So the title of our message is,
How Do You See Things According to Men or God? This really is about apprehending
the Lord Jesus Christ according to the gospel in our present
generation. So I guess one of the challenges
we have as people of God that live in the 21st century, we
struggle to make application of texts
of scripture that have an historical setting that does not necessarily
immediately relate to our own lives. And I simply say we struggle. And I would venture to say that
many of you in the reading of the scriptures that our elder
gave might have concluded that that portion of scripture was
for those folks back then And it doesn't have a whole lot to
do with us today, except by way of a few extrapolations, a few
principles. But if you're thinking like that,
you're missing the point. Every word of God is relative
to you and I at this present time in some way or another.
And the objective of the people of God is to be able to see in
the text how it applies to us in every way it possibly can. Because in it is a message for
us and in it are the lessons that we have to learn. So the
text before us is a very crucial portion of scripture giving us
some insight into God's concern for how his people think and
see the world in which they are in. Are you concerned with the
way God thinks about how you think, about how he thinks about
this world? Do you realize how important
it is for you and I to think God's thoughts after him and
be able to see our world the way God sees it? Is that important
to you? Is it important to you to know
that when I am not thinking the way God is thinking I'm not seeing
things the way God sees them And that to the degree that I
am not seeing things the way God sees them. I am not walking
by faith The critical juncture here before
us in our text Is that God had done something? enormously special
for the people of God enormously special of hope of which I hope
I can convey a little bit of it today to us. He brought them
to the brink of their inheritance and gave them an opportunity
to grasp the reality and the certainty of those things of
which for a few years they had only heard of by the hearing
of the ear and by the repeated promises given to them in the
law of Moses and in the reading of those who were prophets among
them. But now the people of God have
been given a more profound and tangible token of the reality
of those things that God had prepared for them before they
even had an existence. See, the text really is teaching
us several things, one of which I'm going to lay out before you
now. This is a fundamental truth. We see it all the time in religion,
but I want to make sure this comes home today to you. God
is good. As a religious cliche in religion,
God is good. But I think we fail to really
grasp how good God is. And then when his goodness is
demonstrated to us, we fail to see it for what it really is. How many of you have fallen prey
to neglecting to see the goodness of God in your life on an everyday
basis? How many of you have failed or
experienced the failure of comprehending God having done something actually
a little bit more special for you today than he has at other
times and you still missed it? Are you guys following me? Do
I have your attention for an hour? I promise you it'll only
be about an hour or two. So how do you see things? Do
you see them according to men or do you see them according
to God? And here's what I want to submit to you right now. Like
the children of Israel of old, we are on a journey. We are on
a journey. You all know that, right? We
have not arrived. We have not apprehended that
for which we have been apprehended. We are not in glory. We are not
perfect yet. We have not experienced the glorification. We have not seen Jesus face to
face. We have not been transformed.
We have not been engulfed by the glory of God as of yet. We
believe we will. We hope to see Him one day and
be just like Him. But in the meanwhile, I am making
my way through this world. Is that true? So I accept the
premise that I am a pilgrim journeying through the world. Now you have
to get that because one of the fatal distractions of the professing
believer in the present situation under which we are journeying
through this world, a fatal distraction is settling down in this life
as if this is all there is to it. That is a fatal distraction,
a fatal distraction. And to the extent that you and
I fall prey to that, and we do, we fall prey to making this life
as wonderful and as comfortable and as amenable as we possibly
can. Once God places some authority
in our head, give us a little change, give us a little gray
matter, we start setting up tent right here. And we actually start
transferring the blessings of the future into the present.
And this is how a lot of churches start misinterpreting biblical
truth, claiming those things that are far down the line as
if they are right now. And in doing so, they defraud
you of the enormous blessings of the eternal riches that are
yours should you make it there. Am I making some sense? If I
can have an honest person in the house, don't we struggle
with where we live and how we live and how we perceive the
present things in light of what we're called to do. So here's
the next proposition I'm going to lay on you. And I hope five
people get it today. If five people get it, I'll be
blessed. You're on a journey, but you're also on a mission. You're on a journey, but you're
also on a mission. Every child of God is a missionary. You're the missionary. Now, you
know what that means? You gotta think like one. You
gotta think like one. And once you start thinking like
a missionary, then God will start revealing things to you like
a missionary. And you will find that the quality
of your life will increase exponentially because God will have fulfilled
his word to you to take care of all your needs knowing that
you really have no desire to remain here any longer than your
mission calls for. So I can say by way of principle
that a lot of us are not experiencing the quality of God's blessings
in our life as we ought to because we are failing to realize that
the quality of blessing that is ours is contingent with how
much we long to be with God in glory and are willing to live
out our lives down here exactly as God has purposed it. Now some
of you might know the scripture. We quote it again in religion
all the time. First, seek ye the kingdom of
God and all his righteousness. Remember that one? And everything
else to take care of yourself. We're singing the hymn, Turn
Your Eyes Upon Jesus, right? We're singing the hymn, Never
Alone. Those are some powerful hymns. Happy, y'all don't believe
that? I'm telling the truth. Ooh, you
actually telling the truth today. We struggle with seeing things
the way God sees them. And as a consequence, we miss
out on the quality of life to which God has called us. So there
are several points in our outline that I wanna address today. Other
portions of it, I will address next week. I'm gonna lay out
a lot of principles. So you're gonna have to get the
CD to listen a few times to get this and I'm praying that God,
I'm praying that he helps us to get this. There's not one
day in your life, child of God, that's supposed to be mundane,
routine, ordinary, repetitive, inconsequential. Not one day. Every day is uniquely made by
God. Like the snowflakes that fall
from heaven in the billions and gazillions of them all uniquely
specifically designed with their own Entity and purpose and glory. So is every day For the people
of god, we are to learn how to capture the new day with a sense
of mission In order to experience the blessings of god inherent
in him calling you to that task I mean If we want to, we can
simply wake up every day thankful that we are one day closer to
glory than we were yesterday. If you don't see your mission
for the day, at least be thankful that I'm one day closer. Isn't
that enough to be thankful? We're still under the theme here
until the year is over. What? Be thankful in all things. This is the will of God for you
concerning Christ Jesus. And I'm here to tell you the
text before us is going to reveal some things about us as well
as it did about them, of which it is crucial because in the
text we are being taught that we are at a point of decision
and crisis that's critical to God's glory and your own blessing. Now I want to raise the question
again, how do you see things on a daily basis? Do you view
things from the carnal perspective of your own agenda, that is,
as men? Or do you see things on a daily
basis the way that God would have you see them? Do you take
your privilege of waking up every day, which is a gift from God,
you know that, right? 500,000 people did not wake up
today. Do you take your privilege of waking up every morning saying
somehow lord help me to apprehend jesus christ according to the
gospel today Help me see how christ is to be glorified in
my life for your honor today somewhere That's the way we should
be thinking. Isn't that right? Because after
all we're not just sojourning through this world. We are what?
missionaries And here is some principles I can lay down to
you. You and I are called to live in the spirit. You and I
are called to testify to the glory of God. You and I are called
to seeing that sinners are saved. When God saves you, he saves
you in order that you might live in his spirit. by his spirit. Do you understand the profound
benefit of that type of relationship? Life in the spirit puts you in
a qualitatively different dimension than people who don't live in
the spirit. That life in the spirit in relationship to God
makes accessible to you Certain insights and purposes of God
of which people outside of the spirit do not have you understand
that living in the spirit makes available to you every necessary
resource for you to glorify God on that day that the Possibility
on the day in which you are living in the spirit of God that the
opportunity for God to reveal his glory to you in you through
you for his honor it's possible every day you guys understand
that are we are we just still using biblical concepts having
absolutely no personal application to him living in the spirit there's
a real sense in which the whole group of the children of israel
were even doing that then living in the spirit They were called
to glorify God. And you and I, who are a body
of believers in an evangelical sense, are called not only to
live in the Spirit, thus enjoy God and a quality of life that
God promises to us, but to testify to the glory of God, the goodness
of God, as we see it in religion. And then to hopefully see men
and women come to Christ, because that's God's glory. Do you believe
that? Our elder prayed for our sons and our daughters and our
mothers and our fathers and our sisters and our brothers, which
we do all the time here at Grace. And the salvation of sinners
is just part of the journey. You guys understand that? That's
not the end game for which God saved you. It's part of the journey.
Part of the excursion to glory is that you and I get to be a
partaker of the divine nature and thus cooperate with God in
the salvation of sinners. But what if on an everyday basis
I am utterly blind to what God is up to? You can be sure that
in such cases, all you will have every day is a normal, natural
day. And the net consequence is nothing.
So in our context, God does something that's remarkable and lessons
come out of it that are critical to you and I. Point number one
in your outline, the application to us is justified. The application
to us is justified. What do you mean, preacher? When
you read the scriptures, remember what Romans 15.4 says. Those
things that were written aforetime, they were written for our learning.
So we need to be educated. and our consolation. So we need
to be comforted and encouraged by them. That we, through patience,
that means we need to be disciplined. by them might have hope, right? The hope is the end game, right?
Hope is the end game. Discipline is what God does when
he's turning us into sons and daughters of God, all whom the
Lord loves. He what? Disciplines. So every day is
a discipline for the people of God so that we can actually be
conformed to Christ's image and thus see things the way God sees
them. Are y'all with me? So we can see things the way
God sees them And I promise you that if you wake up on a day
where you see things the way God sees it It'll be a different
day And you'll be able to respond to things that you should be
responding to by faith With all of the resources of God's blessing
in your life and see God do something for you somebody else As you
continue to make your way out of this world and watch this
child of God. Let me just bless you with a sort of a Therapeutic,
uh exhortation when you die and you leave us, we have had a tremendous
loss when you die and you leave us, because you are a major blessing
to us while you're here, because you're an object of God's grace
and filled with gifts and capacities to bless somebody. When a child
of God dies and leaves this world, we are not the better for it
down here, we are the worse. And so I want you to think in
terms of God being able to exhaust every one of the gifts, every
one of the, by the time you die, you should be empty of all the
blessings. That sister didn't leave nothing
when she left. She poured it all out for God's
glory on everyone she possibly could because she took her mission
serious. Can I get a witness? Okay, so the text before us is
really crucial because I see some failures on the part of
the people of God that reflect you, they reflect me, they reflect
us, and they are really failures over against the expectation
of a glorious God who was willing to bring them into their promises,
their inheritance, but they could not. The application is justified
to us in terms of Hebrews 4.2. So we see that they could not
enter in because of unbelief. The application is also applicable
to us as well, because Ecclesiastes 1.9 says, that which has been
is. And that which is to be, even
that has already been. So that life is circular in a
lot of ways. It comes back around. Am I making
some sense? See, my older sisters and brothers
way on the top of the summit, way at the top of Hebron, looking
way down on Eshel's Valley. I'm going to talk about that
in a minute. They know things come around two, three, four,
five times, don't you? Unfortunately, when you get a
certain age, you don't get to enjoy responding more accurately
to what you should have 20 years ago or 30 years ago or 40 years
ago because you're on the summit. But if we could transfer to our
young people the importance of capturing obedience to Christ
now, rather than thinking you want to wait 20 years from now.
Because 20 years from now, even though culture will circle again
and land right in front of you with the same clothes, with the
same talk, with the same jargon, with the same empty rhetoric
as it always has, you're going to be just a little bit older
and a little less enthused. And if you're not right, a little
less capable of taking advantage of it. See what I'm getting at? And so it's very important for
you and I to make application of the Word of God to us today.
Your job is to live in the Spirit, is to testify to the glory of
God every opportunity you get. Your job is to see to it that
sinners are saved. If you can play a part in affecting
that, we all have a mission in this life in accordance with
the Gospel. I hope that penetrates and lands
in our hearts and in our minds. Now, how serious is this portion
of Scripture in front of us for which your pastor is passionate
right now? How serious? A whole generation
of people was forbidden to enter into the promise and they were
made to hang out in the wilderness for 40 years and perish simply
because they didn't see things the way God saw it. You got that? That tells me something about
God that I need to learn because I want to learn these things.
A whole group perished. and the handful of people that
actually got it, are you ready? They had to wait for those folks
to perish to get in, which tells me some other things about God.
That's critical for us to learn. What a tragedy, isn't it? What
a tragedy, a delay, 40 days. what they call a reconnaissance
surveillance mission of which they were able to enter into
aspects of the inheritance aspects of the blessings visible tangible
aspects of the blessings 40 days they were allowed to penetrate
into the inheritance 40 days and see that God was right and
when they pulled out to go tell people what they saw they were
so unqualified to tell the truth that God transferred that 40
days to 40 years and say, you're not going in. It's amazing. It's absolutely amazing to me.
So point number two, I wanna drive home. Tasting the evidence
of his promises in the present. Tasting the evidence of God's
promises in the present. Do you know Those people have
been told for almost two years that the Lord your God, the God
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob brought you out of Egypt to lead
you into the land of promise. And that in the land of promise,
you can expect vineyards, olive trees, gardens, houses, homes,
a land flowing with milk, Honey, they were told this every day
of their life for two years. Are you hearing me? And so every
day of their life for two years while they are going through
the wilderness That's the conflict. We're in what we see and what
we experience on a human level versus what God has told us is
ours Is the struggle isn't it? They were told this for two and
a half years from the day Moses met them in Egypt. He told them,
the Lord God of your fathers has come to bring you out of
Egypt, out of the house of bondage and to lead you to a land that
he has prepared for you. And God gave them specific details
of it. And guess what? A group of them,
a representative group of them were able to penetrate into the
promises, penetrate into the promises. Do you know what that's
like? That's like all of us. having an opportunity to be translated
right now into glory and to see what God hath prepared
for them that love him and then come back to go tell people about it. Now,
what you gonna say when you meet people after you have been translated
to glory and made to behold things incomprehensible and yet God's
going to tell you, tell them what you saw. Are you going to
fall prey to tell them something other than what God said to tell
them? Because you got your own prejudice.
What if you get the glory in this little moment of translation
and you had ideas of how glory was, And you get there and go,
oh man, this ain't like I thought it was. I actually was thinking
about, you know, property and certain material blessings. And
this thing ain't even, and you get back and you say, you know
what? I ain't telling people what I saw. I'm going to tell
people what I didn't see. See, because that's what's going
on here. I'll help you understand that next week more fully. But
I want you to understand that tasting the evidence of his promises
in the present is a reality. Verse 20 through 24 says it like
this. And Moses told the children of
Israel, go into the land and see what kind of land it is,
whether it be fat or lean, whether it be wood therein or not. I'm going to talk about the tragedy
of his instructions next week. And be of good courage and watch
this, and bring of the fruit of the land. Did you guys get
that? Go in, observe, and bring back
a testimony. Got that? Bring of the fruit
of the land. For it was the time of the first
ripe grapes. So they went out, searched the
land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, and the men came all
the way to Hamath, and they ascended by the south and came up unto
Hebron, where Ahim was. The children of the Anaks were
there. Now Hebron was built seven years between Zoron, as the Holy
Ghost is saying a lot of things about how this thing was prepared
before they got there. And they came unto the Brook
of Eshul and cut down from this a branch with one cluster of
grapes, and they buried between two upon it. Do you understand
how big those grapes were? Do you understand how large that
cluster was? Do you understand the massive
size of the token and sign and symbol of the reality of those
things that God had prepared for the people of God was for
them to bring back. Never mind the fact that they
were able to successfully do it. The testimony and the witness
is a great instruction to us for us to grasp here in a moment.
Tasting the evidence of its promises in the present Do you know children
of God if you are a really a true believer in Christ you presently
taste? the things of God Are you hearing
me? Let me let me see if I can help
you a little bit just in case you don't get it All that God
has for us is not merely stored in glory Significant portions
of it are experienced right now. I They are experienced right
now because that is part of God's purpose for us to know that God
does not lie, does not change, does not fail. And that the life
of the believer down here is not a life of absolute blind
intangible faith. It is a life of faith with tokens
of God's grace by which we know and believe that there's more
to come. This is what I meant about the
qualitative nature of a believer in this world versus the non-believer.
The non-believer does not have the things that the believer
has. If you are truly born of God, there are enormous blessings
that you have now to aid you on your journey to glory. Enormous
blessings which should play a role in your comprehension of not
only things to come but what God is doing now How do the present
blessings of God affect you in terms of your relationship to
God? Let me see if I can help you draw some conclusions on
that if you agree that there are present blessings that God
gives you as a believer of which people do not have that don't
know Christ and You ought to naturally from the depths of
your soul not only affirm and agree and believe that God is
good But it should be the thing that tickles your soul daily
how good God is How good God is for the Word of God plainly
tells us in Psalm 34 verse 8. Oh taste and see That the Lord
is good Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh, taste and
see that the Lord is good. That's an invitation to experience
the grace of God. Oh, taste and see, you know how
we like to eat. I do. This is why I love the
Bible. I love the Bible's metaphor of eating. Taste and see that
the Lord is good now watch this He's actually conflating metaphors
because it requires tasting to see Do you understand that so
he's saying experience the grace of God and come to comprehend
the goodness of God and I'm here to tell you if you have a concept
of faith and that does not incorporate the reality that God actually
enters into your life and does something for you on this side
of Calvary in the covenant because you are a covenant child and
he is your father. If you have a kind of faith,
a definition of faith that simply says, I'm just holding on for
the ride. I don't see no evidence of his grace. I can't comprehend
any of his present blessings. You don't have a biblical definition
of faith. There is no time in the Word
of God where God has not looked upon a sinner to save and redeem
and to call and to use and bring him to glory of which God didn't
give him ample evidences of the reality of his existence. Are
you hearing me? So I'm going to actually take
the imperative of Psalm 38 verse 8 to somebody that God is speaking
to in the audience. I'm going to take the imperative
and I'm going to say to you who have yet to taste the goodness
of God, oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Pastor, how
you do that? Ask the great chef to set a plate
in front of you and then give you a grace to stick your hands
down there and eat. and feed on the grace of God. Tell Him to make your soul hungry,
to make you thirsty, to make you famished for God, and then
set a table in front of you, which He does with every one
of His sheep. Not some of them, every one of
them. The Lord hath set a table before
me, even in the presence of my enemies. And not only does He
give me a cup, He gives me a running over cup. A running over cup. See, I'm paying attention to
the table. I'm paying attention to the decor.
I'm paying attention to what's on the plate. And I'm paying
attention to what's in the cup. And I'm observing the cup running
over into the dish on the table down the sides, which tells me
God is saying, drink as much as you want. Eat as much as you
want. But you're going to have to do
it by faith. You're going to have to do it
by faith. You're going to have to do it by faith. And you're
going to see that the Lord is good. Now the word good there
is not, as we sum it up in our religious circles, the word good
has to do with the integrity of the person. It has to do with
the wholeness of the person. It has to do with the character
of the person. It has to do with the person having the capacity
to do what they say. According to the concept of good
in Scripture, you know what that means? When a man says he's going
to do something, he makes it good. And the Lord makes it good. Not only is he good, he does
good. Am I telling the truth? I'm going
to stay on this point a little bit because I just need to make
sure you get this. If you are walking around acting
as if the Lord is not good, stop it. Right now. Stop it, child of God, right
now, because you are on the verge of blaspheming God. You are on the verge of blasphemy.
God is the only good thing in this world. Do you understand
that? And God has never done a thing
that has not been good for you. Here you are today in church,
in a true gospel church, under sound teaching. and the anointing
of the Holy Ghost, giving you a glimpse of glory, removing
the veil so that you can see eternity, and speaking to you
according to the gospel. Is not God good? Because you
could be out there living like hell in the darkness of pagan
religion, being told lies that do not correspond with the truth
of the gospel. And here I want you to hear it
again. God does not save by lies. He only saves by the truthfulness
of his character. You are on the brink of glory
right now as the word of God is being preached. Am I telling
the truth? You are no closer to glory than you are right now,
other than for that veil to break and your soul to fly to heaven.
This is as close as you get. Your soul is to embrace it for
all that it's worth so that your mind can be cleared up, washed,
purged of all of the debris and all of the obstacles and the
things that obscure your capacity to see God as you're supposed
to see God. That's what preaching is supposed
to do. Clean up your thinking so you can see things the way
God sees them. I hope that's true for somebody
today. I hope that's true for somebody. Consider it the greatest
privilege in the world to be under the gospel. Oh, taste and see that the Lord
is good is David's exhortation to us because he had learned
that the Lord is good. We understand that the Bible
tells us to do so. But do you know, first Peter
chapter two, verse three, pull it up. First Peter two, three
says this. The only reason you go taste and see that the Lord
is good. is because God's gonna make you thirsty. As newborn babes, desire the
sincere milk of the Word, that you might grow thereby. Y'all
got that? Putting away malice, putting away guile, putting away
evil speaking, putting away all of those carnal things of which
was your former diet. The things you fed on that filled
you up, that gave you cancer and all kinds of diseases. in
your soul and in your mind, contaminated you and made you sick and desire
the sincere milk of the word, the holistic milk of the word,
the clean milk of the word. And you know what the text says?
If you drink enough milk, you'll become mature enough for the
meat. That's what he's saying. Because
you got to start with the milk that you might grow thereby.
And the word of God is described as milk in the word, isn't it?
The word of God is described as meat in the word, isn't that
right? Hebrews chapter 5 around verse 14 and so, the meat is
for those who by reason of use have had their senses exercised
to know good and evil and thus can eat on the more meatier things
of the gospel because they can retain it. A child can't retain
T-bone steak and porterhouse steak and New York steak and
filet mignon, but I can. And God has allowed me to taste
a little bit of the maturity of the gospel too, because He's
grown me up. He's taught me to be hungry for
His Word every day of my life. And when I'm not hungry, He's
taught me to understand that I'm sick. I am sick when having been born
of God, born of His Spirit, born of His Son, I am not hungry every
day for God's Word. I'm sick. You know how when you
get sick you don't want to what? I'm telling you right now. I'm
telling you right now. The Word of God is said to be
milk. It's said to be meat. It's said to be bread for your
life. That's a general term for every
kind of food. Wheat, corn, everything. The
Word of God is said to be wine. We'll get back to that in a moment
with the grapes of Eshel. It's said to be honey. That's
another category I like. I love my sweets. Thank you,
Lord. Love my sweet So I might be disappointed when I get the
glory, but I'm just hoping Hoping But down here the honey
of which the Word of God is describing is the sweetness of Jesus Christ
the sweetness of the grace of God in Christ the sweetness of
the perfections that are in Christ, the sweetness of the grace that
comes out of Jesus Christ, the sweetness of Christ that gives
strength to the soul, that illumines the eyes. Did you know that the
honey enlightens the eyes? Remember Saul's son, Jonathan? Daddy told him, y'all go to war
and y'all can't eat before you go fight. I would never work
for a king like that. Don't eat before you fight. I
need all the carbs I can get. Am I telling the truth, you workout
folks? I gotta load up on carbs so I can go to war. And Jonathan
didn't pay no attention to his daddy's instruction, and he came
across a whole host of honeycombs. He took his sword out, which
is the word of God, and he plunged it into the honeycomb, which
is the sweetness of the redemption that's in Christ, and he stuck
it to his mouth, and the word of God said he had a revelation. He was strengthened in his soul
and he told his soldiers to do the same and they went through
and destroyed their malachites like I don't know what Are you
hearing what I'm saying? So the the concept of tasting
now is not some greedy avarice Concept that we're talking about
god does that for us all the time. I'm just going to quote
a few names peter tasted He tasted, he tasted in the book of Acts
when he's laying on the rooftop just as comfortable in his Judaism
as he could be. And God broke through and said,
listen, Peter, rise up, slay and eat. See, now I like those
kinds of instructions. just telling you, just telling
you, Peter rise. And you know, back when I first
saw that text, a hundred years ago, I saw a big old sheet with
cows and oxes and lambs all ready to skin and to clean and to cook. And it felt so good to a brother,
18 years old, look at God, giving us all the meat we want to eat.
Peter tasted of it. Do you know in his obedience,
having saw that vision, God used him to break into the Gentile
world? Y'all gonna learn that as we go through the book of
Acts. Paul tasted of that vision. Do you know that? He tasted of
that vision of which he told King Agrippa. King Agrippa! How
could I resist such heavenly vision that came to me from the
person of the Lord Jesus Christ, the blistering glory of God that
laid me low and raised me high and told me to go to the world
and tell men and women about Christ. He said he could not
disobey the heavenly vision. He was the man that was caught
up to the third heavens. He said, whether in the body
or out of the body, I cannot tell, but I can tell you where
I went. I went into the presence of God,
into the paradise of God, into the third heavens and I saw things
that filled my soul with so much insight into the glory of God
that in God's own good providence he had to give me a thorn to
keep me humble. That brother tasted It was the
kind of taste that allowed him to say, go to Jerusalem. I'm
willing to go to Jerusalem, be bound and be killed for the glory
of Christ. Do you see what a taste can do?
Can you see what a taste can do? And can you see what an absence
of the taste will do to you and me if we fail to see God's glory? This is critical Saints and see
what I'm trying to get across is that this is not a unique
experience This is available to all of God's people as common
parlors as we make our way through this world, but we got problems
And we just have problems. Let's go on then to our second
point in this and that is In our outline we are to comprehend
That the tasting is the proof of his faithfulness to us God
blesses us, that's point number three in your outline, the taste
is a proof of his faithfulness to us. God blesses us with these
things of his grace in our life in order for us to be reminded
of and constantly affirmed in the fact that he is good to us.
See, because I had you to start at verse 17 of Numbers 13, I
had you to start with Moses, because I just didn't want you
to fall asleep through all that reading. As you know, we live
in a generation where you don't. You read more than two minutes,
folks fall asleep and start having epileptic fits and stuff like
the neurons start misfiring and go into seizures and stuff. You
read more than 10 minutes for people. So I just, but the reality
is, is the instructions was given by God to give to Moses. And
they were given by God for this very reason of which I've been
exercising your senses for 30 minutes. God is good. And on this marked occasion,
he wanted his people to see that he was telling the truth about
everything he had promised to them. Are you guys hearing me?
He wanted his people to get it, let them know, show them. And
so he tells 12 men to go in, each one representing the whole
of the nation. Go in, see the land, bring back
a token. Y'all got that? Bring back a
token. And I want to talk about that
token now. That token is the cluster of grapes. This is what
is talked about over here in Numbers chapter 13 verse 23.
And they came unto the brook of Eshel. Do you see that? And
they came to the book of Eshu. So this is how the excursion
goes, because this may be applicable to you. They were down in what
we call the southern border of the Jordan River and the wilderness
of Zin, or Kadesh, down at the bottom. It would be like if you
and I were down towards San Diego. here in Southern California and
we were to make our journey up coming towards Central California
and Northern California. So they're down at the border
of the Atlantic Ocean. They're down there and they are
to make their way up. Obviously going south is going
up and they were going to go up toward the mountains, which
means their reconnaissance or their surveillance or their journey
in the promised land was a little bit arduous. It wasn't a downhill
decline. It was an uphill journey. So
you're going to be challenged a little bit when God gives you
revelation. So they're making their journey
up, but God says, bring back a cluster of grapes, which tells
me God knew that they would successfully return. So suck it up, brother. I'm on a vacation last week with
my wife. I really did thought we were
going to stay on ground level, sea level, but every day she
had be climbing hills. 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 feet. Sweating. You understand
that? It's supposed to be a vacation.
Sweating. I'm climbing. I'm telling you,
I'm climbing. Sweating. Some days didn't bring enough
water, because a brother ain't used to that. Right? Sweating. And I'm so glad it was only four
days. Lost 10 pounds in four days. Isn't that crazy? sweat. It's not supposed to be a good
time. Now watch this. It was because I was with my
girl. And what God is saying when he sends you on a reconnaissance,
as difficult as it may be in the terrain, you are to enjoy
it because God is with you. See, God was with them. They
went all the way in. They came all the way out. Are
you hearing what I'm saying? They went all the way in. They
came all the way out. They went in for 40 days. How
do you go into the territory that you are to possess and your
enemies are there and you're there 40 days? God's watching
over you to keep you from being seen or noticed or regarded for
who you really are. The true inheritors of the land.
How do you do a surveillance for 40 days, eat, sleep, drink,
set camps, do all that you do with 12 men and somebody don't
see you? Am I making some sense? So the
mercy of God was with them to lead them in, lead them up. They
reached the top of what is called the mountain of Hebron. And they
looked down into a valley. And when they looked, what they
saw was a cascade, what the word is in the Hebrew, a torrent.
If you were to translate the word Eshel into its literal form,
it would be a torrent of water coming down the hillside, all
over the hillside. Only it was grapes. Only it was
grapes. As far as the eyes could see,
grapes everywhere. Those brothers stood on the top
of the mountain and said, man, look at all this. Is this what
God was saying? Yes, this is what God was saying. So they finished their mission
and on their way back, they got their cluster and they made it
all the way down the hill, back into the presence of the people.
And thus we are today. The cluster of grapes represent
the sign and the seal and the symbol of the grounds upon which
God can certainly and assuredly say, heaven is yours. The cluster
of grapes represent for us, now follow this now, the atoning
work of Jesus Christ. For in the scripture, the grape
represents the blood. It represents the blood, and
the blood represents the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. That cluster
of graves represents for us, which is what God told them to
bring back, the assurance that everything that God has purposed
is ours. How do we know heaven is ours?
Christ died. How do we know that glory is
ours? Christ was crucified. How do we know that eternal life
is ours? Because Christ bore the wrath
of God. How do we know that heaven is
ours? Because daily we drink from the cup of the finished
work of Jesus Christ and experience the blessings that flow out of
it. Am I making some sense? It is on the basis of the finished
work of Christ that we have the actual token that heaven is ours
Not only that we get to drink of the wine of Christ death and
it's split Experience the blessings watch this now the because the
wine makes the heart glad. Did you know that I'm talking
the wine of God? Are you ready? Psalm 104 around
verse 14 or 15. It's the wine that makes the
heart glad and They got the tokens of God's blessings and brought
them back to the people to let the people know that everything
that God said was true, i.e., there is no certainty of the
promises of God until you understand the finished work of Jesus Christ.
Until you and I comprehend that the token that the Spirit of
God gives you, that heaven is yours, is the death, burial,
and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is why every first Sunday
we drink the cup. Am I telling the truth? We drank
the cup. And when we drink the cup, if we have a gospel understanding,
do you know what you understand? Blessed is the man whose sins
are forgiven, whose trespasses are not imputed to them. Blessed
is the man or the woman for whom Christ died. Because in drinking
the cup, you get to experience the grace of God. What are you
talking about, preacher? The forgiveness of sins. Isn't
that a blessing? God has forgiven us all our trespasses,
all our sins, all our iniquities, all our rebellion. I think that's
a good token before glory, don't you? Because of the death of
Christ, we get to drink in God's justification in our life, not
guilty. Not guilty there is therefore
no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus not guilty
cleared Justified from everything that the law could yield against
us God says not guilty because of the blood God says forgiven
because of the blood guess what else God says that man is perfect
having imputed to us a His righteousness, so that God can say to the world
unashamedly, that man, that woman is perfect. We get to drink of
the perfection of Christ now, knowing that we're not perfect
in ourselves, but I'm perfect in Him. I don't know about you,
I am perfect in Christ. And such a perfection allows
me to live without fear in this present world. Without fear of
devils without fear of demons without fear of human circumstances
without fear of my own fallibility Because he has given me a perfect
righteousness, which he will never revoke See, those are the
tangible things that come out of the token of the cross work
of Christ. Can I keep going for a minute?
Regeneration I've been born again Born of the Spirit quickened
by the Spirit of God therefore faith is a vital living thing
in my soul When you're born again faith is a living organism. You
know what that means it it means that it grows and it goes through
its contortions and And sometimes it struggles and withers, but
it never dies because it's born of God. Am I making some sense? So you, you may struggle with
your faith, but your faith is there to stay when it's born
of God. Okay. It's just like life is just like
life. You know, some of us struggle
with life. Don't you struggle with life?
You better stop lying and tell the truth. You struggle with
life, but you're going to be alive forever. And faith is alive
forever. Now, even though it goes through
all these ups and downs and curves, there is a gradual ascendance
of faith in terms of its maturity. Are you hearing me? Because it's
a living, vital faith. It is part of God's nature implanted
in you, the incorruptible seed of the gospel. You are a partaker
of the divine nature. So you must naturally believe
God. Being born again is the most
wonderful thing in the world. It's a thing that's amazing even
to me. It's amazing to me that I believe God today, after so
many years. Am I making some sense? And then,
as a consequence of being born again, you know what God does?
He indwells me with His Spirit. He indwells you with His Spirit.
Now, see, you may take this for granted, but if right now you
are rejoicing in the Gospel, that's a work of the Spirit of
God, tickling your soul and telling you, say, see, I told you, I'm
good. the revelations of Christ's glory
and His grace and His sufficiency for your soul and for your life.
Now watch this. Isn't God good when He opens
the Word of God to you and shows you the things of Christ and
reaffirms all over again, I love you with an everlasting love,
therefore I have drawn you with cords of a man, you are mine
and I am yours, and this is the way it's gonna be forever. And
this is why I need those revelations, don't you? All in the cluster. All in the cluster. All in the
cluster. There is a sense in which every
time the gospel is preached to you, somebody has gone on the
inside and brought back a cluster to let you know God is true.
Am I making some sense? Now, okay, we're at that point
now, we're at that point, because I already told you, God likes
eating. He had already told His disciples on the last day we're
going to have a big banquet. I'm going to be there. I already
got my table set out. Got my, you know, apron to eat.
I'm going to get sloppy, heavenly sloppy, eternally sloppy. I'm looking forward to it. An
eternal stomach that can eat all day long. and all night long. And I'm going to be able to drink
as much wine as I want to and never get intoxicated. Just happy. Full of the Spirit of God. Overrunning
with a thankfulness to God and His goodness in my life. Just
overwhelmed by the presence of glory. Just inundated with the
reality of the things that Christ has accomplished for me, from
drinking a deep draught of the glory of God every day of my
life. See, I tell you what I'm doing
in heaven. You can see what I'm doing, right? I'm taking over the kitchen
area. I'm taking over the kitchen area.
Me and Peter. But we come to a point now, because
you may actually be rejoicing with me, and I hope so, but I
am certain that some of you don't get what I'm saying at all. I'm going to share with you why. There are seven lessons to be
learned in this tragedy that's before us. But I'm just going
to pull out a couple of them and then we're going to come
back next week. Look at chapter 14 and God's response so that
you and I can learn by the grace of God not to be. Like the folks. In our text. who believed in
a democratic process. You know what a democratic process
is? The majority rules. Y'all got that? Democratic process. See, we love democracy in America. All around the world, we're tearing
up nations trying to implement democracy. We've been deluded
in America to think that democracy is equal to the gospel. You are
utterly deceived. Will y'all stay with me for a
moment? Whenever the people rule and they don't know God, it's
not democracy. It's treason against God's glory. Because it's completely selfish.
It never takes into consideration what does God have to say. That's
why your Democrats today have thrown God out explicitly of
their platform. Oh, don't hide you conservatives.
Because we got some conservatives in that group of Democrats that
was so conservative, they didn't want to cross over. Are you hearing
me? No, no, thank you. We see the grapes, but we're
not impressed. We want to go back where it's
safe. That's conservatism. You know, conservatives actually
think now, would y'all hear me for a moment? Conservatives actually
think that yesterday was better than today. That's just as delusional. Are y'all hearing me? Conservatives
think that 50 years ago, all was well with the world. and
that there was no racism, no discrimination, no injustice,
no hypocrisy, no self-righteousness. The world was just as tore up
then as it is now. Are y'all hearing me? This is
not about democracy or conservatism. This is about God's glory. And
unless you rise above the deception of politics, you will never see
God's glory, or taste the things of God, or enjoy your excursion
through this world, because they will keep you blinded by issues
that are really not true. Are y'all hearing what I'm saying?
That are really not true. Stay with me now. You can get
mad all you want to. You got both groups in this account.
And so here, these men come back, and they are called upon to give
a description of what they saw. Isn't that true? And we are going
to regard it starting in Numbers chapter 13 verse 27 and under
that I want to make mention of two concepts. The first and foremost
is this. We are to properly evaluate this
journey of faith. We are to properly evaluate this
journey of faith. It should be in your outline.
You and I are to properly evaluate this journey of faith. What do
you mean pastor? Don't lie to people about how
difficult life is in christ Don't tell people life in christ
is something that it's not Don't tell people that once you get
saved everything is a downhill slide and God is your bellhop
and all you have to do is think and he'll give it to you before
you open your mouth. Don't you tell people that. Don't you tell
people that the journey of faith does not have enormous struggles
to it. Don't you tell people that there's
some some secret key, secret revelation, secret insight, secret
words that if you talk to the right prophet or prophetess,
you can get the secret key to the secret blessings. Don't lie
about faith. Don't lie about the journey.
Am I telling the truth? Tell the truth about the journey.
Those brothers had to come back and give an honest report. And
if they had to talk about those 40 days being hot, those 40 days
being difficult, those 40 days of living in the woods, those
40 days of having to circumvent enemies, those 40 days of roughing
it, that's what you have to tell them. You have to talk about
the terrain. You have to talk about the character
of the land You have to talk about all that constitutes true
faith. You know what the bible says
if any man will be my disciple Let him deny himself And take
up his cross and follow me Let him be ready to hate his mama
his daddy his sister his brother and his own life for my sake
I'm talking about authentic faith. Now. See i'm not talking about
your religious faith. That's simply tapping into god's blessings
I'm talking about real faith. Are y'all with me so far? Now,
if you're going to talk about faith, talk about it according
to the Word of God. Tell men and women, many are
called, few are chosen. Tell them that the pathway is
narrow and filled with affliction and only few find it. Tell them
that a lot of people start, but a whole lot of people don't finish.
Tell them that the way of faith is a struggle, it's trouble,
it's conflict, it's a warfare, it's a battle. Tell them the
truth. And ask them the question, are
you willing to go through that to get to that? Tell them the
truth. Don't lie to them about biblical
faith. And don't you lie to yourself.
Tell the truth. that you sometimes are scared
to take the next step in Christ because you're not quite sure
your foot is going to land on solid ground. But it ain't got
nothing to do with the promises of God. That's just the weakness
of your own sinful nature. Tell the truth. Can I keep talking? See, because this is what God
is telling these men to do. When you come back, give them
an honest report. It's an honest report. The kingdom
of God It's like a mustard seed. Are you with me? A mustard seed
doesn't impress nobody. It doesn't impress nobody except
people of faith. Because people of faith understand
potential. They understand promise. They
understand process. They understand purpose. They
understand patience. They understand the power of
God to bring the passage, promises in the context of patience and
purpose. The people of God by faith can see inside that mustard
seed. Are you ready? A gigantic oak
tree, mustard tree, fruit tree. You can see the end product because
they see it by faith. Are you hearing me? Folks who
don't see it by faith, they see it by sight and all they see
by sight is the seed. And so long as they see the seed,
they miss the revelation. Tell people the truth. Tell people
the truth about faith. So you and I are to properly
assess the journey. We are to know the journey. We
are to understand the landscape. We are to assess the situation
correctly. We are to tell the truth about
our walk of faith. Let them know the truth. The
Bible says a true witness delivers souls. Y'all got that? See, there
are a lot of people who have come to understand that church
folk lie a lot. There are a lot of people who
know they can't trust church folk to tell the truth. Because
church folk will say things about God, his grace, his gospel, that
they can't even prove through the scriptures. And will want
non-religious folk to simply believe them on their word. Church
folk lie. But don't you lie. Tell people
the truth. The way of grace is eternally rewarding, but it is
difficult. Are you hearing me? Tell him,
tell him. And the only way, the only way
you are going to obtain the promise of the gospel is that you see
your state as being so absolutely desperate that with God and all
the problems that come makes it worth it for you to abandon
yourself to God. That's the way of faith. That's
the way God works. By the way, he brought them through
a dry wilderness to bring them to the brink of this blessing
of which he was expecting them to appreciate what they saw.
And here we come to our next problem. They were supposed to
tell the truth. And the next concept, and it's
not only properly evaluate and thus explain the journey of faith
as it ought to, this is a very important part of the principle.
Acknowledge the warfare as an essential part of the truth.
Y'all got that? Acknowledge the warfare is an
essential part of the truth. There's a warfare that goes on, isn't
it? But I want you to understand this too. This is part D out
of the seven. Understanding the warfare, comprehending the enemy,
seeing how they are strategically set up. They talked about the
Anakim and the Jebusites. Remember how they talk? And we
see the enemy over here, the enemy over there, the enemy over
there. Isn't that how they were talking? The enemy over here, the enemy
over there. I'm going to show you where that was a fallacy
next week. I'm not going to do it today. I'm going to show you
where that was an absolute fallacy. But they explicitly talked about
the enemy, didn't they? As they were giving us insight
as to the nature and terrain and geography and the blessings
of the land, verse 28 says, nevertheless, the people be strong that dwell
in the land. Got that? And the cities are
walled and very great. And moreover, we saw the children
of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land
of the south and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites
dwell in the mountains and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and
by the coast of Jordan. In other words, when you go in
there, you're going to be surrounded by the enemy. Listen carefully
to me. For years, I have heard people
who thought that they were very knowledgeable about the Word
of God get wrapped up in how bad the enemy is, how powerful
the devil is, how much havoc he wreaks on the people of God.
And I have told you this more than enough. When you hear people
talking more about the devil than they do about God, it's
because they don't know enough about God to be talking. Will you listen to me? Will you
listen to me? There was a tremendous deficit
in the men who are now talking comprehension of what they saw. A tremendous deficit. For they
were stuck on the adversary everywhere they went. They marked out the
adversary's territory. They marked out the adversary's
fortresses. They marked out the adversary's
strategic position. And they started talking about
the adversary, the enemy. Now listen, child of God, when
we describe faith and the journey of faith, we say what our Lord
plainly says, in the world you're going to have tribulation, but
be of good cheer, I've overcome the world. We're going to say
that. We're going to also not, we are not going to be ignorant
of Satan's devices. That's what the Bible says 1st
Corinthians chapter 2. Don't be ignorant of his devices, his
agenda, his plans, his snares and traps. We're not going to
be ignorant. Nor are we going to be ignorant of his methods. Be strong in the Lord and in
the power of his might that you might be able to stand against
the methods of the devil. We're not going to neglect the
reality of his presence. Are y'all hearing me? And we
are going to heed Peter's words when he says, brethren, Be vigilant,
be sober for your adversary the devil goes about as a roaring
lion seeking whom he may devour. Listen, those of us who are in
the ministry, in the Christian faith, we see the work of the
devil everywhere in the world and in the church. We see it. We see it. But that is not our
overarching revelation. What we really see, we see in
such a way that we don't see the devil much at all. What I see is a God that sits
on his throne and runs this universe down to the smallest molecule. ruling and reigning and overruling
and reigning over everything to his own glory and the salvation
of his people. I see the Lord Jesus Christ ruling
in the hearts of wicked men and wicked women. I see him controlling
the hearts of the kings, turning them whithersoever he wills as
the rivers of water. I see the Lord Jesus Christ sovereignly
opening doors, sovereignly shutting doors. I see the Lord Jesus Christ
raising men and women from the dead, giving them life and faith
in Christ. I see the Lord Jesus Christ restoring sick and ill
brothers and sisters in Christ. I see the Lord Jesus Christ purging
His church and maturing His church and strengthening His church
and giving revelation to His church. I see the Lord Jesus
Christ and I see Him way more than I see the enemy. And I see
Christ so much, so much. The glory of God in Christ is
so absolutely impacting on my soul that the devil is nothing
but a slave of Christ to do his bidding whenever God wants him
to. Are y'all hearing what I'm saying?
I see the glory of God so much in the Scriptures. that I have
little interest or little time of talking about the devil. Will
you hear me? Because I need to know Christ.
I need to know more of Christ. I need to know Him more fully,
more intimately, more truly, more powerfully, more effectually. I need to know Him. And I can't
waste my breath talking about the adversary who is already
doomed, already damned, already in the lake of fire, according
to revelation of a brother who also tasted. John tasted did
John taste did John taste and say I saw him I saw one like
the son of man from the soles of his feet to the crown of his
head the resurrected glorified son of God whose eyes were like
a flame of fire out of his mouth when a two-edged sword a breastplate
and a robe down to his feet furnished in brass this is a glory John
saw him did he running the universe John saw him John saw him, John
tasted. He didn't talk much about the
devil. Oh yeah, by the way, I saw that same angel put a chain on
the devil and bind him and cast him into a pit for a thousand
years so the gospel can be preached to every nation, kindred, tribe,
and tongue and call God's elect out from every nation. Are y'all
hearing what I'm saying? Listen to me. Listen to me. He gives us these revelations
so that we can stay about our father's business We are missionaries
for the glory of God in Christ. We are not emissaries of the
devil We don't know demons names. I could care nothing about a
demon's name. I don't care about his territory
I don't care about his gifts and skill sets to hell with demons To hell with him Are y'all hearing
me? To hell with them. I am concerned that the church
of God has fallen prey to the crisis of our tax. Which I have
to talk about next week. Time is up. I'm done here. But I just have to say this. How do you take 12 men, cause
them to experience the same thing and 10 say we can't and two says
we can. Are y'all hearing me? How do
you have 12 men and 10 say we can't and two say we can't? You
know what I learned long ago? And I learned this by being among
the colleagues of my so-called preacher brethren. And then so-called
mature folks in the faith. Here's what I learned. I want
you to get this. I learned that there is a genre of language
that comes out of people's mouth that's rooted in unbelief. Even though they talk Christian
lingo. Because everything they say amounts
to, we can't. We can't. I can't. I can't. Will you hear me? Learn to listen for the spirit
of unbelief that dominates people's words. And then listen for that
unique gift of faith in the life of men and women who have seen
God give them glories of the reality of heaven. and have moved
them from faith to faith to faith to faith on a daily basis where
they say God can. It's the underlying narrative
of their discourse. You can hear it. You can hear
it. And herein lies the tragedy of
our text. Are you hearing? Now we're going
to unpack why some people can say God can and other people
can say I can. Next week. Amen.