Would you turn with me and your
Bibles to the book of Ephesians? We're going to, in Sarasota,
we've gone through the book of Galatians in our Bible study
hour over there. They watch our services here,
so I'm preparing different messages for them over there on Sunday
night. And tonight we're going to start
a study in the book of Ephesians in our Bible study. for the brethren
over in Sarasota. Ephesians chapter 1 verse 1,
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God. How did he
become it? He said, I was a blasphemer,
was an idolater, I was an injurious man. I did it in ignorance, I
didn't know any better. God forgave me. He called me. when it pleased God who separated
me from my mother's womb and called me by His grace." He said,
by the will of God, the Lord made me to be an apostle to the
saints. Oh, let the religious community
talk about dubbing somebody as a saint. All of God's people
are holy, separate, sanctified, which are at Ephesus, and to
the faithful in Christ Jesus. All those who are in Christ Jesus
are faithful. He sees to it. They're faithful
to believe. They can't do anything else but
believe. We'll read some more from that
in a moment. Tom's going to come and lead us in a hymn in your
hardbacked hymnal 103, number 103. Let's stand together. Still have your Bibles open to
Ephesians chapter 1 grace verse 2 be to you and peace from God
our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ Blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. That means that the Lord Jesus
Christ is our advocate with the Father right now, seated at the
right hand of the Majesty on high. And when He ascended into
glory, He took with Him the names of those for whom He lived and
died, and represents them successfully before God. All the blessings
that a son of Adam could have are in Christ in the heavenlies
right now. What great hope! According as He has chosen us
in Him, when? Before the foundation of the
world. He didn't see your good intentions
and choose you then. He didn't see where you were
born and choose you then. Before the worlds were made,
when nothing was there but God, He chose a people. That we should be saints. That's the word. without blame. How is a person
like you and I going to stand before God without blame? God sees everything you've ever
thought, every word you've ever spoken, every deed you've ever
performed. He sees it all. How are you going
to stand thoughtless before God? How are you going to stand holy
in His presence? As He is, so are we. The one who did the sanctifying,
that's Christ. And the one who is sanctified,
that's His people, are all as one. Having predestinated us unto
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, God never
predestinated anything apart from Christ. When he predestinated
a people, he did it in Christ. According, say, well that's not
fair. Why would God choose some and
not others? That's what the natural man says. According to the good
pleasure of his will. That's the answer to that question.
And that's no other answer needed for God's people. And no other
answer given by God. He just does it according to
the good pleasure of his will. He's God. He's God. He can do what he wants. No man
can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest thou? Who art
thou, O man, to question God? You say, well, we need to encourage
people to question God. No. Bow to Him. Don't question Him. what he does. God does it, it's right, just
because he did it. And everything is done, he did. You know what this results in? To
the praise of the glory of His grace wherein He has made us
accepted in the Beloved. He gets all the glory, doesn't
He? Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we're humbled before Thee by Your omnipotence and by Your
sovereign grace. We're grateful that we have an
Advocate We're grateful that Jesus Christ, the righteous one,
stands on behalf of his people. We ask, Lord, that you would
cause us now to labor to enter into his rest, to find all our
hope, all our satisfaction. all our desire in Christ. For it's in His name we ask it.
Amen. My text this morning is found
in the book of Zechariah chapter 4 at verse 10. Zechariah chapter 4 verse 10. Just the first part of that verse,
a phrase that I hope you'll be able to remember. For who hath
despised the day of small things, of small things. How often times our God has used
small things to accomplish His purpose. This past Friday, I had a dear
neighbor of mine. She's 90 years old. Her husband just turned 93. She's
very kind. She's concerned about the moral
decline that she's seen in our country over the span of her
life and in the world. She's very religious, very outwardly
moral, the kind of woman you'd want as your grandmother. And in an attempt to, I guess,
compliment and encourage me, She made a statement that exposed
not only her heart, but the heart of most people in the world today.
She said to me this past Friday, the thing that you all are doing
is a good thing. Because in the condition that
the world is in today, God needs all the help he can get. I said, Oh Mrs. Green, God doesn't
need my help. He doesn't need my help. I need
His. And you need His. Paul put it
like this in the book of Corinthians. He says that God uses the foolish
things to confound the wise. The world uses wisdom to confound
foolishness. God uses the foolish things to
confound the wise. The world uses mighty things
to confound the things that are weak. God uses weak things to
confound the things that are mighty. God uses the base things
of the world and the things which are not to bring to naught the
things that are in order that no flesh should glory in His
presence. If God's going to use you or
me, we're going to have to become nobodies and realize that He
doesn't need us. God needs all the help He can
get. Turn with me to 2 Kings chapter
5. despised the day of small things,
is what Zacharias said. Don't look down your nose at
something small because God more often than not uses the small,
the weak, the insignificant, the foolish to make not the things
that the world looks at as being influential and powerful. Why? So that He gets all the glory
and no flesh can glory in His presence. My ways are not your
ways. My thoughts are not your thoughts. As the heavens are high above
the earth, so are my ways above your ways. God just doesn't do
things the way we do it. He does it just the opposite.
Why? So that He gets all the glory.
All the glory. 2nd Kings chapter 5, the scripture
tells us about a great man by the name of Naaman. We read in
verse 1, now Naaman captain of the host of the king of Syria. Now Israel at this time in their
history was under the domain of Syria. he was a great man with his master
with his master you notice that not with God he wasn't he was
a leper with God but before his master he was a great man and honorable because by him
the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria he was also a mighty
man in valor And just leave out the but he was, you see that's
all in italics. And as often is the case when
the translators try to clarify the meaning of something by adding
words, they only detract from it. A leper. A leper. That was his distinguishing
mark. He was a leper. Oh, the disease
of leprosy. The incurable, grotesque, flesh-rotting
disease of leprosy does not compare, does not compare to the corruption
of sin in our souls. Apart from the grace of God,
we are incurable. Paul said, In me that is in my
flesh dwelleth no good thing. and the Syrians had gone out
by companies and had brought away captives out of the land
of Israel a little maid a little maid God had sent the
Syrian army to defeat Israel and to besiege them and to rule
them at this time and had ordained this little maid this little
girl to go back with Naaman and become his wife's handmaid back
in Syria. She's separated from her mother
and her father. She's separated from her country.
She's serving pagan people in a foreign land and God's got
her there for a reason. For a reason. She waited on Naaman's wife And
she said unto her mistress, would to God, would God. Oh, she said, I know that there's
a God in Israel and he has a prophet. And if my master and my Lord
would go to that man, he would cure him of his leprosy. You
know, I can say the same thing to you right now. There has never been a leper. Never has there been a leper.
We can say with absolute confidence what this little girl said. What'd she say? Look it up. Would God, my Lord, were with
the prophet that is in Samaria, for he would recover him of his
leprosy. No leper has ever gone before
the Lord Jesus Christ. and not been cured of his leprosy.
No leper. Not a leper who's infected with
leprosy from head to toe. Not a leper who knows that they
are... You come unto me, all ye that
are heavy laden, burdened, sin sick, I'll in no wise cast you
out. He's never turned a leper away. And the testimony of this little
maid resulted in the healing of this great man, this leper. You know what that tells me?
It tells me that God doesn't need an eloquent preacher. to communicate the gospel to
lepers. All he needs is the voice of
one crying in the wilderness saying, Behold the Lamb of God
which taketh away the sins of the world. That means that God
doesn't need a trained theologian to defend the gospel. All he
needs is one of his people to say, I know where there's a prophet
who can make you whole and deliver you of your leprosy. Oh, little
maids, join this little maid in believing that God uses the
foolish things of the world to confound the things that are
wise. God doesn't need all the help
he can get. To the contrary. He uses the weak, feeble voices
of His children to just say to lepers, there's a prophet in
the land of God. He can deliver you of your leprosy. How do I know? Because He delivered
me. He delivered me. Oh, don't ever think sharing
your faith. God's called all of us. Go into
all the world, make disciples of all nations, all be ready
always to give an answer to them that ask you for the hope that's
within you. Sometimes all you can say is,
you know, all I know is that once I was blind and now I see. You know, when they start hurling
the theological questions at you like the Pharisees did to
that blind man. But if God's in it, and you're
talking to one of God's lost sheep, They're going to come
and they're going to believe. He doesn't need the eloquence.
He doesn't need your expertise in order to convince somebody. He just needs a simple voice. There's a prophet in Israel. He can deliver you. He will deliver
you. He will deliver you. We can say
with confidence. If you go before Him as a leper,
He will make you whole. He will. Turn with me to chapter 18 in
1 Kings. 1 Kings chapter 18. Jezebel and Ahab were ruling
Israel. wickedly, wickedly. God raised
up a prophet by the name of Elijah. And God spoke to Ahab through
Elijah and told Ahab, rain will not come to Israel until I say
so. There's going to be, matter of
fact, he said there won't be a drop of, look at it, it's right
there in verse Chapter 17, verse 1, And Elijah
the Tishbite was of the inhabitants of Gilead. And he said to Ahab,
As the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand, there shall
not be dew nor rain these years but according to my word. And
so now for three and a half years there's not so much as the dampness
of dew on the ground in the morning. Israel is turned into a desert. A drought that led to a famine. People were dying. It was a desperate
situation. But you know the condition of
Israel at the end of those three and a half years is no different.
than the spiritual condition of the world in which you and
I live. Scripture calls this world a dry and thirsty land. There's no life in it. There's
no rain from heaven. There's no dew. There's no grace. There's no mercy. It's only in
the gospel. It's only in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And that's only in His church. Where else are we going to go?
Where else are we going to go to find water? The prophets of Baal ran rampant. And chapter 18 at verse 45, it's
time for the drought to come to an end. But before the rain
can come, God has to be glorified through the destruction of the
prophets of Baal, the false prophets of Baal. There's prophets of
Baal all around us. All around us. They're everywhere.
And so you remember Elijah invites the prophets of Baal to meet
him on Mount Carmel. And they build two altars. The
prophets of Baal build their altar and cry out to their God.
And Elijah stands there and mocks them. Mocks them. There's nothing
wrong with mocking false religion. It's foolishness. That's all
it is. That's all it is. Elijah says, you need to scream
a little louder. You need to cut yourself a little more. Elijah
at one point says, maybe he's gone to the bathroom. Maybe you just need to get him
out of the bathroom. He's mocking them. Why? Because he knew that
the God that they were worshipping was nothing more than a figment
of their own imagination. He didn't exist. He wasn't a
God to be feared. The God to be feared was going
to send fire from heaven. And Elijah said, the God that
answereth by fire, he will be God. So Elijah orders all the
water to be poured on the altar and he calls on God and fire
rains down from heaven. The consuming fire of God's wrath
consumes the altar. A picture of what happened on
Calvary's cross, isn't it? And when the altar was consumed
by the fire, the fire was extinguished. No more wrath, no more judgment. Not only did the fire consume
the altar, the altar consumed the fire, didn't it? No more
wrath. And Elijah orders for the prophets
of Baal to be all put to death. Kills every one of them. One
thing I know for sure, when God's pleased to save one of his people,
He kills all the false prophets of this world and all the false
prophets of their religion. He puts them to death. They've
got no more interest in those things. Look at verse 41 of chapter
18. And Elijah said unto Ahab, get
thee up eat and drink, for there is a sound of abundance of rain."
So Ahab went up to eat and to drink, and Elijah went up to
the top of Carmel, and cast himself down before the earth, and put
his face between his knees, and said to his servants, Go up now,
look into the sea. And he went up, and he looked,
and he said, There is nothing. And the prophet said to him,
Go again, seven times, keep going. Number of perfection. Go back. And seven times he sends him
back. Finally a servant on the seventh time comes. And it came
to pass at the seventh time that he said, Behold, there ariseth
a little cloud, a little cloud out over the sea, like a man's
hand. And Elijah said, Go up and say
unto Ahab, Prepare thy chariots, and get thee down, that the rain
stop thee not. And it came to pass in the meanwhile
that the heavens were black with clouds, and the wind, and there
was great rain. And Ahab rode and went to Jezebel."
God used a little cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, to open the
windows of heaven and bring an end to that drought. You know
he's still doing the same thing. He's still doing the same thing.
Oh, the world gives great esteem to the international organizations
of religious denominations, don't they? They think, well, that's
where God's at work. You listen to the world talk
about Christianity, and they talk about that organization
over there in Rome that has influenced the whole world. Or they talk
about some great denomination or some great leader, and they
think, well, that's the means by which God brings rain from
heaven in order to break the famine and break the drought.
You know what God uses? he uses a little band of believers
that to the world have no political influence no political power
we have no religious influence it's just whether it be in uh... uh... in apopka florida or jared
you just came back from kingsport tennessee or or uh... uh... pikeville kentucky whoever
heard of these places Whoever heard of Apopka, Florida? I tell
people we're from Orlando because they don't know where Apopka
is. Little clouds. Who hath despised
the day of small things? Don't despise the day. The world
despises the weak things. The world despises the foolish.
They would call what we are foolish. They would call what we believe
foolish. God says He uses the foolish things of the world to
confound the wise. The weak things of the world
to confound the strong. And to open the windows of heaven
and to bring a great rain, the showers of His grace and of His
blessings come from a little cloud the size of a man's hand. Isn't that glorious? Why? Why? So that no flesh could glory
in His presence. I love it in Mark chapter 4 when
the Lord is on the sea with the disciples. The scripture says
He went out in a little ship and there were other little ships
that went with Him. A bunch of little boats. And
I know enough about boating offshore to know that when there's a When
there's a small craft advisory, you advise that advisory. You
don't go out in the ocean when the storm coming. And they went
out. There was nobody to advise them.
They went out. The Lord was in the boat with
them. And the boats, the little ships were tossed about and they
all thought they were going to drown. And the Lord said, O ye
of little faith. Aren't you glad He didn't say,
O ye of no faith? Little faith! In another place,
the Lord says, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you
can say unto this mountain, Be removed! God does more with a little faith
than the great influences of this world. And all God's people,
though they cry with that man, O Lord, help thou mine unbelief,
they are also able to say, I do believe. You remember the story about
the prophet who had a... Well, it was during the famine.
1 Kings chapter 17. Sorry. Lord, you used my awkwardness
to... 1 Kings chapter 17. Verse 12. The prophet Elijah, this is during
the famine now, this is before the rain comes, and he finds
a woman with a child who are suffering in the famine and about
to die. And Elijah says to her, give
me something to eat. And here's her response in verse
12. She said, as the Lord thy God
liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in a barrel
and a little oil in a cruise, a little oil, a little oil. It's all I've got. And behold,
I am gathering two sticks that we may go in and dress it for
me and my son, that we may eat it and die. She couldn't even
find enough sticks to make fire. We've got two sticks, a little
oil, a handful of meal. I'm going to try to put this
into a cake and we're going to eat it and then we're going to
die. That's all we've got. And Elijah said unto her, Fear
not, go and do as thou hast said. But make Me thereof a little
cake first, and bring it unto Me, and after make for thee and
for thy son. For thus saith the Lord God of
Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the
cruise of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain
upon the earth." A little oil is all God needs. It's all He
needs. We get so caught up in the things
of this world, don't we? Thinking, believing the propaganda
of the world. And God says it is the deceitfulness
of riches. Don't set your affections on
the things of this earth. All the get-rich-quick schemes
of the world. Riches promise things that they
can't deliver, don't they? I said, I've never seen the righteous
forsaken or their seed-begging bread. God doesn't need an abundance
of wealth in order to sustain His children. He'll sustain them
with a little oil. If they'll acknowledge Him with
what they have, He'll continue to provide for them. Turn with
me to 1 Timothy chapter 6. This temptation has been in every
generation, but I don't know of any generation that's ever
been bombarded with as much propaganda from the world as we are. Everywhere you turn, can't turn
TV on, can't turn the radio on, can't pass a billboard without
somebody telling you in order for you to be content, in order
for you to be happy, you've got to have this. You need more oil
in your barrel. And so men set themselves on
a course of trying to accumulate more oil. Look at verse 5 of
1 Timothy chapter 6. Perverse disputings of men of
corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain
is godliness, Oh, what do we hear men say?
Well, God's really blessed you. Looky there, you've got a big
house and new cars and all this. God's blessed. Supposing that
gain is godliness. From such, withdraw thyself. But godliness with contentment
is great gain. Be content with what you have.
For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that
we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment,
let us be there with content. But they that will be rich, in
other words, they set themselves on accumulating wealth. That's
their agenda, that's their purpose, that's their goal in life, to
get more. fall into temptation and a snare,
and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction
and perdition for the love of money. The love of it is the
root of all evil, which while some coveted after, they have
erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many
sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee
these things, and follow after righteousness and godliness,
faith, love, patience, and meekness. Make that your goal." The Lord in Matthew chapter 6
talked about that when He said, the birds of the air don't fret. Solomon in all of his glory wasn't
arrayed as one of the lilies of the field. Are you not more
important than they are? Does your heavenly father not
know what your needs are before you even have need for them? God used a little oil to sustain
this widow woman and her son. until the heavens parted and
the rains came. Oh, that the Lord would teach
us to be faithful with what He's given us and to be content with
what we have and not to set our hearts on just getting more. That's the way of the world.
That's the way of the world. But you know, there's something
else to this. There's something else to this that I find even
more precious than that. And that is that the oil is a
picture of the Holy Spirit. How many times have you thought,
oh, if God would just pour out His Spirit on me, all my problems
would be solved. all my doubts, all my fears,
all the conflicts that I have with my flesh, if God would just
pour out a huge measure of His Spirit on me and just drench
me in the oil of His Spirit, then I'd be okay. God doesn't need to drench you
with the oil of His Spirit in order to provide for you. A little bit of His Spirit. A
little bit of His Spirit. Oh, we desire more. We do desire
more. Oh, that God would just... What
did the Syrophoenician woman say? What did she say? Truth, Lord! But even the dogs
eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table. A crumb from
God's table is more than the banqueting that the world has
to offer. A drop of water from the river
of life Oh, when that rich man in hell said, oh, send Lazarus,
would just tip his, put his finger in a dip of triple and put it
on my tongue to relieve my torment. If Lazarus could have done that,
it would have relieved his torment. But what did Abraham say? A great
gulf is fixed between us. A drop of water from the river
of life. Don't think, if I just had more,
I'd be content. Godliness with contentment. If
God lets you eat the crumbs from His table, if He gives you a
drop of water, the trees of righteousness which
are the plantings of the Lord I know I've used this illustration
before but I like to work with wood and it grieves me that we
have oak trees everywhere around here and they're good for nothing
but firewood. They're good for nothing but firewood. Why? Because
they grow too fast. It's just that simple. Their
conditions are too great for them. These oak trees we've got
on our property, we planted them in 2000 and look how huge they
are. It would have taken 30 years
for trees in a harsher climate to become so big. Why? What's the benefit of those trees? Those trees that grow... My point
is that God's trees grow slow and they grow in harsh environments. Why? So that they'll produce
wood that'll be strong and beautiful. And it won't be good for just
firewood. That's just the way the Lord
does it. That's what waiting on the Lord's
all about. Just waiting on Him. Oh God, just put another drop
of oil in my barrel. Just give me a crumb from your
table. Just let me Have a drop from the... A thimble of wine
when given from the Lord and drank in faith will intoxicate
the soul more than all the spirits that this world has to offer. Don't despise the day of small
things. You think, well, God has blessed
me with such small things. That's the way he does it. That's
the way he does it. You know, we get this idea, well,
I want great faith, I want great resources, I want great power,
I want... No! God uses the little maid. He uses the drop of oil. Why? Because if he gave you eloquence
and power, it'd go to your head and you'd take the credit for
whatever you accomplished. Don't despise the day of small
things. It's the way God works. It's
the way He works. He works through small things. One man, born of a woman, born under the
law to redeem those who were cursed by the law. came into
this world in the likeness of sinful flesh and condemned sin
in the flesh that the righteousness of the law of God might be fulfilled.
One life he lived in perfect obedience to God and fulfilled
all the demands of God's perfect law, establishing a righteousness
for his people once and for all. One death, on a cross, in Jerusalem,
satisfied all the demands of God's holy justice and successfully,
successfully put away all the sins of all of God's people,
once and for all. One little baby, born in a borrowed
stable, in an obscure village, to a humble, young, unassuming
girl with a common carpenter as his supposed father. Thirty
years he lived anonymously in the shadows of a country that
on the world stage was considered nothing more than an annoyance. For the next three years, he
avoided the big city, He called out a small band of
disciples, fishermen, tax collectors, people who were unlearned in
the culture. They had little or no influence
in the world. His miracles were performed quietly,
and often he told people not to tell what had happened. He performed them for and among
the outcast of society. When pressed to go public and
make himself known to the masses, he refused and instead retreated
to the countryside. He was considered a demon-led
blasphemer by the religious leaders. He was nothing more than an inconvenient
rabble-rouser by the political establishment. The masses saw
him as an example of punishment that they wanted to avoid. And when arrested, his friends
and his disciples fled the scene to save themselves. And he went
to that cross all by himself. Why? to accomplish a work that
only he could do. To order in all things and to
make sure all the conditions of the covenant of grace that
God had established in eternity past for a particular people. One single solitary life. Twenty centuries. Twenty centuries
have come and gone and all the kings that have ever reigned,
all the armies that have ever marched, and all the rich and
powerful people that have ever lived, have never succeeded in
effecting the eternal salvation of one single soul. But this
man, having made one offering for sin, hath perfected forever
them that are sanctified. His one solitary life, is the
only thing, the only thing that's taken place in all the history
of mankind that will determine the outcome of heaven and hell
for all of mankind. God uses small things. Oh my dear neighbor, He said God needs all the help
He can get. To the contrary, if God's going to use anything,
He's going to use the weak things, the small things, the base things,
the things that are not, to confound the things that are. That no
flesh should glory in His presence. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we're so
very thankful for giving us this message in your
word to encourage this little band of believers and these weak
things of the world to believe you, to take our little faith,
our little oil, little water, And for your name's sake, Lord, bring to yourself great glory. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. We're going to sing a hymn, number
98 in the Sopacte Hymnal. Let's stand together. When...