It never occurred to me to preach
a message based on the fact that we had a tornado come pretty
close, in fact tear up a few buildings and whatnot, but I
don't want to be ignorant of the fact or fail to acknowledge
the fact of the Lord's mercy in that. He could have run it
right through town. And there could be a lot of funerals going
on. And he chose to spare everyone. And I will not venture as to
what that means. I'll just be glad that everybody's
alive and that it was of the Lord. Either way, it would have
been of the Lord. But I prefer this way. And what
a good picture, really, when you think of it, As what John Newton said in Amazing
Grace, through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already
come. Tis grace has led me safe this
far, and grace will lead me home. And I think about that tornado
with regard to me and how much it pictures so much of what God
has delivered me from. I left town totally ignorant
that there was a tornado going on. I left town, Bonnie and I
did, heading up to Inwood, and more or less escaped any possibility
of damage that way. You know, there's a lot of times
the Lord has just put me somewhere else so I didn't get in trouble. And it was utterly unknown to
me that there was any trouble about. However, that tornado
did, was aimed for Inwood, but it quit before it got there.
And how many times has trouble been on the way to me that, and
I was ignorant, we were ignorant of it. up there in Inwood. We
didn't know this was going on. We were ignorant of it and God
stopped it before it ever got to us. And there are some to
whom it came very close and it destroyed much. And I read of
one, not in our area, but a tornado that happened somewhere else.
The people were, you know, just, well wait, maybe it was from
here. I can't remember anyway. Somebody
was out in the field and just ducked. And the thing went right
by. And big things around him got
thrown away. But he was left laying on the
ground. And you see these things, and
I'll tell you, to those who believe, it's a wonderful testimony of
God's grace. Such powerful things, way more
powerful than us, illustrated by that tornado. Way more powerful
than that tornado, believe me. We got troubles that make that
tornado look like nothing. But that tornado pictures them,
doesn't it? Trouble's bigger than we know what to do with.
All we can do is hide. All we can do is trust that the
Lord shall direct the troubles so as they will not trouble us.
Now this past week, now we'll get to the message at hand. This
past week, the subject of revival came to my mind. It was brought
up and I got to thinking about it. Who wouldn't want revival? what we normally think of as
revival. Where I come from, every year,
or at least a generation or two ago, they'd do this every year.
Churches had their, quote, revival meetings, generally speaking,
in the spring. And they'd advertise it, put
up banners, Holy Spirit revival, as though you can schedule the
Holy Spirit of God. But they'd tell you when it was going to
happen, you know, and they'd have their revival meetings. And who would refuse to pray
for it? I mean, the things that are important, that's what we
pray for. But I began to meditate on this
concept of revival. And I thought about it for several
days. And here's the startling conclusion that I came to. I mean, I just reflected on what
the Scriptures have to say about it. And here's the remarkable
thing I found out. Regarding what most people think
revival is, the scriptures have nothing to say about it at all.
Now, the scriptures in a few places use the word revival,
revival, or revived, but what most people think of as revival,
the scriptures, to my memory, I didn't have time to read the
whole Bible again, you know, over the weekend, but to my memory,
I can't think of anything that corresponds to what most of religion,
most of the world of religion, considers revival. Normally, when we speak of revival,
we are thinking of some work of God that restores our interest
and zeal in the things of God. But try as I might, I cannot
find in the scriptures where there were those who lost interest
in the things of God and never got it back. I don't find that. We find God returning people
and churches from error and from wandering, but for abandonment
of the truth and worship, I find no exhortation for such to return,
nor do I see the Scriptures hold out hope of recovery." To the
churches of the Lord Jesus, now you remember this from our study
in Revelation, as he wrote those letters to the churches, the
seven churches in Asia, he said to them, he gave them warning,
he said, repent or I'll come and take your candlestick away.
But I can't find anywhere where he ever talks about putting the
candlestick back once it's been removed. And to individuals, we read the
warning in Hebrews chapter 10. Do not forsake the assembling
of yourselves together as some are in the habit of doing. We
read that warning to those who are still assembling. We find
no word to those who have quit. Now I'm not saying that there
are never any churches to whom the Lord does not restore the
light of the truth, even after he's taken away. I'm just saying
you don't see it in the Scriptures. I'm not saying that there are
not any who have left off, at least as far as we could tell,
left off the assembly of the saints and left off the worship
of God, And they come back. It's not as though I've seen
some seemingly do that. I'm thinking of a man right now,
clear back in my experiences back in Ashland, Kentucky. And
twice now, he's just up and left. I mean, disappeared. And you
wouldn't find him in church for several years. And then he comes
back. So I'm not saying it doesn't happen. In the Old Testament, We might
think, well, God restored Israel from time to time. And yes, he
did. But it seems that this was his
pattern. The generation that apostatized, the generation that
left, he waited until they died out. And he restored the nation
in the next generation. I'll give you a couple of examples
of that. They went out from Egypt. They
crossed the Red Sea. They saw the cloudy pillar. They
saw the pillar of fire. They saw the temple. They received
the law. They ate the bread that came
down from heaven. They went through all this. They
got there to the land of Kadesh Barnea. They sent spies into
the land. The spies came back, and 10 out
of the 12 of them said, the people there are too big. We can't overcome
them. Two of them said, no, the Lord's given us this place. Let's
go in. They took a vote, and the vote went against the promise
of God. Now, what was the result? God
said, you'll not go in. And the people began to weep
and to wail and to call on God, said, okay, yeah, we were wrong,
we'll go back in. He said, no, you won't. No, you won't. Everybody from 20 years old and
up will die in this desert and I'll take the next generation
in. See what I mean? What about the captivity up there
in Babylon and Assyria? These people, the Israelites,
they rebelled, they brought to themselves false gods, and God
sent prophets to them, tried to keep them from their wandering
ways, and they would not listen. And therefore He said this, I'm
sending you away, and I will bring you back. And even though
He brought Israel back, He did not bring back the generation
that went away. Do you see the point I'm making
here? This is something startling to
think of, and it was sobering to me as I considered this. And
I remember reading an article from Brother Don Fortner one
time, and it actually kind of disturbed me when I first read
it, and I thought it was a little bit too severe, but in doing
study here, I think he's got it. He says, to my knowledge,
he says, I cannot remember God ever passing by the same place
more than once. Coming to a man and confronting
him, and if the man will not have him, God moves on. Confronting the church with the
truth, and yet they will not hear it, he doesn't come back,
at least not to that generation. Now there are exceptions to the
rule, as I said. And we're glad for those exceptions.
However, it is never good, never wise, to plot your course according
to the exceptions instead of the rule. I'm sure glad when
I think of that one fellow I told you about earlier that's quit
twice and come back twice. I'm glad that there's one, but
I don't think I'm going to say, you know, he got away with it.
Maybe I can, too. That's just not very wise, is
it? You know, there's some people that have jumped off bridges
and lived to tell about it, but that doesn't mean I'm going to
go jump off a bridge. Because most people that jump off bridges,
at least of sufficient height, they don't get to live and tell
about it anymore. And the Scriptures do not exhort us according to
the exceptions. God's grace is amazing, and it'll
reach beyond even the promises, but I'm not going to venture
past the promises in the hope that grace will outstrip
its own promises and bring me back. Do you see what I'm saying
there? Now, this thing of revival, when we talk about revival, why
is it that we want that so bad? Why is it something that I believe
in the heart probably of every believer? There'll be times he
says, oh, I wish that God would revive my soul. Well, first of
all, because we know what we are and we know what we should
be. And we wish we were less like
we are and more like we should be. Don't you? Brethren, I know
what a believer is supposed to be. You know what a believer
is supposed to be. In our hearts we have an understanding
of what we should be. We have a kind of innate. You
know what innate means? Inborn. Anybody that's been born
again by the Spirit of God, he knows he's supposed to love.
But I'll tell you what else he knows. He knows he's not very
good at it. He knows that he should be filled with joy, but
he also knows that a lot of times he's not. He knows that he should
always be at peace, but he knows quite often he's not. And it's
frustrating, isn't it? It is to me. How could I be like this? How
could I seem so cold and indifferent to the things of God? And so we know what we should
be, and we know what we are. And we see that great difference.
And so we think to ourselves, we say, all that God would revive
us. Same thing goes with churches.
We know what a church should be. You all know what a church
should be like. And then we look at what we are.
And our first thought is, oh, that the Lord God would revive
our church. As I was preparing the message,
This thought came to me, and I'll just throw it in right here.
I tell you, this church does not have a perfect pastor by
any means. And by no means is it a perfect
church. But thank God she has a perfect
Savior. And I tell you, therein is our
hope. Now I hope that we'll all grow in grace and the knowledge
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But our hope and our joy, our
confidence and our peace must not arise from what we are or
what we do. It must arise from a knowledge
of who it is that saves us, who it is that has called us, and
who it is that will keep us. It's the perfection of Christ
that is our hope, not the perfection of ourselves. So we look for revival sometimes
because we understand that difference between what we are and what
we should be. Secondly, I think sometimes we look for what we,
we put the name revival on it, but we look for it because we
are still flesh and we're more concerned with outward appearances
and experience than we are with deep and abiding spiritual strength. In other words, we don't even
really know what revival is. We don't know what spiritual
life is and what it looks like. And therefore we often think
things are in a terrible state when in truth they are not. And
here's what happens also. Sometimes we think things are
going great and everything is just wonderful and it is not.
I know that sometimes my thoughts of revival have more to do with
the outward appearance of religious activity than they have to do
with an inner spiritual strength and abiding perseverance in the
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that brings us to our next
point. Next reason. And I think one
reason sometimes we look for revival is because we have an
overly romantic view of what the Christian life is like. As
I said, we have kind of an innate understanding of what it should
be like. That is, you know, what believers should experience. But we have an overly romantic
view of what it is they're actually going to experience. Now the
hymn that we sang is our hymn of the day. That comes from Romans
chapter 7. And you read that, and you will
find out what the life of faith is like for a person in this
world. When I would do good, I find
that evil is so strong, the good I want to do, I can't. I end
up doing wrong. Here is the cry of a truly believing
man, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me? Now merely
religious people may sing something like, I'm pressing on the upward
way, new heights I'm gaining every day. I'm looking for higher
ground. Quite often believers experience
this. I cannot imagine being any lower
than I am right now. Oh, wretched man that I am. Now I ask you, who is the revived
man? The man who talks about gaining
new heights every day. who's always talking about reaching
some higher ground, and my friend, I can't think of any higher ground
than Christ. If you've come to Christ, where
are you looking to go from there? You can't go up from Christ.
But that's the way revivalists, so-called revivalists of the
late 1800s and early 1900s, that's the infection they brought within
religion. That there is a higher plane
than simply believing Christ. That there's higher ground than
simply resting in and trusting in the blood and righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And for that reason, people are
striving for some kind of religious experience or some kind of faith
experience that the Scriptures never promise or even talk about. No wonder we're so often frustrated.
We're grasping after air. We're grasping after a figment
of our imagination that does not exist. Never was Paul any more alive.
And you know what the word revive means, to make alive again. That's
what the English word means. He never was any more alive than
when he said, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver
me from this body of death. You know, the Christian life,
the life of a believer, is a lot like a marriage. Newlyweds, honeymooners, that's
one aspect of marriage, you know? And it's fun. And we like it. And, you know, when you're newly
married or newly romantically involved or whatever, you know,
you just, boy, you're just obsessed with that other person, aren't
you? But it doesn't take too long
after you say, I do, and you actually begin trying to live
together, begin trying to make one household out of two people,
that you find marriage isn't anything like what you thought
it was going to be, and quite possibly the person you married
is very little like you thought they were. And you get down to
the work, the work of married life. And I want to tell you
something. And this is just a little aside to any of you young people,
when it comes to marriage, marriage is work and it's worth every
bit of work you put in it. It is. And if you're, quote, in love
with somebody, that's all well and good. But there's a big difference
between being in love and loving somebody. And understand that
once you've said, I do, You better start doing. You better
start working. Because it's not going to be
easy. But it is going to be wonderful if you keep working at it. And
after many years of working at it, and I've been working at
it, and Bonnie's been working a whole lot harder at it than
me, but she's been... We've been working at it for
over 30 years. And it's good. And I would not
go back and change it. And my attitude toward her is
different than it was when I first met her. It's better. My relationship
with her is different than it was when I first met her, but
it's better. And I use that as an illustration
of the Christian life. Yeah, the honeymoon's fine, but
friends, the honeymoon only lasts so long. That time of early faith
when we are so obsessed with Christ and with the gospel that
it seems as though there's nothing else. And when it seems as though
the birds do speak His name and the sun rises and all you can
think of is that Christ rises with healing in His wings and
all that, that's all well and good and we love it, but it's
the honeymoon. It's not the marriage. And you know, if people in a
marriage were always trying to recreate the honeymoon, they'd
never have a very good marriage. When I was working for Orkin
back in West Virginia, I remember going into a new client's house,
and they must have been newlyweds, and the woman there had set that
house up as a shrine to their wedding. I mean, there was pictures
of the wedding everywhere, dolled up in pretty frames. And then
there'd be the guest book that was there. I mean, it just looked
like you'd walked into a wedding chapel kind of, you know? And
I remember thinking, even then, I don't give this very long. It looks to me like this woman's
more enamored with a wedding than she is with a marriage,
and there's a difference. Now maybe she just got over that
in time, I hope so. I wish I knew what happened. You see, maybe we'd do better
if we'd learn that what we're looking for is not really revival. Now that word has gotten attached
to what we're looking for. But you see, revive means to
make alive again. And a believer is not dead. You
cannot revive someone who's alive. Really what we're looking for,
and we'll see this in the Scriptures, what we're looking for when we
say, oh, that the Lord would revive us, we're looking for
a reinvigoration. We're looking for a re-strengthening. And we're going to see what the
Scriptures say to do about that. But let's look for just a few
minutes now at the concept of revival in the Bible. Now, I'll
tell you this, in the New Testament, in our English Bibles, revival
or revived is used rarely. And I looked at every occasion
of the Greek word. that's used, that's commonly
translated, revive. And here are the things that
are revived. It spoke of those whom our Lord revived from the
dead. It speaks of those who in the
end of the age shall be revived under judgment. And Paul says
that the law came, and he says, and sin revived and I died. And then it says that Jesus Christ
both died and revived. Now that's the New Testament
teaching on revival. In the Old Testament, the word
normally translated revive is simply the word for life. Now here in Psalm 85, in verse
6, Will you not revive us again? Now that's a little bit redundant. Say what's redundant mean? Well
redundant means to say the same thing twice. And when it says
revive us again, well in the word revive is the concept of
again. That's the RE part. You know,
you've heard the old joke, Pete and repeat were sitting in a
boat. Pete fell off. Who was left? Repeat. Then they
go, well, Pete and repeat fell. You know, they just keep repeating.
And that's the idea. R.E. means to do again. And so
when you're talking about revive, actually what you're saying is
to give life again. So in our translation and in
the King James, it almost is as though they're saying, will
you not give us life again, again? Well, that doesn't make sense.
Actually, the word does. There's two words there, one
to restore, or it can mean again, and the other means to give life.
And simply all he is saying, will you not give us life again? Now what is being taught here,
or what is being pictured, what is being pictured is God giving
life to those who have been killed by judgment. He's not speaking
here of restoring interest, or restoring someone from a lackadaisical
attitude about the gospel. It's being spoken of here, or
what's being spoken of here, is that there are those who have
come under judgment, and the judgment has brought death, and there's a prayer that they
be brought to life again. Now who's that talking about?
It's talking about God's people in their state of spiritual death. You see, we all came into this
world dead in trespasses and sin, didn't we? And we proved
our deadness by this. We went on sinning against God.
Now, you know, we teach that Adam's sin was imputed to us.
The sin that Adam did in the garden was charged to our account.
Well and good. But there's more to our sin than
that. We've got an evil and wicked nature within us, and most of
all we have an evil and wicked spiritual nature that doesn't
want God to be God, that actually thinks that we ought to be God. And we go out and we transgress
God's law all the time. Did you hear that? All the time. Man's thoughts,
man's ways, man's actions are on evil continually. The heart
is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. What's
a man in need of? He's in need of spiritual life
because he's spiritually dead. He's in need of being restored.
Man was ruined in the fall. He was destroyed in the fall. He has no spiritual understanding.
He has no spiritual capacity whatsoever, except the capacity
to rebel against God. And that's what this is about.
We don't know exactly when this psalm was written. Don't know
for sure just who wrote it, even though at the top it says it's
of the sons of Korah. But whoever wrote it, says he
remembers God's grace and mercy in bygone times. But the thing about bygone times,
they've gone by. Now he says, verse 3, you set
aside all your wrath and turn from your fierce anger. Restore
us. Here's what the psalmist is saying.
Do for us what you did for others in days gone by. Come in our day and do a work
of revival. In fact, if we were to put that
in New Testament terms, we would be saying, Lord God, come and
bring the new birth to your people. This is not a word about what
God does to believers. This is a word about what God
does to His elect who are yet in their rebellion and unbelief.
And He says, will you not revive us? Will you leave us in our
deadness? Will you leave us in our condemnation? And will you leave us under wrath? Oh Lord, give life to our dead
hearts. Verse 6. that your people, chosen
before the foundation of the world in Christ, redeemed by
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, that your people may rejoice
in you. Now I tell you this, all of God's
people are still rejoicing in Him. Their rejoicing may not
be as loud on one day as on another, but all God's people rejoice
in Him. That is, all God's regenerated people do. He's talking about
those who are yet dead in trespasses and sins, and He says, give us
life that we may rejoice in you. And then He goes on and says,
show us your unfailing love, or your mercy. Reveal it to us. Do you realize people don't know
about God's mercy? They probably don't know the
doctrine of it. They went to church, they grew up in church,
they took catechism and learned all the answers and they know
the definition of the word, but they don't know God's mercy.
They've never really seen it. It's never been applied to their
heart. And so the psalmist says, show it to us. Pour out your
mercy on us. Why? And grant us your salvation. You see, this is about lost people. It's about people that have not
yet been saved. Grant us your salvation. Now brethren, that is Bible revival. And as I read some of the old
writers, And when they talked about revival, that's what they
were talking about. When they talked about a time of revival,
they were talking about a time when God came and the gospel
was preached more widely. And many people came to believe
it. They didn't speak of revival
in terms of believers being rejuvenated. And notice this, verse 8. I will
listen to what God the Lord will say. He promises peace to his
people, his saints. What's this? This is the gospel.
I will listen to the gospel. Surely his salvation is near
those who fear him that his glory may dwell in our land. Love and
faithfulness, that is mercy and faithfulness meet together. Righteousness
and peace kiss each other. Where does that happen? Where
is the only place that God's righteousness And God's peace
can meet together in Christ. Verse 12, the Lord will indeed
give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest. Here is Bible revival. God in
sovereign grace giving to worthless sinners what is good. And God claiming for himself
a full harvest of all his works of grace. That's revival. Now
would I like to see that? I'd love that. start preaching,
you know, more and more people listen to us on the radio, and
hear something that piques their interest, and they come in here
and sit down, and they listen, and they listen to what God has
to say, and hear about being justified by faith we have peace
with God, and come into an understanding that this matter of salvation
is entirely wrapped up in the person and work of Christ, and
hear them from their hearts shout a hallelujah and believe the
gospel and see more of God's glorious harvest come in. Boy,
I'd love to see that. But here's one thing I know.
Here's one thing I'm convinced of and I take comfort in. God is getting all of his harvest
from this area. He is. Every last one of God's sheep
that live in this area, or any other area, is being sought by
the shepherd, is being found, and is being brought home. Now, I don't know who they are,
and I don't know where they are. And yes, I wish that it were
a lot more than what I see. But no matter what I wish, here
is what I may rejoice in. Everyone that God chose out of
this area will hear and will believe and will call upon the
name of the Lord and will be saved. And not one shall be missing. God will revive every one of
his people. He will restore to life every
one of his people who's born dead in trespasses and sins.
That's the Lord's revival. Now when you look over at Hebrews
chapter 12, and we'll look at what we more normally think of
when we think of the word revival, though as we see revival is not
really a good word for it, because this word is addressed to those
who are alive. And those who are alive do not
need reviving in the strict sense of the word. They need a reinvigorating. They need a, would you all remember,
well if you're old enough, do you all remember the old Aqua
Velva commercial? And the guy would shave, you
know, he'd stand there in front of his mirror and he'd be shaving,
you know, and then somebody come up with a splash of Aqua Velva
in their hand and slap him on both sides of the face with that
Aqua Velva. And he'd go, phew, thanks, I
needed that. Alright, that's what we're going
to look at now. A good bracing slap in the face that all of
us need from time to time. Hebrews 12 verse 1. Therefore, since we are surrounded
by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that
hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with
perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes
on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. who for the joy
set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down
at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured
such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary
and lose heart." Then skip down to verse 12 now. Therefore, strengthen
your feeble arms and weak knees, make level paths for your feet,
so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. Now what's
he saying here? And this struck me with a pretty
good bit of power. What we normally think of as
revival among the people of God is not something that we are
called to pray for. It's something we are called
to do. Now I want you to think of that
a minute. There are four or five things here. Delivered like that
aqua velvet slap in the face. Things for us to do. We can sit
and bemoan our lethargy if we want to. We can sit and talk
about how things are not as they should be. But the scriptures say, well,
what are you going to do about it then? Have a revival meeting? Here's what it says to do. He
says, first of all, let us throw off everything that hinders and
the sin that so easily entangles. Now, do you feel that at this
present time you are in a state of spiritual lethargy? Not dead,
but you just don't feel the zeal you once did? Maybe it's because you're all
tangled up. It may be that simple. Brethren,
we live in a world that's got entanglements everywhere. And these entanglements, we've
kind of got to be involved with them some. I mean, we've got
to go to our jobs. In fact, we're instructed in
the Scriptures to work for our bread. He that doesn't work shouldn't
eat, says the Scriptures. So, tomorrow morning, most of
us are going to get up and we're going to go to a job. And it
can be so difficult to go to that job and work hard and with
dedication and commitment and yet not get entangled in the
pursuit of financial gain. In fact, it's so difficult I
don't think I can do it. In fact, it's so difficult that
from time to time I've got to step back and say, wait, my feet
are getting tangled up here. It's getting hard to run. And
I've got to shake loose what has entangled me. There are the
pleasures of this world that can so easily entangle us. And
there's nothing wrong with pleasure, friends. We don't preach against
pleasure. It has its place. God has put many pleasant things
in the world for us to enjoy. But it's one thing to enjoy what
God has put in his world, it's another thing to get all entangled
in them. And we've got to think from time to time, wait a minute,
am I getting tangled in them or am I just enjoying them? But
most of all, and here's what I believe the writer is speaking
of here, the sin that so easily entangles us and hinders us is
that sin of a double-mindedness about Christ and His way of salvation. These Hebrew believers were being
tempted back to the law. They were being tempted by some
of their Jewish kinsmen, Jewish families. You go ahead and worship
Jesus, we can live with that, but now as Ben was reading. But now you've got to do that
circumcision thing and that Sabbath day thing. You can't let that
go. And you need to put the Ten Commandments
up on your wall and you need to learn to live by that day
by day. And it's entangling, friends. That's exactly what
it is. It is a hindrance to the life
of faith to be entangled in going about trying to establish your
own righteousness. Anything that competes with Christ,
whether it be something that is by its very nature evil, or
even something which by itself would be considered a good thing,
anything that competes with Christ is an entangling sin. Let us lay it aside. Oh, what
would you cling to at the cost of Christ? You say, well nothing. Christ means more to me than
anything and I would be willing to let any one thing go or all
things put together. I would be willing to count them
but lost for the sake of Christ. You'd be willing to? Well then
do it! Just do it! In your heart and minds disentangle
yourself from everything. Secondly, run the race marked
out for us. Now this race that Paul's using
is a description of the... I say Paul, but traditionally
they say he wrote this book. I don't know whether he did or
not. Somebody did. And it's good. But whoever wrote
it, he was using a picture of a marathon race, not a hundred
yard dash. The life of faith is not this
spurt for a little while and then sit down. It's a lifelong
effort. And it requires patience. run
with perseverance this race marked out for us. Thirdly, let us fix our eyes
on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. Now this is the
grand central theme of the whole business. Would you be spiritually
invigorated? Would you be energized to run
the race? Would you be given wisdom to
be able to disentangle yourself from all things that would take
you away from Christ? Here's the way to do it. Fix
your eyes on Christ. Notice he does not say, and I'm
not saying there's anything wrong with this prayer, but notice
he does not say, pray that your eyes would be filled with Christ.
He says, fix your eyes on Christ. Look at Him! Gaze at Him! Stare
at Him! Occupy your mind and your thoughts
with Him! Oh, that's work, isn't it? If you want to know what it's
easy for you to think about, next morning as you're waking
up, You just take note what goes through your mind right away.
That's what's easy for you to think about. I have yet to meet anyone who's
told me, you know, it's just easy as can be for me to sit
and meditate on the things of God, to fix my eyes on Christ. That's easy. No, it's not. It
is a warfare, but you must do it. And we look at Him, we fix
our eyes on Him as our Savior, as our Lord, and here we fix
our eyes on Him as an example, who for the joy set before Him
endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right
hand of the throne of God. Now what's He saying there? Jesus
Christ, for the joy of saving His people, For the joy of rescuing
his bride from her sins was willing to endure even the cross, counting
it shame and disgrace, something to not even think about, in order that he might lay hold
of that which was his joy, the salvation of his people." Now
what does that mean for us? Should we then not be willing
to endure anything, any loss, any suffering? in order that
we might participate in that salvation that Jesus Christ worked. If He counted it such great joy
to save His people, should we not count it a great joy to be
saved by Him, and therefore to be willing to endure anything
for the pursuit of Christ? Verse 12. therefore strengthen
your feeble arms and weak knees. You know what voice I hear there?
I hear the voice of a drill sergeant talking to training soldiers
who are hot and tired and sick of it and starting to whine and sitting down on the dirt
And he comes and he says, get up, get up, quit whining. Get up and strengthen your knees
and your legs and your ankles. Quit your belly aching. What
did you expect when you believed? And you know something? Those
may be tough words. But boy, they're good words.
It's amazing what's... I'm talking now just in the illustration
here. It's amazing what strength can come to a man's body when
somebody of fierce determination speaks to him like that. I had
a scoutmaster like that and he'd take us on hikes. And I don't
know how he did it. He was in his 40s when I was
in scouts. He could out-hike any of us.
And he'd start up and down those hills of West Virginia. Man,
we'd have our packs on our backs and we're trying to keep up with
Him. And we'd be sweating. I'd be, I'd feel like I was going
to die. Terrell, catch up! Strengthen your knees. Strengthen
those ankles. Brethren, you want to follow
Christ, then do it. and then make level paths for
your feet. What's the level path? Same thing as a narrow path.
See, we let the path get cluttered. Cluttered with the cares of life.
Cluttered with theological disputations that don't amount to anything.
Cluttered with the enjoyments of life. Cluttered with family,
rocks in the road, potholes. He said, make a level path, Christ
and Him alone. So that your ankles that are
sore now and your knees that are weak won't have such a hard
go of it. I'm reminded of what Elijah said
to the Israelites there on Mount Carmel. How long will you halt? How long will you limp between
two opinions? If God, if Jehovah is God, worship
Him. If Baal is God, worship Him.
But don't try to worship both. You're going to be limping from
side to side. And you say, oh, in my Christian life, I'm just
limping along. Okay then, you need to become
single-minded. You need to walk a level path
of Christ alone. And in time, and at the proper
time, all the joy that you associate with salvation will come to you. And the strength that you need
will be there. And if you'll run that course
with patience, one of these days there will come a day when you
will lay hold of that for which you were laid hold of. God laid
hold of you for something and someday you'll lay hold of it.
And all these hindrances and all these frustrations will be
gone. Till then, it's going to be hard. But it's okay. It's a hard path
on the way to eternal life. And I'd much rather have that
than an easy path to eternal destruction. So, a swat in the face. Thanks. I needed that.