of tendonitis and at services, one Sabbath, someone said, “Well, why don't you ask the pastor to anoint you?” Well, yeah. You know, why not? That sounds like a great idea. So, after services, we did this and as we're going to a back room for privacy, I started getting a little apprehensive. And because I'd never been anointed before, but I had read the Old Testament. And if you did see how it's described when a prophet would anoint someone there it's a little different than we did here. So, I really thought that the pastor was gonna pull out a bottle of oil, I'm trying to like this, and pour it on my head, ruining my nice new suit. And thankfully it wasn't anything like that. I learned what most of you know now, most of us that are elders carry a little vial of oil and put a little dab on our fingertips and can put it on the forehead and then lay hands on and pray to God.

The oil is a symbol. It's a symbol of something much more important - of God's Holy Spirit. You know, if you want a scripture to support that, Acts 10:38 is my favorite where it describes Jesus Christ being anointed by the Holy Spirit. It's the power of God through His Spirit that does the healing. It's certainly not the oil and it's not the hands of the elder. It's God, God is who we look to for healing. Again, those in the Cincinnati congregations you probably saw Mr. Myers's message yesterday evening. And it was very appropriate and, well, who am I to say if it's appropriate, but as a good focus to us to remember that God is our source of healing. We get anointed and we pray to God to ask for that healing. Now, you might say, well, do you have to ask for an anointing every time you're sick? You know, I described how I might get a case of the sniffles. I could ask for healing every single time, or I asked for healing, I could ask for anointing. I'm not sure if James implies that it's absolutely commanded, but it's certainly available. You know, sometimes when I think I'm gonna get over something, you know, I've got a cold, but I'll pray to God, you know, I pray on a daily basis and I'll ask God, please cause the systems You built into my body to work as effectively as possible, help me to get better more quickly.

It's when I want or need a healing that I'm not able to do, you know, and I don't think my body will do properly then I'll certainly call for an elder to anoint. But I would encourage any of you, don't hesitate. Don't think, oh, it's not a big enough deal to be anointed for. When I was saying earlier that Christ wanted to heal people, I can assure you the ministry of the church wants to anoint you if you want that. You know, I've had people say, “Well, I know you're busy.” Oh, ministers are busy, but this is the job we have to do. Don't hesitate to ask for that. And sometimes people might wonder why does it have to be an elder laying hands on? God doesn't need that. Does He? And the answer is no He doesn't. But one thought I think an important thought of why we have an elder lay hands on and do the anointing is it does acknowledge that the structure and the authority that God builds into His church. As we can read in 1 Corinthians, you know, God sets in the church people according to His will. Some elders, some pastors and teachers, He gives different roles for His purposes. It doesn't make the elder better or more qualified when it comes to health matters. But our willingness to follow God's direction is a mark of faith and submission.

Now, there's another important question that arises. Can I ask for an anointing if I'm taking medicine? Can I ask for an anointing if I'm having a medical procedure? You know, have I already betrayed my faith in God? Or if I've been anointed, do I have to just stop there and I can't do anything else? These are questions we have. And to be honest, Scripture doesn't answer it specifically. It does give us a story though, that I think is instructive. It's in 2 Kings 20. If you'll turn there with me 2 Kings 20 beginning in the first verse. I've pondered over this. And I think I see some reason to it that I'm somewhat confident of. This is during the reign of King Hezekiah, who was one of those reforming kings who sought God and tried to lead the kingdom of Judah and worshiping Him properly. But in this case in 2 Kings 20:1, Hezekiah was sick and it says he was near death. And Isaiah, the prophet, the son of Amos, went to him and said, “Thus says the Lord, set your house in order, you're gonna die and not live.” That's not a message that he wanted to hear, that anyone wants to hear. And he turned his face toward the wall and prayed saying, “Lord, remember now, Lord, I pray how I've walked before you in truth with a loyal heart. I have done what is good in your sight.” Hezekiah wept bitterly, you know. God had told him your time's up, but he appealed to God yet. And something intriguing happened. Going on in verse four, it happened before Isaiah had gone out into the middle court, the word of the Eternal came to him.

So, this is to Isaiah. Isaiah gave the message, you know, before Isaiah and God said, “Turn around, go back. Return and tell Hezekiah the leader of My people thus says the Lord, the God of David, your father, ‘I have heard your prayer. I've seen your tears and surely I will heal you.’ ” It's a direct message from God. “I will heal you, on the third day you'll go up to the house of the Lord and I'll add to your days 15 years. I will deliver you in the city from the hand of the king of Assyria. And I will defend the city for My own sake, the sake of My servant, David.” Then something interesting happens. In verse seven, Isaiah said, “Take a lump of figs.” They took a lump of figs, laid it on the boil and he recovered. What? You know, understand that I will heal you. You know, and I can relate that if a minister anoints him lays hands on and there's healing. What's up with that lump of figs? You know, both came from Isaiah, which I believe implies that God's working through him. And scholars generally agree that this is representing what has often been called a poultice. A poultice was a mixture of some herbs and medicines. Maybe it was only figs, but maybe other things were mixed in, but used as what we would call a topical medicine. A topical medicine, rather than a pill or an injection, it's something you put on the surface. Calamine lotion is a topical medicine, Neosporin, Preparation H. I mean, there's a number of them. And there was this.

But you think, does God here tell Hezekiah, “I will heal you, now use this medicine.” It seems like maybe He did. I don't wanna speculate too far or make too big of a deal of it. But it does seem to give us at least an indication that asking God for healing and having faith and trust in God and using medicine don't have to be mutually exclusive. You know, if you have a headache and you ask God to remove it, but also take an aspirin, I don't think that's, belying your faith in God. You know, I've used medicine and asked God, please make this effective and please don't let it harm me. Now, please keep in mind as I say this, I'm just looking at this and saying, it seems that they're not in conflict as much as perhaps we've tended to think sometimes in the past. But I'm not, not at all saying we should look to drugs or to doctors or medicine before we look to God. God is first and foremost the God who heals us, He's Yahweh Ropheka. No drug is that, no doctor is that. I'm just saying that doctors have studied our bodies and learned how certain chemicals react and they can have an effect that can be useful, and that doesn't have to be opposed to trust in God.

Now, another question that might come up in relation to anointing for healing. What if you wanna be anointed, but yet an elder can't get to you? Well, Scripture says call for the elders, have them anoint with oil, lay hands on, and pray. But if that's not possible, we can see in Scripture a couple of other ways that healing can still come from God. And there is no specific instruction, but there's what we call the anointed cloth. The example is found in Acts 19. If you'll turn to Acts 19:11, it's a short passage that it seems pretty powerful. Acts 19:11 it says now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick and the diseases left them, and the evil spirits went out of them. Now, known as it does say done by the hands of Paul. So, while it doesn't describe it happening, what I believe happened is that Paul would learn of someone who is sick that needs anointed, but he couldn't go there, so he would anoint a cloth. Now, does it have to be an apron or a handkerchief? Well, I think it's the cloth. I brought a couple of examples. You know, here's some, this is bigger than most but, you know, I found this on my desk, I've got an envelope full of them from when I was a pastor. You prepare them and what we normally do is, you know, if someone asks me to send them an anointed cloth, I'll anoint the cloth with oil and pray for the healing exactly as I would if I were with that person. And the church has a letter specified that we can send this cloth with through the mail, or we can hand it to a person to deliver and instructs the person when you receive this, you know, go to a private place and hold it to your forehead and pray to God and ask Him for healing to acknowledge the anointing.

The cloth is like a remote control go-between in a sense, maybe that's - I'm not sure if that's the terminology God would use - but in essence, it does supply that. I anoint the cloth, the cloth touches the person and I've developed a habit. One thing I tend to do when I'm praying and anointing the cloth, knowing that the oil is still a symbol of the Holy Spirit, I'll sometimes remind God, “God, Your Spirit is with that person, probably in that person right now. If it be Your will, don't wait for the cloth to arrive, You know, You can heal them right away right now.” And I have heard cases of that happening. Matter of fact, there are stories in the church of someone just making the phone call and God granting the healing almost instantly. It's still that person acknowledging the structure and authority in the church and asking for God to take care of that.

And it's funny, I told you the story the first time I was anointed way back when I was 15, I have to confess it was it a couple of weeks ago or whenever when I got tested positive for COVID was the first time in my life I used an anointed cloth. I've anointed several and sent them out, but I had, you know, Mr. Lamoureux here in Cincinnati, who was the festival coordinator, he met us outside the car and handed me an envelope. And so, I got to be on that end of the experience. Well, I believe there was a combination of my body's recuperation, but I was not, not gonna not ask God for healing certainly.

Now there's another way that God can do healing if a minister can't anoint, and I'm gonna reference a story, that's pretty well known. It's in Matthew Chapter 8. So, rather than read it I'll just summarize, but this is the well-known story where a centurion sent messengers to Jesus Christ. So, he's an officer in the Roman army and he hears about this rabbi that's healing people. His servant is sick, so he sends some other servants asking Him, please come and heal my servant, he's sick. Jesus being the one who wants to heal people starts down the road towards the centurion's house. And when the centurion gets that message, oh, wait a minute. You know, so he's quickly sends messengers back out and says, "Oh Lord, I'm not worthy for You to come under my roof. I didn't mean for You to come here." And he basically says, “I know how this works, I'm a man under authority.” Meaning he was used to following orders. And he said, “I have soldiers under me and if I tell this one, go here, he goes, go there, he goes. If I tell my servant to do this or that, he does it.” So, he tells Jesus, “Just give the word and my servant will be made well.” And as you know Jesus said, “What faith.” He said, “I haven't seen such faith in Israel.” And so He gave the word and the servant was healed from that hour.

Now, this reminds us that again, having an elder of the church anoint someone is symbolic. As I said, the oil symbolizes God's Holy Spirit. And the laying on the hands seems to represent submission to God's authority in the church. So, while we do follow and we do what God says, we understand that God is not limited by that. The stories we've referenced show us that God can work the miracles when He chooses to and how He chooses to.

But it's worth noting then why does God give us this? What is required? What do you have to have for healing? And I think the Bible shows us that too. I'm gonna turn to 1 Peter and invite you to join me there in 1 Peter 2:24. But while you're turning there, I'll mention the well-known story of when Christ was introducing to His disciples, the new symbols of the Passover. So we know that the wine He said was symbolic of His blood. And when He took the bread, He broke it and he said, “This is My body, which is broken for you.” Now, we might ponder on that. But one of the things we see that it means we can learn from 1 Peter 2:24, where Peter said, “who Himself,” - speaking of Jesus – “bore our sins in His own body, on the tree that we have in guide the sins might live for righteousness.” And then he adds, “by whose stripes you are healed,” - by whose stripes you're healed.

Peter was quoting a messianic prophecy of Isaiah, Isaiah 53:5 is where it discusses that. And of course, Isaiah 53 is a well-known passage that we study around the Passover, you know, about the suffering servant and how He would suffer and die to pay for our sins. But it includes that by His stripes we're healed. Now, that's led some people to wonder, you know, if, you know, sickness is caused by some type of sin, that Christ had to die for it. I don't know that the Bible tells us clearly that so and so I don't want to speculate. Scripture doesn't say how it is that we're healed by His stripes. It says we are. And I take it at that, you know, and that's telling us without Jesus Christ, without the Word who was with God and who was God, who gave Himself for our sins as a sacrifice for mankind, we could say, without Him, we would not have healing. But Christ has been sacrificed. We can have forgiveness of sin and we certainly can ask God to heal our sicknesses and our injuries.

While we're on that subject though, it certainly bears broaching another point because you know, breaking God's law certainly can lead to sickness, it can lead to injury. And in some cases it does but remember what I emphasized when I read the passage in James 5, I'm turning to John 9, by the way, I should let you know. I'm gonna read John 9:1-3. Because James says, you know, to call for the elders they'll anoint with oil and pray. And he says, if he sinned, his sins will be forgiven. He doesn't say the sin that caused the sickness because that's how it happens. It doesn't say that at all.

And in John 9 we see Christ addressing that. It says, now, as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned that this man…” Let me start. Let me read what it says, “Who sinned? This man or his parents that he was born blind?” You know, they assume that this guy has got this terrible disability that was caused by sin. Somebody sinned. Was it his own or his parents? Jesus answered, “Neither this man, nor his parents sinned.” It doesn't mean they never sinned in their whole life but related to his blindness. And He said, “But that the works of God should be revealed in him.” So, you know, the disciples made an assumption, this terrible misfortune had to have been caused by sin and Christ corrected them. They were wrong when they thought that. Many times when we see someone suffering or we hear of someone, we think, “Ah, maybe they haven't been praying and studying enough.” Now, I hope we don't consciously think that, but it could creep in. If we think that though, I think we're as wrong as the disciples were. The disciples were wrong when they thought that sin is always what causes sickness. Jesus said it wasn't that. Getting sick just happens. And probably more often than not it's not because of sin.

I'd like to go to Matthew 8:16 if you'll join me there. In Matthew 8:16 it says, when evening had come, this is during Christ's ministry, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. He cast out spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. Then it might be fulfilled what was spoken in Isaiah, the prophet, He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses. You know, when Jesus saw great multitudes it say that He departed, but this implies lots of people came to Him. And yeah, at the end of verse 16, it says, “He healed all who were sick.” All these crowds coming to Him and Jesus healed them all. Now, were all of these people righteous? Did they all deserve to be healed? Did they become converted because of it? I think the answers are no, no, mostly no. I say mostly, some might've converted, might've began following Christ and lived His lifestyle because of it. But we've seen in the modern era of the church experiencing a divine healing doesn't always lead to righteousness. It's in our nature to associate misfortune and sickness with evil and fortune and blessings with righteousness. But just practice and those scriptures shows that's not the case. You know, being sick is not an indication of a person's degree of conversion. It's just not. Very righteous converted people can get sick and they do. And not getting sick doesn't mean someone's especially righteous.

And I would say if a sickness lingers, we shouldn't associate that. I'm gonna turn there later. But the apostle Paul, author of much of the New Testament can, you know, wrote in 1 Corinthians and said, “I've got this thorn in the flesh and three times, I asked God to take it away, and He didn't.” Paul was allowed to suffer with whatever that was for the rest of his life it seems. And I would say also that not being healed, isn't necessarily an indication of a lack of faith. But I will say Scripture shows us that faith is something that's associated and even required for healing. If you turn a page or two to Matthew 9:27, we can see clearly an example. Matthew 9:27 it says when He'd come into the house, the blind men came to Him. So, Jesus goes into a house. Some blind men came to Him and, you know, they wanted to be healed actually in verse 27, what I didn't read and I intended to was these two blind men came saying, “Son of David, have mercy on us.” They came to the house. Jesus said, “Do you believe I'm able to do this?” The Greek therefore believe is based on the same word for faith, pistis. And they said, “Yes.” He touched their eyes, He said, “According to your faith, be it unto you.” And obviously, they had faith because they were healed and they spread it all around the country.

Earlier in this chapter, actually, if you wanna glance at verse 22, this is the case of before that, as He was in the midst of a crowd, a woman came up from behind Him who had had this issue of blood for many years. And in her mind, she's thinking, “If I can just touch His clothes, I'll be healed.” She touched Him and she was, but Jesus knew it. He turned it around, “Who touched me?” And when finally it's revealed, He's not upset with her, but He turned around in verse 22. When He saw her, He said, “Be of good cheer, daughter, your faith has made you well.” Her faith. Faith is an important requirement for being healed. Okay? Jesus Christ, sacrifice is essential, faith is essential. It's worth noting though, in some cases might not even be the faith of the person who was healed. Think to that story of the centurion, who said, “I'm a man under authority, I give orders,” and Christ was amazed at his faith, but it wasn't the centurion who was healed, it was a centurion's servant. And that servant might not have had a lick of faith for all we know. Similarly, there's a case where a leader of the synagogue named Jairus sends to Christ for healing because his daughter was very sick, and it turned out his daughter died, and Jesus raised her from the dead. Wasn't the girl's faith. She was dead. But her father had faith and obviously, Jesus Christ had faith.

The point I'm making is, you know, when we pray for others, let's pray with faith and let's hope they have faith. If your faith is faltering when you ask for healing trust that others who do have faith are praying for you. Now, don't trust in that alone, let's build our faith in God, but we want to remember and we've seen from Christ's example. And I'll just reference back again in Matthew 8:2-3 where the leper said to Christ, “If You're willing, You can heal me." And Christ said, “I am willing.” And that's the other element that we can say has to be present for healing. It depends on Jesus Christ, there has to be faith and God has to want to heal us. He must choose to do so. That's the requirement that can be the hardest of all I think for us to understand, because we might think why in the world would God ever not want to heal someone? We see in the Bible of these cases where He does. And especially if it's not based on the person's righteousness. And I've been saying that it doesn't. This is the toughest part of this because we know there are cases where we cry out to God and He doesn't give us the answer we want. And we're in mourning now for some people like that, and we're crying out to God for healing. Why doesn't He heal sometimes? I think part of the answer we can consider can be found in Isaiah 55:8, a very poetic passage where God says, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are My ways your ways says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth so are My ways than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

Now, this doesn't give a specific reason why God might not grant a request for healing, but it indicates that there might well be good reasons. And I think in some cases, maybe reasons we wouldn't understand if He told us or we just wouldn't want to accept, you know. God can see far beyond the horizon that blocks our vision. He knows things we don't know. You know, I think, you know, He might have an underlying desire to give us good things, but not give us the good thing we want right then and there. But we know God's not fickle. He's not capricious. He really cares about us. Matter of fact, in John 16, I know I'm throwing a lot of scriptures at you, but I wanted to read this one, John 16:23, He gives the disciples a promise that I think does apply to us. John 16:23, referring to the relationship they have with God, the Father, He says, “In that day you'll ask Me nothing. Most assuredly I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you. Until now you've asked nothing in My name, ask, and you will receive that your joy may be full.” He says, “You're gonna get the requests that you ask.” But Christ didn't say that Christ would always give them or that God would give them to us when we think we need them or when we want them. And, of course, I'm not telling you anything new, but I believe sometimes God's promise might be fulfilled in the resurrection. And matter of fact, I'm very confident of that. You or I might die of a tragic injury, of a chronic disease, or even of COVID-19, but we will live again.

Every man will rise from the grave and stand before the judgment seat of Christ. And I honestly believe when the dead rise they won't be sick. I don't think they'll be lame, not Lyme or blame, lame or blind or any of those things. If we believe this and we don't falter yet not receiving the promises, we'll be in good company. In Hebrews 11, the faith chapter, the chapter of heroes of faith, we're reminded of something. Hebrews 11:13 says after describing the patriarchs, these all died in faith, not having received the promises. God made them great and powerful promises, they lived all their life and didn't receive those promises. But they saw them afar off and they were assured of them embrace them, confess that they were strangers and pilgrims on earth. They who say such things, declare plainly they seek a homeland. And I think that's part of why. Again, God knows things we don't, but I do know that we grow spiritually through suffering at times. Sometimes it might be in our own best interest to not receive what we're we're asking for. I referenced 2 Corinthians 12, I'm gonna read that now. 2 Corinthians 12:8, actually it's in verse seven that Paul mentions a messenger of Satan, you know, a thorn in the flesh. And we don't know exactly what that was. Some people speculate it was some type of demonic, you know problem. More often we speculate it was a health issue. I think that's much more likely.

And he said, “Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me.” Just as an aside I've sometimes had people say, “Well, I was anointed so I can't ask for God again.” You know, if someone asks me if they can be anointed again for the same thing, I say, “Well, Paul pleaded with God three times, so I don't hesitate to anoint again.” But even though Paul pleaded with God and Paul was righteous and had faith, but God answered him and said, “My grace is sufficient for you, My strength is made perfect in weakness.” That was the answer Paul had to accept. And Paul did. He said, “Therefore, gladly, I'll rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” So, there are times when God doesn't grant our request. I would say, you know, I don't believe He doesn't want to heal us, but He might choose not to at that time, and understanding that and accepting it is difficult. And believe me, I know.

Matter of fact, I'll share a story from my own experience that makes it a little easier for me to swallow this because I experienced it in my family. My mother, sometime in her very late 30s or early 40s developed a chronic disease. It was a liver disease called biliary cirrhosis. And I mentioned that one not caused by drinking. My mother enjoyed a drink now and then, but she was not any type of drunk. This is the same disease that took Walter Payton's life if you follow pro football, you know, they always talk about the Walter Payton Award. Anyways, she gradually grew weak and sick and she was anointed and she asked God to heal her, but He didn't.

She lingered on and grew weaker and tireder and her life came to an end. But I believe that God allowed her to suffer this terminal illness actually in order to help her. It wasn't as clear when it was happening, but looking back, you know, especially as I became more mature, this happened more than 30 years ago. So, I'm not tearing up because it's been a part of my life for a long time. But I remember when she was young, she had some traits that I share and that I see in my son, traits that can be used for good, but can be difficult because she was stubborn. She was tough. She'd been through a difficult upbringing and she was a determined individual who most times when there was a trial she would grit her teeth and get through it. She didn't like to ask for help. She would rarely ask for or accept help. And that's why it was hard for her to ever rely on someone else, even God. And it was when she was finally confronted with a situation in which she could not win when she had to be humbled, that I think she finally turned to Him. And to be honest, that's when she became baptized, she'd been attending God's church for many years, but she had this idea in her head that she had to overcome her faults and our problems to be good enough to get baptized.

Sometimes that happens. People, you know, it's not an uncommon thought. I'm not good enough to be baptized yet. None of us are ever good enough. And when God led her to this point when He completely humbled her, she turned to Him and she saw that, she was baptized. And I believe she died a converted woman. And I fully expect to see her come up in the first resurrection if I get there. You know, it's a motivation for me. I don't want her to be there looking around saying, “Where's Frank?” You know. And this is a short version of her story and I don't wanna paint her as a saint. She had her problems like all of us do, but it's an example to me, where she's an example in the church where she didn't experience healing. And those of us that knew her and loved her were crying out to God. And, you know, I believe she will be healed. As I said in that resurrection, she's not gonna be weak and frail, she'll be strong.

Now I wanna counter that and remind us, sometimes God does answer our prayers. And sometimes right away for healing. Let me share one case where I saw it happen right in front of me. And I laugh when I tell this story, I've told it a number of times that I had not been ordained for very long. I was a newly minted elder in the church, and I got a phone call one afternoon from a man in the congregation and he said, you know, he worked as a painter and he said, “I'm on your end of town and I've injured my shoulder and I can't hardly move it, I can't do my job. Can I come by your house and you anoint me?” Well, sure. I'm here. And so, he came, you know, came in and we chatted a little bit. I anointed him, asked God to heal him. And when I was done, he went, “Well, that'll do,” and went out and got in his van and he drove away. And I was amazed. I still tend to think, maybe God did it like that to say, “Hey Frank, I work miracles. I do heal.” That stuck with me. You know, don't think that it won't happen. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't.

Now, I add to this, you know, with these things in mind, knowing God heals for His reasons. And sometimes He doesn't, why do we bother with prayer requests? Well, if you'll turn back to James 5, something I didn't read earlier tells us a very good reason why. James 5:16, after the instruction about going to the elders and being anointed in James 5:16, he says, “Confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.” The effect of fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Big reason we pray for one another is God tells us to do that. It's good for us. Now, I think the benefits, you know, of seeing God answer prayer and work in someone's life can be a benefit to those who are praying for that person, as well as the person, him or herself. And I'll bet many of you have experienced that when you're praying for someone and then you see that you get the news, hey, they've recovered, they're doing well, boy, that's encouraging. Now, James didn't write very specific instructions on exactly how to do this, how, you know, to pray for one another. I think the 1st-century disciples would have been amazed if they'd seen our email prayer requests, how quickly we can send a message very far to a lot of people. You know, that's a great thing.

I will say, you know, I encourage us though, just to be careful how we do this or how we see others doing it, because we all have different personalities and different feelings of privacy. Some people are quick to tell everybody something and ask for prayers, others are more private. One thing I say, it's not like “America's Got Talent” where the more people you can get to call in and vote for you, the more God will heal. But I think God is impressed and moved when He sees a number of His people praying together with a common goal. So, I don't want to, when I say, it's not like, you know, these game shows or whatever, I don't wanna belittle that. I think when we come together as a people and pray, that is moving to God. You know, my own tendency I'll mention, I tend to ask a few people that I know, I've never felt more confident of God answering prayer than when I've had one or two widows in the congregation praying for me. You know, I learned that from an older way who was more experienced than me he said, “Well, we've got secret weapons in the congregation. You know, the praying widows are a powerful thing and a pastor would do well to heed that.” And I said, “I'm gonna heed that.” Thinking of all this, though, we should remember in all of this, God is our Healer.

First and foremost, He built into our bodies amazing powers of self-repair and healing, but He also went out of His way to put it into His word examples and instructions to show us to appeal to Him directly for divine healing. And God chose to involve the ministry in this. It gives us something to do, but it's more than just that. It helps us to see how we're part of a body. And it reminds us of the symbolism, you know, of Christ's sacrifice and of our need for faith. And we can know that God does hear our prayers. God does answer our prayers. Sometimes the answer might be along the lines of hold on, not yet sometimes, but it's not always that. And, of course, even in a worst-case scenario, we know in the Kingdom of God all will be healed. And those coming up in the resurrection I believe will be well, but it doesn't always come to that. Divine miracles happen today. And with that in mind, I'll quote from Hebrews 4:16 where Paul admonish us, let's come boldly before the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy to find help in time of need.

 

[Gary Petty] As human beings, we experience physical life through our five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. And you don't realize how important those five senses are until you lose one. As you all know, I have difficulties with allergies, and for a number of years, I've been really struggling with sinus issues, and my eyes drain all the time. Well, actually, the sinus issues have gotten much better over the last year for a number of reasons. 

But what's strange is I didn't realize I had lost most of my sense of smell. So now I can be eating something, and I'll say, "That's just delicious, that's amazing! What did you do? What's on this piece of chicken?" And my wife will say, "It's called pepper." I've forgotten what pepper tastes like, and it's like, “Whoa is that good. You know, give me more pepper!” And I don't have to put as much hot sauce on food anymore because it's like, "Oh, I can taste this."

We process so much in life by our five senses. But as human beings, we're also created to be more than just responders to our senses, right? We're more than just animals. We have intellect. We have consciousness. We have creativity. And because of these things, we are able to comprehend a relationship with a Creator, a relationship with God. 

In fact, the truth is, is that all human beings are created with a need and a desire to connect to the spiritual. It's in us. I mean, it's actually created by God in us. We all have a need and a desire, all human beings, to connect with the spiritual. It's very interesting. Science can tell us a lot about how and give us lots of information, and even then, science really doesn't know as much as they pretend to know. But if we knows some things about the world we live in because of science, it doesn't answer the important questions of why or purpose or meaning. 

And so people who are non-religious, and 31% of all Americans now say they're non-religious, they're non-religious, and yet they have a great need to tie into something spiritual. Many of them believe that you know, there's something out there, sort of a belief almost like in Star Wars, the force, the universe, and you connect into the universe. And so they literally have a religious experience defending some frogs that live in a pond that maybe die because of a road it's going through. And it is a religious experience they have that they are saving life. 

It's difficult sometimes people that will ridicule and not realize the depth of emotion these people are having. They're having a religious experience. In fact, when you look at religion itself, it's designed to try to fill that need. How many have ever been to Notre Dame, because, you know, part of it just burnt down, right? Walking in Notre Dame creates an enormous reaction. Walking into Notre Dame for me, even though, you know, I want to see it historically, I believe that the Catholic Church that built it is a church that has led people a long ways where God wants them to be. And yet walking into that church, there is a sense of awe in the architecture, the way it's designed, the way the music sounded in there, the way the music sounded, which is awe-inspiring. 

And then watching as they bring in, the priest come in, and they come in this ceremony, you think, "This is all designed to try to connect into the need human beings have to have some kind of spiritual experience." We're designed. We want something more than us. Hinduism, Buddhism, all pagan religions are designed to try to alleviate, to fulfill a religious need, a spiritual need that every one of us has. Sabbath services, we're here because we want, we have a need and desire for some connection with God. And that's one of the reasons why we're supposed to come together once a week is because that's part of the spiritual process that we're going through.

Today, I want to talk about that need and that desire that we have. And then I want to talk about the dangers, the dangers of exploring spiritual experiences that are not God-centered or are not in the way that He wishes us to experience His way, experiences, religious experiences that are not God-centered or they're not the way He wants us to experience Him. So what does that mean? And what does that mean, not God-centered or not the way that He wants? 

We can try to fulfill our spiritual need in a lot of ways. Some people will try to fill spiritual need physically. That's why some people have unending sexual experiences with different people. Many times, they're trying to actually fulfill a spiritual need, which that never will. People will try to fulfill that maybe through drug abuse as they're trying to fulfill a spiritual need. But we can also try to fulfill that need in a lot of different ways.

We have to recognize what it is. We have to also recognize that your need, my need, and desire for a spiritual connection with God can be manipulated to our own self-destruction. I want you to be very aware of it. First of all, we can't ignore that need and desire. You and I have to become very aware of our need and desire for connection with God. It may be the most intense psychological need we have, this need to be connected to God.

David, if you read the Psalms, talks about this all the time. He writes about it all the time. Psalm after Psalm is about how much he needs God, how much God is his sufficiency, how much God is his helper, how much he is nothing without Him. Let's just take a look at one Psalm, Psalm 40. I had trouble picking out which Psalm to use. I kept reading a Psalm and saying, "Ooh, that really makes the point." Then I'd read another Psalm and say, "No, that actually makes the point better." And I realized that depending on the mood I was in at the time was which Psalm I was connecting to, because each Psalm was David in a different situation saying, "I need God. I did not only need Him. I desire Him." 

Verse 1 of Psalm 40, "I waited patiently for the Lord." I waited. I anticipated. I wanted. "And He inclined to me, and heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet on a rock, and established my steps. He's put a new song in my mouth" He says, “I’m singing now. I'm actually singing to God because God and I were connected, and I wasn't, and I worried, and I struggled, and I had anxiety, and I had problems, and I patiently said, ‘God, I need you, and I desire you.’" He said, "Praise to our God; many will see and fear, and trust in the Lord.” Let's get down to verse 11. He says, "Do not withhold Your tender mercies from me, O Lord; let your lovingkindness and Your truth continually preserve me."

"I must be preserved. I am lost. I am lowly. I am disconnected. And my life is preserved because of God's mercies and lovingkindness and truth.” “For innumerable evils have surrounded me; my iniquities have overtaken me, so that I'm not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of my head; therefore my heart fails me. Be pleased, O Lord, and deliver me; O Lord, make haste to help me," a remarkable acknowledgment of the core of his being of his need and desire for God.

When we deny that or we cover that up, we just keep busy enough. We don't have to deal with our need and desire for God, or we try to replace it with other things. We get in a very dangerous state that I want to talk about today. Look at verse 16, "Let all those who seek You rejoice." Seek, how many times in the last two years I've given two sermons where I've talked about seeking God. It's an active process. Face to face. Remember, we read that one scripture. It's probably about five months ago now where David talks about God respond to him saying, "Seek My face." "Look at Me,” God says, "Just look at Me.” “Seek and rejoice and be glad in You; let such as love Your salvation say continually, 'The Lord be magnified!’ For I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinks upon me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God."

"I am poor and needy." He's not saying here he was living in poverty, by the way. "I don't know where my next meal is coming from." That's not what he was talking about here. Spiritually, he realized, "I am in need of God, and I desire God." We have to understand, this is at the core of our being. You were created that way. You were created that way because God wants you to have a relationship with Him. So He created you to have a need to have a relationship with Him. You and I have that. 

But to understand what happens when you and I are not acknowledging and pursuing and seeking God to fulfill that need and seeking God to be our desire, we have all kinds of problems in life. Sometimes this can be the core of a marriage problem. The couple is seeking total healing from each other instead of seeking healing from God, as we actually try to make our mate fulfill something that only God can fulfill. You talk about a recipe for a failed marriage, try to make your husband or your wife God. You have to fulfill the need I have for God. And, of course, that would just destroy the marriage. Nobody could do that except God.

So what happens when we deny that need and that desire? We become susceptible to something else. And that is a false and dangerous attempt to fulfill that spiritual need, a false and dangerous attempt to fulfill that spiritual need, because there is another spiritual force in our lives. We don't talk about it much. So let's go back to the scripture we all know. Let's go back and look at it again and look at the other spiritual force in your life, Ezekiel 28, Ezekiel 28. 

It's an interesting prophecy here. It starts out in verse 1 about the city of Tyre, which was a prominent city at the time of Ezekiel. Verse 1 says, "The word of the Lord came to me again, saying, 'Son of man, say to the Prince of Tyre, “Thus says the Lord God”’" And it goes on and says, "Because you think you're a god, I'm going to punish you." Now, this wasn't unusual that in the ancient world, the kings considered themselves divine. They were gods on earth.

So He says, "Because you think you're a god, I'm going to punish you." And then something else changes. Look at verse 11, "Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 'Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre, and stay to him,'" not the prince of Tyre, but the king, "Thus says the Lord God” 'You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect and beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God.'"

Well, the prince of Tyre who thought himself as a God, you know, hadn't lived for thousands of years. He's talking about somebody else here. The power behind… the spiritual power behind Tyre, when you read books like Daniel, you see that there is behind the world we know a different spirit affecting human beings, manipulating human beings, and it's a reality. And in our scientific world, we don't like to think this is true. This is silliness. This is just superstition. But if we're going to understand what's wrong with us spiritually, we have to understand that the more we acknowledge our need and our desire for God, and we give in to that, certain things happen in our lives. And when we don't, there is another spiritual force that will attempt to manipulate us and to actually turning against God, actually turning against God. 

He says verse 13, again, "You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was covering." He describes what he looks like in the spirit world, and he describes that he looks like all these precious stones. Why do people like rings with a big diamond in it? You know, you put the light on it, and you see facets and different colors. And he's describing a being that shines with different colors and in different ways, unlike anything that we can imagine, the most beautiful being God has created.

He says, "You were in perfection, the sum of beauty." And he talks about him as if he is musical instruments. He is a being that was creative musically, incredibly creative musically. He understood the emotion of music. "You were the anointed cherub who covers." Cherub is a type of angel, you know that, "I established you; you were on the holy mountain of God; you walked back and forth in the midst of the fiery stones. You were perfect in your ways from the day that you were created, till iniquity was found in you." 

We find another passage in Isaiah where Isaiah talks about this very thing. He calls him Lucifer, the great day star, like a shining star. But this being, this cherub created by God, chose… because the angels were given free will, he chose not to follow God. He believed in the bottom of his being that he knew better than God, that God just didn't know what He was doing, and he had a better way. And so he literally tries to overthrow God.

Verse 16 says, "By the abundance of your trading you became filled with violence within." He's a violent, angry being. "And you sinned; therefore, I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God; and I destroyed, O covering cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones." And this is where we get the being that we known as the adversary, Satan. So it means adversary. This is the enemy of God who has one purpose, and it is to destroy what God is doing. This is real. And there are, according to Revelation, a third of the angels who followed him. This is real. 

And Satan, according to apostle Paul, is the god of this world. The world you and I live in and all of its mess isn't because God's created this mess. It is because Satan and the angels who followed him, we call demons… and the sermon actually started as a sermon to explain what demons are. I'll get that later because it ended up as a different sermon. Satan and the demons, the fallen angels, are the embodiment of evil. They are evil, and they wish to destroy what God is doing. And they have a spiritual influence on every human being on the face of the earth. And they are trying to manipulate you.

You know, we say, "That's silly. That's just superstition.” We can understand the reality. The reality beyond the five senses, the reality beyond what I can taste or smell or see, that there is a spiritual reality that you and I desperately need and desire, but we desperately need and desire God, and when that's not fulfilled, we become susceptible to this other spiritual force. We have to understand in our lives, in our children's lives, how important that can be. 

The apostle Paul makes a comment to the church in Corinth. You know, we've been going through 1 Corinthians in-home Bible studies. We have two more to do in 1 Corinthians then we'll go on 2 Corinthians. But we have studied the depth of paganism, those people were coming out of and what that meant and why it was so hard for them to actually live Christian lives, what they struggled with. He makes a remarkable statement. It helps us understand what was happening in the Corinth Church and helps us understanding what's happening in our lives by going to 1 Corinthians 10. 1 Corinthians 10, I'm going to read a couple of verses here before what I want to read because I want to get the context some.

1 Corinthians 10:14, "Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry." He's telling the people of Corinth, you've got to get out of your paganism. And, of course, Aphrodite was the main goddess there, but they want to worship Zeus. And like most countries that had been taken over by the Romans, they accepted all kinds of gods and goddesses from every place the Romans went. And so this would have been a place where you've got to go on and worship any God you wanted. There was a synagogue there if you wanted to… want to worship the god of the Jews, that's okay too. Just don't bother anybody about what they believe. 

"I speak to you wise men; judge for yourselves what I say." Now he's going to talk about what he talks about in the next chapter, and that is the taking of the bread and the wine of the Passover service. He says, "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?" We are in communion with Christ when we take that bread and that wine. We are symbolizing a personal intense relationship with God through Christ that acknowledges our need and our desire for that relationship. We are in communion here. That is not like, "Oh, yeah, we sort of know each other. Oh, yeah, I do this because I earned favor with God." You're in communion with Him.

"The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? But we, though many, are one bread and one body; if we all partake of that one bread. Observe Israel after the flesh: Are not those who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?" So what am I saying then?" Paul says, "Okay, what's the point I'm trying to make? That an idol is anything. or what is offered to an idol is anything?” He says, "Am I trying to tell you that there's some magic in idols?" He says, "No. An idol is a piece of stone. That's all it is." But there’s something else is here that's very, very important that he wants them to understand. "Rather, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrificed to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons." We are in communion when people in Hinduism or Buddhism… I know this is unpopular in where in this all-accepting society we're living in.

But when they worship those gods behind those meaningless statues, there is demonic influence, understand that, demonic influence. The religions are from Satan and demons. But it is an attempt by those people to have communion or something spiritual. They need it, and Satan knows how to manipulate that. If he knows how to manipulate that with others, we have to be careful he doesn't manipulate that with us. We get so sure of ourselves sometimes that we have to be very careful. Our assurance is in God, not in ourselves.

He says, "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons." He just flat-out says, "You cannot partake of the Passover and participate in pagan worship." You can't. You're having communion with two different spiritual directions, two different spiritual identities. “You cannot partake of the Lord's table and the table of demons.” Now, that's a very important concept that shows us the power of the other spiritual beings. Now, they're not more powerful than God. But for a period of time, God has allowed Satan to be the god of this world. We can't afford to forget that. Are we get too comfortable in the world that we live in? We sort of assume that it's okay. We assume since it seems to be normal that it's okay. And if you live depending on what year you live in or what part of the world you live in, almost anything can be considered normal. Almost anything can be considered, "Well, this is acceptable."

But if we are in communion with Christ and with the Father, things aren't going to be acceptable, not to us. Part of the problem with this need for the spiritual is it's mysterious, right? It's mysterious. And so what we do is we look for mysteries. We believe that the key to the spiritual is a mystery, so what we have to do is find a mystery, and the mystery fulfills it. And that's why in ancient times, they had what they called mystery religions, and that's a very fascinating concept, the mystery religions.

It's hard sometimes to know what the mystery religions believe. Do you know why? It was a mystery. You had to be part of the group to know what it meant. And if you weren't part of the group, they wouldn't tell you what it meant. The whole point of a mystery religion is, "We have the gnosis, we have the knowledge, and you don't. If you join us, you get the knowledge. If you don't join us, nope, we don't tell you." 

There are entire ancient religions known as mystery religions that we know almost nothing about. We know about Mithraism, and I'll give a sermon someday and tie in Mithraism to some of the problems and issues we have today in Christianity. But the reason why is because so many Roman soldiers worshipped Mithra that they sort of let the cat out of the bag, and they told people about the secret gnosis. So we know more about Mithraism than almost any of the ancient mystery religions, but there are a lot of them. 

What is the mystery we're looking for? What is the mystery that leads us to understanding our spiritual nature? Colossians 2, Colossians 2. If you start reading this passage in Colossians, it may seem at first, "Well, this has nothing to do with what we're talking about." Then we'll see where it leads, for Paul's taking us here. Colossians 2, Paul was dealing with a lot of problems in Colossians. People were looking for mysteries. And so… They’re also in Laodicea. The letter to Colossi was supposed to also be read in Laodicea. So we understand the problems the Laodicean church was having at this time because we understand what was happening in Colossi. Verse 1 says, "For I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you and those are Laodicea, and for as many have not seen my face in the flesh," this is, of course, is Paul writing, "that their hearts may be encouraged, knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God." 

You will see Paul used the word mystery numerous times. It's very interesting. He has about probably 8 or 10 different mysteries he talks about in the New Testament. And when you read every one of them, they're an attack on paganism. They're attack on some mystery in one of the pagan religions. He said, you know, "You can have full assurance," he tells Christians, "because you understand the mystery of God." Now, he's going to flesh this out a little bit, "Both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." 

The Greek world wanted wisdom. He says, "You want wisdom, you want knowledge? It's the mystery of God and Christ. There you got it, right there. That's the mystery. That's why you need and desire spiritual experiences.” And the ancient temples were designed to give them a spiritual feeling of experience. They even found now that in the first century, there were certain temples that had all kinds of miracles taking place, and now they realized they were machines. They actually had machines in the temple. One was a simple thing. You went up to this idol, and you worship, then the idol gave you answers. 

But what they found out was, because they found a diagram of it, there was a hole where the mouth was, a little tube went down, and there were holes at the bottom of the thing, and there were priests down there listening to everybody… the prayer because you had to say it out loud… They say, "God, this God is talking to us and answered us specifically." You know, they're probably down there snickering underneath, you know, as they answer everybody's prayers. But it was all designed for the same thing, this grandeur, this feeling, "The spiritual need and desire I have is being fulfilled. I can go home now. I feel better. I feel better now because I went to church and something was fulfilled in me."

He goes on he says, "Now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words. For though I am absent in the flesh," Paul says, "yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and a steadfastness of your faith in Christ. As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving." I can give a whole sermon on that sentence.

What he's saying here is the mystery is in God. Once you understand who the true God is, you understand he said, Jesus Christ. Once you understand that He sent Jesus Christ and what that really means who He was before He came, His life, death, and resurrection and what that means to you personally, then all these things happen. “You're rooted in Him. You're built up in Him. You're established in the faith.” And it also says “you walk in Him.” Christianity is more than acceptance of Jesus Christ. That's one of the great lies that are told today. Christianity is to walk in Him. It is to follow Him. It is to be a disciple. It is to be an imitator. Christianity is real. It is to be Christ-like. So the mystery is, "Here's what we're looking for. Here's what every human being on the earth is looking for." 

And very few find it because we don't find it. God gives it to us. God finds us. I mean, we may be searching, but no matter how much you search, how do you find God? I mean, one day were you just walking long enough and far enough that you came to His throne. “Well, I found You. I wondered where You were.” We may be searching, but it is God who finds us. And when He does, He says, "You, understand, I am your need. I am the desire you long for. That's how I made you." But if that's not, if we're not pursuing that, if we're not walking in Christ, we end up beginning to seek someplace else for that need and desire to be fulfilled.

Look what Paul says here in verse 8. Remember, he's writing now to Christians here in Colossi. This is to the world, "Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power." He said, "Be careful you don't get locked into the basic principles of the world, the basic ideas that principles can actually be translated in ideas." Sometimes that Greek word is translated to spirits, spirits of the world. In other words, it's the thoughts and the emotions. 

Don't get trapped into thinking your need, your desire that was designed in you for God can be fulfilled someplace else. It can only be fulfilled in God through Christ. That's it. We say, "Okay, I get that, but I don't have the power to do it. I don't have the power to actually… You know, I want God to help fulfill me.” Because, in this life, we will never completely be fulfilled in our need and desire for God. That is only completely fulfilled when we're changed. And when we're changed, that need and desire is fulfilled because we will see Him as He is.

But between now and then, we struggle with this need and this desire. And as we struggle, but “I failed, I failed, I failed,” that's why there's this element, there's key to this, that we must be absolutely aware of that we forget. In our relationship with God in Christ, we can forget something. What am I forgetting? Let's go to Romans 5, Romans 5. Are you with me still? Okay. Are you with me? I always want to say, "If I've lost you, raise your hand," but I'm afraid that half of you will raise your hand. 

Romans 5:1, "Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Now, let's look at all the positive things Paul's going to say here. You've been justified. You have the right before God to have a relationship with Him. That's what justification is. He's given you the right to come to Him. 

He's giving you the right to appear before Him. He's giving you the right to have a relationship with Him. He has a desire for you, too. He doesn't seem to have a need for us, which is good for us. Needs tend to be debilitating, right? "Well, you didn't fulfill my need. You are my best friend, and you weren't there for me. You didn't fulfill my need. You're not my best friend anymore." Fortunately, God doesn't have those kinds of needs for us. That's good for us, but He has a desire for us. 

You and I, on the other hand, we have a need and a desire for God built into us. I mean, God didn't design us. He says, "I love you. I want you to be my child." So He had to design into us a desire to be His child. I mean, I want you to be my child, but I'm not going to design that in you. Well, then how would we ever be… how would we ever be drawn towards Him? There has to be something in us that draws us towards Him. So we were designed with the spiritual need.

And He says here this positive word, "You've been justified, and you have peace with God." You can go talk to God. You can interact with God because of Jesus Christ to whom we also have access by faith into this grace in which we stand. So the favor of God has been given to you. He's speaking here to Christians in Rome. He says, "The very favor, the grace of God has been given to you." Wow. I mean, how much money can you pay God to get His favor? How many good deeds can you do to get His favor? How perfect do you have to be to get His favor so that God called you?

What He did really in all of us, He awakened our need for Him and our desire for Him. "Okay. What do I do now?” He says, "Which we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God." So now we're rejoicing. Wow, I wish I could have everything in that verse, peace and hope and rejoicing. Would it be great to feel that way 24 hours a day, even in my sleep sometimes? I woke up in the middle of the night the other night. I had a dream I was being chased by zombies. Fortunately, you know, I didn't look at their faces, they were all of you. That would have been a little scary. But it wasn't that. It was just zombies. I know what they did. How in the world did I get off on that?

Verse 3, "And not only that, but we also glory…” We find hope and purpose “in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope." What a positive outlook in life. That Paul is telling the Roman, "Christians because of this relationship you have with God through Christ, this peace, this justification, this is what happens in your life." This is what's supposed to be happening in our lives, and sometimes it does. And let's face it, sometimes it doesn't. We all struggle.

But the next verse. Now, hope does not disappoint. Your hope will be fulfilled. How do we know our hope will be fulfilled? “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” The spiritual need and desire you and I have from God can only be fulfilled when God puts His Spirit in us. We could have a surface relationship with God and never be fulfilled. You and I were designed to have communion with God. You and I were designed not to be an independent being forever. We were designed to be in a relationship with God where His Spirit literally dwells in our minds, where our spirit and His Spirit are connected together. It's an incredibly wonderful thing that God wants for us, to be connected to God forever.

I mean, we stay who we are, we have our own personalities, but we are connected to God. That empty desire, that empty need that we have is fulfilled and will be fulfilled forever because of our connection with God because we have God’s Spirit. This, this is the mystery. This is the mystery that is supposed to engage us every day as we understand, "I have a need and desire to be with my God because He made me this way." And nothing else, nothing else can get in the way of that, because if it does, I just end up angry, lonely, messed up, afraid. I end up nowhere if I let anything get in that way. This is the answer to the mystery. 

Now, I'm going to talk about in the last few minutes what I originally started to write the sermon about. And that is what happens when we are not connected to God? Well, first of all, we get emotionally messed up, and we really are emotionally messed up, and our thought process gets all messed up. I didn't want to go into that. I want to talk about what we will do as human beings to fulfill the spiritual need, to fulfill the spiritual need.

When you look at society around us, there's a lot of things going on that people are trying to do to fulfill their spiritual need. Witchcraft, you know how many Wiccans there are in the United States? Last time I looked, it was a quarter of a million. That was a couple of years ago. I'm sure it's a lot more now. Of course, a lot of people are just claiming to do that because it makes them feel cool. 

But what is that? Well, I'm a Wiccan. That's cool. That's just an attempt to fulfill a need, right? How about sorcery, spiritualism? Spiritualism is bigger in this country than we realize, the need to interact with the power of other beings. How many of you have heard of The Secret? Remember The Secret that came out a few years ago, only a few. Don't read it. It's incredibly dangerous. How about The Law of Attraction? Only a few. Wow, you don't have any paganism in you at all. How about Oprah? How many have heard of Oprah? Joel Osteen? These are leaders of a new age Christianity that at its core is not biblical. Okay. You have to see it.

It's not biblical, and it's frightening because, I'm going to give a sermon on this, too, it confuses human love with God's love, and it evaluates God by human concepts of love instead of us being evaluated by God's concepts of love. And so it seems right, it feels right, but it's not. And this country, 31% of all people in this country now say they're not religious or spiritual. And a lot more say that they're spiritual but not religious, which usually means they've bought into things like the New Age movement. 

And the New Age movement is nothing more than warmed-over Hinduism. It's Star Wars. You can tie into the force, and the force can be with you, and you can manipulate if you have the right… what it? It's in your bloodstream and the stars. I forget what it is, that causes you to be able to be in touch with the force. And if you're in touch with the force, you can manipulate things with your mind. You can pick things up. You can do… okay. That's sort of what The Secret is all about. You can manipulate everything around you, The Law of Attraction. 

I mean, these writers have millions, tens of millions of people who follow them. And as they do, it's like The Da Vinci Code. Now, how many of you heard of The Da Vinci Code? Okay. Da Vinci Code is a little bit New Age, too. The Da Vinci Code is a novel. By the time The Da Vinci Code had been out five years, of course, Dan Brown's done a whole lot of novels since then, 40% of everyone under the age of 40 believed Jesus had babies with Mary Magdalene. Now, think how that changes how you see the Bible. Now, of course, those people are all now what? 55 years old. We don't realize how paganized our world is. It was easy to get up say, "The Catholic Church worshiping idols, now, there's paganism."

Protestantism, which always had some elements of paganism in them, and it's like Christmas or Easter, has now becoming more and more paganized in ways that are almost unbelievable, not everybody, but is headed in that direction, magic, the occult, Ouija boards, which we… you know, I don't even know if they have paganism. I know they have because some advertised on Walmart, astrology, mysticism. We're all looking for mysticism, this secret mystical experience with the spirits. You know, my kids are tired of it. You're probably tired of me hearing every time I drive by one of this tarot card places. And I did this one time. 

My son and I, he was young, we're walking through… I know I've told you this before. We're walking through a, what was it, flea market. And there was a woman there with a big sign, you know, "I can read your future." And I stopped, and I looked at her, and she looked at me, and I looked at my son. And I said, "We go in here and pay her money to look at our future, but she already knows we're not going to." I wasn't real popular at that moment, but I got a kick out of it anyways.

We live in a world where everybody's searching for something. "Ancient Aliens" on the History Channel. How many have seen that? Oh, even more. Oh, there's a little bit of paganism here. Okay. That's not even paganism. That's just stupidity. I mean, you talk about faith. That just… wow, anyways. It's humorous. I can watch five minutes of it at night, and it makes me want to go to sleep. It's great, but it gets me laughing.

Our society is spiraling into a disengagement from God. We may not see it because, well, we have each other. We may not see it because our next-door neighbors are decent people. You know, they go to church, and they don't steal, and they don't lie, and they don't cheat. So, okay, we don't see what's happening in the bigger picture. 

And the bigger picture is, this is a pagan world, and this is now becoming a pagan country. And if we're not careful, we will get pulled into it. Watching movies about demon possession. I've had a couple people asked me, "Have you seen this movie?" I say, "No. I will never watch it." Why? Because I've sat down and talked to demon-possessed people, and I'm not going to watch that. I know the reality of it. I’m not going to watch it. 

Role-playing games where you were Satan and demons involved seems like that's not a big problem. We're just going to sit down and play with Satan for a while. And, you know, for 90% of the people who do that, it's not going to have a real adverse effect on their mind, but there are people who it will. This is manipulation just like the ancient world with its paganism that made Paul… it said, it made him… The words that are used there when he went to Athens distressed almost beside himself with understanding what paganism was and meeting with those people and saying, "I can tell you a better way. I can tell you the truth of your longing. I can tell you about the Unknown God, Plato's Unknown God, that all of you believed in, the great God that nobody knows anything about who created all the other gods. Yeah, well, I could tell you about Him. And it's not what you think. And you were made to be His children."

And it said that half of them said, "Huh, we'll talk to you again." Now, half of them said, "This guy's idiot," right? Half of them said, "We'll talk to you again." Now, what's fascinating, he never mentioned the Bible once because they would not have accepted the Bible. That was an ancient Hebrew book that didn't have the wisdom of the Greeks. So he argued it from a Greek viewpoint. "Let me tell you about the great Unknown God because He's not what you think at all. And you want to be His children, and you can be His children."

And for some of them… it didn't say any of them were converted from him, by the way. But for some of them, there was this longing. For a brief moment, they saw their need and their desire for God. "We will talk to you more about this." Now, how many did? I don't know, but that's what he tapped into, what is their need and desire from God.

Ephesians 2, our last scripture here, Ephesians 2. We read the first few verses here many times in sermons and sermonettes, but I want to read through a little bit farther in this passage also. Ephesians 2:1. Speaking to the church, "And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience."

There is a spirit world around us that the modern mind does not want to accept, a world where Satan is the god of this world, and there are demons, and they try to influence us all the time. And, you know, most of times, it's not a frontal assault, right? If someone came up to you and said, "Hey, you can make lots of money. All you have to do is… you know, I can supply all the heroin you need for your entire neighborhood." Who's going to do that, right? 

It's not a frontal assault much of the time. It's subtle, and it's subtle because it's an attack on your mind so you don't see it. And it's usually done in feelings. Satan attacks us in emotions. So we're not even aware what's happening. And if we tap into that… now, it's our emotion, by the way, but he feeds it. So, if you have a problem with envy, and you let him into your life a little bit, you're going to be overwhelmed with envy because that's going to become the way to fulfill that spiritual need and desire for God. If I just got what that person has, I could be happy. Okay.

So we're actually now trying to fulfill our need and desire for God to envying somebody else's car or somebody else's house or somebody else's money. "That will fulfill me if I could have that," or anger. "Well, that's just not fair. It's not fair that this has happened to me. It's not fair that this bad thing happened to this person who got away with it. It's just not fair." And, you know, it's not.

But if we're not careful, there's one being in this universe who really believes nothing is fair. He's the one who believes he knows more than God. You talk about unfair, "I'm the only one that knows how this works, and the old man won't let me do it my way." That's Satan, he thinks everything is unfair. 

So, we get caught up in feelings of being unfair. And guess what happens? It floods in. We now are consumed with unfair. You know, people say, "I was so angry, and then I don't know what happened. I just got so angry. I could have committed violence." Well, guess what the most angry being in the universe did? He's the prince of the power of the air who works in the sons of disobedience. Who are the sons of disobedience? Everybody not called by God. There's only people called by God, who are the children of God, and the sons of disobedience, who are not yet exposed to God, who Satan has been allowed to be the god of this world in their lives. And so it's the subtle attacks. It's the subtle attacks that we have to be so careful about.

You know, people say, "Well, I can never do that. I could never commit adultery." Well, you know, Satan is just not going to have some woman walk up to you and throw herself at you because that's frontal attack. You can say no. But he might play on some animosity you have towards your wife and make it worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. Then he doesn't just throw some woman at you. He brings some kind, understanding woman into your life, and you spent six months talking to her about the problems you have with your wife and then decide, "I love her more." Oh, it's smart.

And we think he doesn't do these things. He manipulates the whole world. And pretty soon, your need and desire for God is totally erased. All you can think about is your need and desire for your wife, and which now has been replaced with this woman. How did that happen? It usually doesn't happen overnight. It takes a long time. And now your need and desires for this woman, and you really don't care what God says. How does that happen? It's because we're being manipulated. That's why. That's how. And we're so easily manipulated. We're not that good at standing up to Satan. We're just not. We think we are, but we're not. 

He goes on, he says, "Among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others." You and I, when we look at our troubled human nature, have to understand, the reason you and I have so many problems is because, along the way, we've absorbed so much of these attacks by Satan that we have parts of our nature that's just like him.

You and I have part of our nature that's just like him. We were by nature the children of wrath. We've absorbed it. We let him manipulate us in our weaknesses so that whatever weakness we have, he tries to just absorb and absorb until that weakness becomes like his weakness. Our issue with anger becomes like his issue of anger, and we become violent. Our issue with jealously becomes like his. Our issue of wanting to be recognized becomes like his issue of wanting to be recognized. And we absorb it, and we absorb it, and we absorb it.

I don't think too many of you here are going to go to a soothsayer tonight that which was in my original sermon, was about demonic influences and these things. I'm much more concerned that you and I tonight could have a problem because of these subtle things, this feeding, this manipulation that goes on. And we have to understand, that's reality. That's the reality you and I live in because that's the reality of the universe. That's the reality of what it is to live in the world of Satan.

Now, you and I have been given all these things we read about, what Paul wrote about in Romans when he wrote about the mystery when he wrote about receiving God's Holy Spirit. He goes on, "But God…" Okay. So here's the problem, "But God, who is rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses." We were dead people walking. It's all we were until God calls us. We were just people waiting to die with no hope.

He says, "Even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).” That's important because you and I can't save ourselves. By grace you have been saved doesn't mean, "Oh, good, nothing I do now matters." That's satanic. 

He says, "And raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." So you and I didn't earn this, this right to have God come into our lives.

Now, people stop there, "Okay. I didn't earn God to come into my life. It's all my grace." And I've actually had people make that argument with me, "You're trying to earn your salvation. You're trying to make it up brownie points by keeping the Sabbath. I don't have to do anything because Jesus came into my life, and I was saved by grace, and I don't have to do anything.” “Do you go to church?” "No. Well, I do sometimes like on Easter, but you know, it's the one day I can sleep in and meet with my friends and do things. Oh, well, you know, I mean, Friday night we go out drinking and, you know, my live-in boyfriend, he thinks the same way." 

So, that's not what this means because let's read the next verse. When we are locked in, when God is the center of our need, and God is the center of our desire, and Christ has brought us to that, and now we are walking in Him because we have God's Spirit in us, then this happens. "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them."

The more we understand this mystery, the more we're involved in it. And the more we are submitting to God's Spirit, the more God works in your life, God works in your life, the power of the Almighty God. You and I have to guard our minds as the children of God against the deteriorating paganism of the world you and I live in. I don't say this to be alarmist, but I am alarmed because I've watched in 15 years even a change happen inside religion. You know, I'm always on religious sites, printing out articles. I say, "That's a good point. I'm going to keep that. Oh, okay, that's a Southern Baptist." But you know what? I do it less and less because when I print them out, there's New Age stuff in there. There’s acceptance of… complete acceptance of transgenderism. 

The entire Methodist Church is ripping itself apart over homosexuality and transgenderism, something that 25 years ago would not even have been considered. And the problem now is there's so many homosexual and lesbian ministers in the United States. They want to split away from international Methodists. They had a vote in the… did I tell you this? See, I forget what I tell people. That's okay. You know, once you get to be a certain age, you can repeat yourself. The Methodist Church just had an enormous vote. They brought in all their pastors, and they voted on whether to accept transgenderism, homosexuality, lesbianism. And what do they call it? It's bisexual then there's another term that's used for just… well, I won't even go there. 

So, you have these… and they voted to accept it and to change their doctrines. That's what they were voting on. And it lost by a pretty close margin, and the reason why is, the majority of the Methodist ministers in the United States voted to change their doctrines to accept all those things. And it was the Methodist ministers in the Philippines and Africa that voted against it. So now the Methodist ministers in the United States are trying to figure out how to excommunicate all their ministers in Africa and the Philippines who stood up for the Word of God. That's what Christianity has become, folks.

As a little child, I went to the Methodist Church, and they sure didn't believe that when I was a child. That's what it's becoming. So, right now, there's an exodus, which has been going on in the Methodist Church for years. There is an exodus of the people who are against those things into the Wesleyan denomination. Wesley, John Wesley was the founder of the Methodist Church. Now those who believe what he taught, because he was a very conservative Christian, have to leave. And eventually, they're going to excommunicate their pastors in Africa and the Philippines. It's a pagan world, folks. We are going to have to be real careful, not to let that sink into us, into our lives, into our lives. And you will be persecuted for not letting it seep into your lives. You're going to be persecuted for it because the world is changing, our society is changing that much. 

You know, Satan's days are numbered. Christ is coming back, He throws him out. Okay. That's all part of the plan. But right now you and I live in this world, anticipating the Kingdom of God, preparing for the Kingdom of God, because it's His purpose to create children. And we're just Firstfruits. Those called by God now wherever they are, whoever they are, they're the Firstfruits. The greatest harvest becomes later. Firstfruits are being prepared to be there when Christ returns.

We are designed to bond with God through His Spirit so that this need and desire becomes paramount in our lives. That need and desire drives us to God. And in doing so, it changes everything else in life. It changes everything else in life so that we actually begin to really have love and joy, longsuffering and goodness and mercy and faith and peace.

Christianity becomes practical as we walk in Him, walk into Christ as He becomes our example. And Satan wants to pervert that relationship because he doesn't want you to have it. He does not want you to have that relationship with God. He wants humanity to be superstitious and ritualistic and involved in demon worship where we've heard he gets to play God for a while. That's all he's doing. He's playing God. And we are to stand against that because we have been given the right and the privilege to come out of that confusion.

You and I have been given a right and a privilege for the grace of God to know what our need is, to know what our desire is, and to have that relationship where God Himself and His Son, Jesus Christ, as Christ said, "We will come, and We will abide in you." And in that way, that need and desire is finally fulfilled.