Part Three/Q And A - 1 — Westlake Bible Fellowship

0:00 General principles of God opening doors

Take these take these questions on. So speaking on god keeping an open door, you made reference to that in one of the messages. Speaking about god keeping open door practically, how can you discern when god has closed a door?

Well, that question is a little broad because I'm sure there's a specific something behind the question. So I'm a little worried to answer it. So I'll try to give general principles, okay? General principles. Now, I'm speaking from the reference point of both corporately, that is, as an assembly, and then personally.

So, what are some general principles of God closing a door or even opening a door? Number one, I'm just in the Word. As elders, we're in the Word. And not that this Bible is some sort of magical book where we find a pen and we drop it and say, Oh, he said go out therefore and find a wife. Okay, I'm not talking about that.

Okay? But I think the Lord will give us direction by general principles of his word, maybe sometimes specifics. But I think that's pretty true. The second thing, I know these are kind of generic, but I think they're important. I think prayer.

And I don't mean just like, rub a dub dub, thank God for the grub. That's not prayer. That's like a cliche. I'm talking about where you devote yourself to prayer. You devote this hour, this half an hour.

I'm gonna devote myself to seeking your face with an open Bible before you about this door. So I think those are don't skip those. Those are really, really, really fundamental. But then there's some other things I think are important here. I think there's this personal thing.

It's called, let your request be made known unto God with thanksgiving. So, thanksgiving's in there. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. So, I think prayer, done right, done well, done according to protocol, Philippians four, will actually produce a sense of peace within your own heart about it, both individually and within a group, like elders or just people meeting to pray. And so those are to me like the bread and butter of wondering if the Lord's opening or closing a door.

Now, the other set of things that I think about is unity and harmony. Because that's a big principle in the Word of God. Unity of the spirit and a sense of oneness. Jesus prayed about oneness in his body. So, oneness happens on several levels.

Oneness is not me, myself, and I in agreement. That's not what I'm talking about. Oneness is I agree with those in my sphere of jurisdiction. So my wife, pretty important. Especially with the children, it affects the children.

I'm gonna see how the Lord's leading them. And I put it to them like that. Now, as a group, whether you're a board or an organization, assembly, I think oneness in the body. And in our case, in my case, whether it be my wife or in the eldership, if somebody says, I hear what you're saying. I see the pros.

I see the cons. I just don't have peace. Well, we stop. We just wait. I got to admit that subjective, sort of subjective, and somebody can fleshly use this peace issue to hold everybody at arm's length and sort of dominate, use it as a passive aggressive testimony.

We've to make sure everybody's heart's right and walking in the light and not trying to have a selfish agenda. But assuming that can be the case, I think the Lord really does lead through that oneness thing. And then, of course, there's just the intellectual side, the pros and the cons of it. There's the financial side. We say the Lord pays for his work, and so if he doesn't provide for the money, you probably shouldn't.

That's actually true. Lord, I want to buy a brand new $60,000 car, but I have $10. Probably not the Lord's will. Probably not the Lord's will. All right?

And then, finally, there's the side of wisdom. And I've learned to ask wiz for counsel in a certain way. Andy's my brother and I say, Andy, I'm thinking about buying a new $60,000 car, what do you think I should do? All right? Andy's going to he's a strong man.

He might tell me right off. But a lot of people don't want to tell you right off. They want to say, oh, don't do this, do that. Because if Andy tells me something and it flops, well, feels like it's his fault. So I don't want to set him up to fail.

So I've learned to ask it this way. Andy, I'm thinking about buying a $60,000 car. Do you see any potholes that I might run into along the way? No pun intended, right? You see that?

So I'm not asking him to take responsibility for my decision. I'm asking him to see what I can't see. That's much smarter. And young people, that's really how you want to get alongside with an older person. Because they don't want to mess up your life.

But they've got a lot of things they learned the hard way. And you need to tap into that. So I think it's wise just to ask them, Okay. So those are some general principles and wisdom about does the Lord close or open the door. Now, can I answer that specifically about, well, does the Lord want the door to be open to us to take this gospel to this section of people at this time?

5:41 Example of group outreach

We're going to do this sort of old fashioned tent meeting, barn meeting. And we met several weeks prior and we asked the Lord. As an assembly, we prayed about it. Our elders prayed about it. We sought Him.

So we were confident that the Lord was leading us. He was hearing us. And then as we got together, we just had tremendous harmony. There wasn't friction. There wasn't sort of, well, I don't know.

One guy called me up and he said, Steve, I have a concern. I said, well, I know the issue. Why don't I check into it? He says, thank you. I called the other brother and he says, No, we don't think that way at all.

We're all behind you. I said, Wow, look at that. Even with the extra mile, and there was unity and harmony. And then, of course, I'm reading the scriptures and he's talking about where I was reading had to deal with the gospel work. So I felt that was confirmation.

So all those things sort of came together. And then we saw that, like I mentioned to you, we had 130 people come. 10 homeless came. And one night, I remember one, had, you know, we did everything wrong. We printed up the wrong address and we passed those out, right?

And the guy that did that was so embarrassed and we didn't embarrass him. But, somebody in town, in the small town, had got a flyer of the Methodist Church. And this girl, college student, went over to the Methodist Church and says, hey, do you know where this event is at? And they go, Yeah, the flyer's wrong. We'll tell you where to go.

Who does that? Right? And so we just thought those circumstances seemed to verify that that door was open. So, went forward through it and the Lord was in it. So, I don't know if that answers that question.

But that's kind of a meaty question. Yeah. I think... Thank you, Nizal. You know, I think there's an element of everything that I described which I didn't go into detail about the personal side.

And here's what I mean. If you're seeking the Lord's will about a decision about your assembly and you're carrying on at work with a lady and flirting, Well, I would say that you're already sinning, so how can the Lord speak to you clearly what he wants when you're already corrupted, your vision, your spiritual sensitivity is corrupted by something you shouldn't be doing? So, we want to prepare our hearts, deal with sin. You know, in the Old Testament, when he wanted them to come to the mountain, you know what he said? Get rid of all this, get rid of all that, wash yourselves and don't touch the mountain in three days.

Prepare yourself. And so I think we shouldn't overshadow that. That part of seeking the Lord's will is not sort of aligning all the ducks in a row. It's really meant to cleanse your heart, you sinners. Get rid of double mindedness, you hypocrites.

So that you can actually have the spiritual aptitude to hear what the spirit of God is saying. That's what I was meaning by that yesterday. Does that explain what you're asking me? Okay, very good. You always ask the hard questions.

Alright. Regarding satanic attack, I heard God uses even Satan's evil plans to accomplish his, God's will. How then shall we pray regarding this? Looking for any specific spiritual examples.

Scriptural. Okay. So did everybody hear that? Sorry. I was supposed to hold the mic.

Yeah. That's alright.

I

think I heard something.

Okay. Good. So how... Let me see that one more time, brother. Okay.

How then shall we pray? Okay. So one of the clearest passages in the Bible about praying light these in spiritual dimensions, satanic intervention, is the Lord's Prayer. So it's recorded for you in Luke chapter 11 and Matthew chapter six. And the last clause of the, what, three or four verses says, And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

And you have to take those two clauses as one. The conjunction is designed to show that they're connected. They can't be separated. So, you can't say, do not lead us to temptation. Oh, God, what are you doing?

Lead us in temptation. The temptation that he's talking about, the testing is the word temptation, is that which is associated with the evil one, right? So hermeneutically, you have to see them as one unit. Secondly, what does it mean? Do not lead us into this testing, but delivers from the evil one.

What he means by that is the enemy is out there attempting to bring such trial and tribulation. That's what he means by that. That's the inference of the verse. And what you're praying is that the Lord would see you through that. So that's the actual text.

So as we recognize that things are kind of going awry and maybe you can see the shadows of the unseen world's influence and manipulation. I remember seeing very clearly some of our trials in the last year about this. And so what I did is I just asked the Lord, now Lord, I don't ask you to take this away because clearly this seems to be your will. But if you desire to take it away, then do so. But I submit to you.

If you desire this trial to continue, then I pray as you promised, and this is how prayer works, as you've promised, as you've indicated in your word, show me the good will that you intend to bring out. Make it clear to me, even though I can't see it now, illumine me or give me the faith and or give me the faith to trust in what you're doing because right now I falter in my faith and sometimes I'm doubting and I don't want to doubt. You see, that's the kind of language I use in those moments that reflect on, and I'll review, the spiritual dimension of the prayer and that the Lord would help me see what he's doing. That's fine. If he chooses not to, I ask him for grace, survive, that grace is equivalent to strength.

So strength to make it through. And then finally, that he would maximize his fruit. Maximize the good that he's doing. Make it bigger than what I can even imagine or think. Go more so, God.

You say you're exceedingly abundantly above... Well, you can answer exceedingly abundantly above all that I ask or think. So, Father, I'm going to ask a lot. So, instead of saving five souls, save a 100 souls. You know?

So, that kind of thing. That's kind of how I filter this idea of how God uses even that which is opposing him for his glory. And by the way, again, the principle is in Proverbs also. He makes even the wrath of man to praise him. The wrath of man is not of God.

It says in James, The wrath of man does not fulfill the will of God. So, you know it's not of God. But then he can use that wrath to praise him. So, I ask him, Show me how it's done. And then, probably the fifth thing I pray is make everybody see it.

Make everybody go, ah, wow, with what you do. So hopefully that answers that question.

13:19 Clarification on church leadership

Know, all we can say is the data doesn't say. Okay? That's all you can say. So as a rule in medicine, don't go farther than the data takes you. And this is kind of the same idea.

So what we do know is that there seem to be elders and apostles in Jerusalem because it says so. Does the word elders mean exactly the same New Testament definition as in one Timothy, Acts 20, one Timothy two, excuse me, one Timothy, yes, three, three, Titus one and Acts 20. Does that mean the same definition? Not sure. Because, you know, that was the church in transition.

They had elders in the synagogue. Did they transfer that over? I don't know. But there was leadership. We know that.

Not sure we had the official terminology. It does not appear that they had official leadership in Antioch. Why? Well, because they sent Barnabas. Said, hey, can you check it out?

See what's going on? And Barnabas brought Saul. So, it appeared that they were not quite developed yet where they had elders. But I can't say for sure. I can't be definitive because the data isn't there to support it.

I'm only putting some pieces together, and that becomes conjecture. And whenever you start conjecturing about historical data in the New Testament, you just want to be careful. So I have to say that's my opinion. I don't think I can treat that as dogma.

In today's first message, you talked about Satan attacking man from the start. You said it was allowed by God but not authorized by God. What is the difference? Can you explain on that more?

Okay. So it seems like it would be a difficult case. Well, let me back up. So in discussion about the sovereignty of God, there's two thoughts about the will of God. The first one is this is the expressed will of God.

God says do this. Alright? But then there's what we call the permissive will of God. What God allows to happen, and yet he still takes that and does his work. So, we'll give you the example.

It's Balaam and Balak, King Balak of Moab. Remember, Balak of Moab, he was really off the scene until Moses and his team defeated Sihon, king of the Amorites. And so finally, Balak gets this shackle ripped away from him by Moses and his army. And now he's like worried because his regime has now come back to his power, but the Israelites are so strong. And so he sends off to Balaam, who is really like a foreign seer.

He had a reputation. There's some data that goes back to tablets of that time that talk about that region of the world having world known seers who could kind of predict a future, fortune tellers. And so one of them was Balaam. And God intervenes and he tells Balaam, I said, don't go. And you know, at one point the donkey talks.

Very amazing story. He talks back to the donkey. I would be freaking out. But apparently he didn't have the freak out button on, so, you know, he just talked back like there were like buds in the way. What are you doing?

You heard me. So it's kind of bizarre. Sort of tells you, as the scripture says in the New Testament, the madness of the prophet. Now, at some point, I think it was maybe after the second or third conversation, the Lord says, okay, go. Now, what happened?

He started out, Lord, saying don't go. And now you say go. See, so it was expressible to God for him not to go. But the guy was going to do it anyway. The guy was pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing.

Balaam was. And so the Lord said, go, but only say what I tell you. See, that was permissive. He allowed it to happen. Okay.

Now to the question. So, I think, let me see the question one more time, brother. Okay. So, I think when it says here, it was allowed but not authorized. I see that in the same thing.

That God has said what he wants. So, it was not his will for a man to sin. But what God does is he sets up moments where you actually have to make a choice. Right? That's part of the way he set up his economy.

And the reason why I say that is because if you have a society that you only do what you're told to do robotically, that really dumbs down the sort of love of God thing because the love of God is voluntary. And so when he brings in the human race, he wants man to voluntarily choose him, not to be coerced to him. That's what Satan challenged God about with Job. He only loves you because you're protecting the boy. You take that away and he's gone.

And so I think that's clearly in the economy of God, and so God knows that. So he gives us opportunity for man to obey him, but he chooses not to. Clearly, it was God's will, his desire for Adam to obey him. But, therefore, he allows Satan to come into the equation. He could have just kept Satan out.

He's a no fly zone. He can't come here. But he allowed Satan to come in, used him as part of the testing element, and then man fell. So I wouldn't say God authorized Satan to do that. I would say God allowed Satan to do that.

Man made his decision. God, knowing what the decision would be, still had the right plan to move towards the redemptive story of the human race. And so you get into these discussions that have to deal with, well, which came first, the chicken or the egg? The will of God or the will of man? And you get into really, I think, brain spinning discussions.

But I like to keep it simple. I think God says what he wants and then he works with us when we don't want to do that. It creates problems called sin and rebellion and God then formulates that to still do his will. Thus, we have God's expressed will. He allows this.

But you can't say that he sanctioned it. Because he already told us what his will was. But he allows it and then still fixes it. So, it's a very simple thing to me. I try not to make it too complicated or else my little poor brain sort of spins out into outer space and sort of begins to smoke and stuff and I can't stand that.

Alright. Is the difference? Can you expect, can you explain? Okay, did that sort of explain that? Alright, I mean, just talking about people wrote volumes on this theological subject, so.

20:13 Cultivating a desire to be in the meeting

Oh, okay. Okay. That's great. That's a great question. How do we do we cultivate a desire to be in the meeting?

Okay, I can answer that this way. Okay, watch, watch. Okay, it's like this. Okay, and this one goes down. Okay, and then you 35 degree angle.

Okay,

That's it. Right there. Okay. Of course I can't get up like I used to. No.

You think it's tongue in cheek and you think it's funny. But I don't think so. I don't think so. You take my, what do we call this, bible challenge. You know, not one of those things where you throw it up in the air and catch it with your mouth.

Not one of those things. You take my bible challenge and you read every time in the Old Testament specifically when the people of God didn't want to do the right thing. And what was Moses doing? Every time, without fail, he's praying for those people. And God works through that prayer and moves them in a certain direction.

Right? Remember when they didn't want to go take the land of Canaan? And God says, I'm just going to destroy them. Moses goes, No, no, no. You can't do that.

Well, everybody say, and about your covenant, Abraham, Isaac, you can't do that. I ask you not to do that. And the Lord says, okay. Okay. How can man talk to God and God goes, ah, you got a point.

I mean, that just doesn't make sense to me. And yet God would allow himself to be affected by the prayers and the communication of his creation. Probably because his heart was right. He says, I talked to Moses face to face from man to man. And then what happens is so amazing.

Says, okay, I'm still gonna take the people, just not your generation. Woah. Who would have thought of that? Okay. So how do you get people to want?

It's by prayer. And Moses illustrates that time and time and time again. And you find that sort of pattern in the book of Ezra, in the book of Nehemiah. You find those patterns of men that prayed. You find it in Daniel.

And so what I'd say to you, the want to is generated by, it's a cliche, the need to. Okay. Did you catch that? The need to. That's play on words.

Paul used play on words. I'm trying to borrow from Paul. Okay. That's what I think. Now, how else can you do that?

Is there something practical? That's usually the next question. Yeah. Yeah. You know, what I found is if you regard me with respect, hopefully you do some level, and I'm excited about something, do you know what you do?

You get excited about something. Right? So if I'm enthusiastic about going to Israel and I every time, which I did last year. Every time I'm speaking I'm talking about the things we see in Israel and the places that go and the teaching there and we see the Lord Jesus here and see that. And you know, I'm so excited about it.

You're gonna go, yeah, let's do that. I don't do it artificially. I do it because I'm genuinely excited about seeing where the Lord walked and where all these stories are and allowing it to have a three-dimensional effect upon your biblical theology. And guess what you do? Yeah, I'd like that.

I'm gonna see that too. I wanna know what you know. Not knowledge base. Experience what you know. So you know one of the practical things you could do is just be enthusiastic yourself.

Not artificially so. Truly so. And now it tests your enthusiasm, right? If only five of you show up to prayer meeting and you're enthusiastic, it could look like you're just trying to generate some sort of power move and enthusiasm to sort of con the people. No.

Just go because God said to pray. And you have the joy of obeying the Lord. And you know when that happens? The Lord uses the pure heart. He really does.

And so I find that with my children. And I find that with other people. Know? Of course I'll say, hey, we missed you at prayer meeting. And he said, yeah, yeah.

I said, man, you missed a good one. You know, as we were praying, blah blah blah blah blah. And this happened in our lives. I told you this before. As we prayed, literally in the prayer meeting, the Lord answered the prayer.

The guy called me on my phone. Hey, we were just... This is so and so. Do you remember me? I said, yeah.

He said, I need help. Can you help me? Yeah. I mean, nothing like that to actually convince you that there is a God who listens to prayer in the moment. And when I act like that to you, and I say that to you, it's not because I'm trying to give you a theatrical demonstration.

I am thrilled that my God answered me that moment, and I can tell you that story. Why do you think they built all those memorials in the Old Testament? You know, the one out of the Jordan River and they put one in the middle on and the side. Why? Because it reminded them that God did a great thing and prayer is our mechanism to do that today.

And so I'm enthusiastic about prayer meeting because I see God answering prayer. And how does that happen? Because I've been in my closet all this time praying and I've been asking the Lord and he's been answering openly what I've been praying invisibly. And when you start to see that there's no way you can stand down about that. You go, I want what that is.

Whatever that is, I want that. And enthusiasm grow and the want to begins to grow. Well, how else does it happen? Well, not only about you being on your knees, not only about you being enthusiastic about what God is doing. Start to study the word of God about whatever it is you want to, the want to.

What is it? Is it gospel outreach? Study what the word of God says about evangelism. The gospel. Study what the word of God says about prayer.

Study what the word of God says about teaching and how vital it is. We covered a little bit of that in the Antioch series last night. And all of a sudden, your want to begins to gravitate to the Lord's commands and direction. Now that is what you really want. So, hope that answers that question.

I would endorse that as part two of last Sunday's message.

Oh, really? Yeah. Really? Your Was brother? No.

No?

No, That was Denzel and I's summary. Oh, was it? But we ran out of time to explain the practical aspects

of it. Oh. Okay, I want you to know we did not talk about this.

26:42 Balancing planning and action

Oh, man. I think this question dates back to 1850. No, that's a tough question. Let me see that question one more time. That's a tough question because you go back to this idea of the theology of where does God begin and I start?

Or how do they work together? I think the answer is not as complicated as we want to make it. I don't think God intends his theology to sort of tie us in a knot. I think he means his theology to be meted out, rolled out on the counter. Alright?

So, I would say to you this. I think God definitely will give us direction. We're asking him for it. Again, God's clear. That's not the issue.

It's our illumination that's at stake. But I think what we do is we go ahead, pour out our hearts. Lord, lead us. We are undone without you. If you don't go with us, we won't go.

But if you go with us, we will go. Show us where to go. I think that's sort of pouring out. So, hear me carefully. Pouring out of those intense passions of the heart.

We give it to you and we are at your disposal. Now, sometimes it begins in stages. It begins, first of all, with this sort of laying myself bare, whatever you say. And then as you, you know, next meeting or two or as you pray, maybe maybe you say, Lord, how would you like us poured it out? What what are you telling us to do?

And what I found, especially when we pray together, I find that some brother begins to say, Lord, what would you have us to do? Do you want us to go over to that area of the city? And then there's a pause. Lord, is that it? Are you directing us that way?

Now, nobody's hearing voices. We don't have handwriting on the wall. But I'm telling you, the spirit of God begins to highlight each brother about something unique within that prayer meeting and suddenly the direction has a little more focus. All right? So when that focus happens, then we start to say, no, Lord, how do you want that done?

See our dependency of God, that's the first half of the question. Our dependency upon God and his direction. Lord, how do you want that done? When do you want that done? Lord, we need supplies to do that.

How would you do? And you end up praying this through and as a result, you then suddenly, seems out of thin air, but it's not been, you actually have a plan. Say, okay, Lord. We've prayed. We've asked.

And as we've prayed and asked, it seems as if each time we finish praying, you've given us a little more confidence, a little more solidarity. A little more definition. And so, a result, is this what you want us to do? Do you want us to go next Saturday, this time, these tracks, these people? Is that your will?

Now, when you ask the Lord that, one of the lessons from the Old Testament is God is not hard of hearing. Right? He's just not. And so, if you ask him something, like if you ask your parents something, you kind of expect them to answer. And certainly, if parents ask you something, we expect you to answer, right?

Did ever do that to your mom or dad? Don't answer back. Death to the tyrants. Don't do that. Okay?

And should be that communication. And so, I think God will answer. Now, if you're unsure, then take a chapter out of Gideon's life. Now, Gideon, we had that fleece thing. And any means I say that would be very fine to ask the Lord that.

It wasn't like the Lord was upset. He just said, You want to know? I'll help you know. And so Gideon, he made it like super tough. Make the ground dry and then fix, do the reverse.

I mean, which one of you does that for a living, right? Nobody does that. There's no business out there that does that. So, this is impossible. So, he created an impossible situation for God to do to make, to confirm what God had told him to do.

That's all you're doing. And if you still have troubles, this is what the Lord did. He did this on his own. He said to Gideon, So, you're still worried? You just go over to the camp.

You know, like midnight change of shift and just hear what they're saying about you. Alright? So, God on his own said, Gideon, I know you're kind of still upset about this. Just go on over. Just trust me with this.

So, he goes over. Shows up at the wrong hour of the night. The terrible hour of the night. And the two guys are going, I had this dream. Who plans that kind of thing?

I had this dream. And this thing came into camp knocked us all over. That's the sword of Gideon. And Gideon's sitting right over there. Right?

You know what God was doing? It was like he was standing right there. The angel of the Lord put his hand on his shoulder. Told you. Right?

Now, if that's what you need, then you do that. And I don't think God gets upset because your heart's right. You're not doubting God. You're saying, I just need just one more. Did you know I asked the Lord for 35 fleeces before I went into full time work?

Actually, was 50 fleeces. He gave me 35. 35. You should think at this time, you have no faith. Exactly.

I had zero. Zero. And the Lord gave me so many confirmations. So many confirmations. Bob Upton.

Or, brother, brother Upton. Bob. Is it Bob? His father. Mister Upton.

He just passed away. He traveled with me to Israel several times and we had a very close relationship over the years, kind of like a grandfather figure to me. I was preaching somewhere and I finished and he got down. Oh, no. Was in Israel.

He was in Israel with me. And he pulled me aside and he said, I think God has given me to tell you fleece number thirty four and thirty five. And he told me what he saw and what he observed. And I went back to my room that night and I said, Okay, you can stop now. We're good.

We're good. I had asked the Lord. And I don't think God in heaven was going, 50 fleeces. My goodness. What is wrong with you?

Uftah. Didn't say that. He said, Okay. You need 35 fleeces? I got 150 if you need.

Got whatever you want. Go ahead. Ask me. Ask me. Just ask me.

So I did. See, that's how I think it works. So, we move through this idea of prayer and the cyclical nature of it. The Lord seems to just formulate that plan in your heart as you pray, as you seek his face. That's marrying the two kind of concepts.

And then that plan becomes a little more solidified rather than saying, okay, Andy, we need to sit down and come up with a plan right now. I don't think that's the right way. You may do that, but it's gonna be bedded on this idea of seeking the face of God. And I think when you do that both as a couple, you do that as a family, you do that as an assembly, All this sort of angst about, well, does he mean it? Does he not?

Just ask him. You know, the Lord said certain things in the book of Philippians. He goes, now listen. If any of you have the wrong thinking, God will show you. That means God has the onus to like, fix me.

And so, I just say that, Lord, if we're thinking the wrong thing, just show us. Just show us. Because you said, would do that, you know, Paul said you'd do that to the Philippians. We're like Philippian relatives. Could you do that for us?

Alright. Okay. Next question.

34:01 Spiritual leadership and physical plans

know, you're the only assembly in the country that asks me the hard questions. Alright. When the... Going back to... I think it's Acts six.

Going back to that chapter, do you remember what happened? There's the Hellenist Jews. So they were the Jews outside of Palestine. They came in and the big thing happened on the day of Pentecost, so a lot of people stayed. And people that were not residents of Israel were staying for a prolonged period of time in Jerusalem.

And as a result of that, there are a lot of needs, a lot of physical needs, lot of tangible needs. And what happened was the Hellenist people said, Hey, you guys. We have this big distribution every day, but our people, widows specifically, are getting left out. Right? So, was a source of sub ethnic tension.

Alright, so the apostles said, who were obviously managing that. How do I know that? Because of the next statement. They said, we cannot leave the word of God in prayer for the service of tables. Meaning, they were probably already doing both.

Service of tables and the Word of God and prayer. So, they said, we're at a point where we've got to make a choice. So, why don't you guys figure out who should do this work over here and we'll devote ourselves over there? Now, that's a principle. And so, the principle is the spiritual minded leadership, spiritual leadership, especially in infancy of a work, may do both.

You may do both the spiritual side and the physical care of whatever you're using, whatever plant you have. But at some point, that spiritual need, that spiritual weight is too much for you to do both because why? You're a finite creature and God uses us all. And so, it may come time where you say, we can't do both. So when we can't do both efficiently and effectively, we're certainly not doing it right now because the Hellenistic widows are being missed, then we've got to come up, we've got to do something else.

And so, Lord, what would that be? And if you notice, the Spirit of God was part of that. They fasted and prayed. That was part of that. And then they came up with this, the seven people to serve.

By the way, those seven people. One was Stephen. I'm named after him. He died. Martyr's death.

First martyr. One was Philip. What was Philip? He was the only named evangelist in the New Testament. The only named evangelist.

And then Timothy was told to do the work of the evangelist. But he never was titled the evangelist. I don't know. That's highly qualified people doing those waiting on tables. You know what I'm saying?

And so, it has nothing to do necessarily with gifting. It's role. It's the role. So, that's how I see it. I see that when we get to a point where we are really unable to meet all the needs that we're supposed to be meeting, then you've got to divest.

Now, is that anywhere else in the Bible? Yeah, it was Jethro's advice to Moses. And he saw Moses answering everybody's questions. And Jethro says, listen to me, son. You're going to die.

It's a loose translation. You're going to die. You should get people over a 100, fifties, tens. And they handle the small stuff. And the big stuff comes to you.

You take care of that. That's how you're going to survive this massive new country that you're leading. Not bad advice. It actually was complemented by Moses in the Deuteronomy. So, I think that's one way you can tell.

The need of the hour is too much for my finiteness, and so need expand the use. Now, when you do that, you gotta remember this. Those who are going to fulfill that role to meet the physical plant needs, you take that seriously. Right? You take that very seriously.

It's not a hobby. It's not a glorified janitor. It's not some sort of part time gig. It's a duty. And if Stephen and Philip and all those guys failed to do that duty, that would have been gone so bad for the early church.

So it is really important. It's not secondary. It is as primary as anything else. And what you're doing is allowing somebody to do what they need to do. And that's how the body works.

I do what I do so you can grow in the things of Christ and do what you need to do. You do what you do so I can continue to serve the body of Christ. It's reciprocal. And God meant the body to work like a left and right hand. That's why you got them.

Left Your and right hand. If you have two left hands, you can't hold hands. You know, how do you do that? It doesn't work. You need this.

And it's very important for the body to see that God made it so that there should be complementary and reciprocal activity rather than unilateral activity. And so, should embrace that. We should welcome that. And if you get to a point, we don't need to criticize. Problem is this.

We don't need to criticize. You're not doing your job. Forget all that language. Let's do the right thing. Right?

I'm sorry. My soapbox. Did that answer that question? Externally? Oh man.

39:16 External godliness driven by internal godliness

Alright? Jesus devoted a whole chapter to hypocrisy. Matthew 23. Do not find yourself in that chapter. So, external godliness is a byproduct of internal godliness.

Now, what do I mean by that? What does internal godliness look like? I'm going to give you several things that I think would be helpful here. Alright? Number one.

How do you start your day? I took a page from Bill McDonald's very own personal testimony to me on the plane flying to Toriano. And I said, Bill, how do you handle it? He says, Steve, every morning I get up and I say, Lord, this bed is your altar and I am your sacrifice. I lay myself on the altar.

Help me, O God, not to crawl off. That was at 35,000 feet. I thought it was the best thing I ever heard. I thought about that over the years. And I took my page of understanding and application from Romans six.

This is how you develop internal godliness. And I did this this morning. Father, I want to say to myself and I want my flesh to hear it. It is dead. Died with Christ.

That funeral was almost two thousand years ago. I didn't know it until recently. But I want to just declare, I count my flesh dead. Throughout this day, Father, you will ask me to mortify, to kill the deeds of the flesh. Not the flesh itself.

It's already dead. But it's deeds. I want to ask you for strength to do that before I get to those moments. Because, Father, sometimes those moments are too powerful for me. So, right now, before I get out of this bed, I surrender myself to you.

I give you my mind, my will, my emotions, my body, my spirit. I give you my agenda, my priorities. I give you my children, my wife, my job, my money. I give you everything. It's all yours right now this moment before I lay one foot on the floor before me.

You own me. Then I say this. Are you ready? I personally disavow myself from my fleshly appetites that I've had yesterday. I disavow.

I say that. I make an intentional decision to cut ties with what was attract, what flesh was attracting me yesterday. This is internal godliness. And therefore, I surrender. Then I go back to, in my mind, I think of that Joshua five passage where Joshua is thinking around the campfire about the next day event with the Jerichonian battle.

And the angel of Lord stands with a sword drawn and he says, Whose side are you on? And the angel of the Lord says, No. Meaning, I'm not on their side nor am I on your side. You are on my side. And I said, Lord, I am your Joshua.

I am on your side. And Joshua says he fell down on the ground and said, What would you have your servant do? Like exposing his raw neck to the blade of angel of the Lord. And I said, That's where I am. Now, I believe personally that's a great way to start your day for internal godliness.

Right? And you know what happens? I get up. I shower. I brush my teeth.

Shave. Whatever I do. Then I go off and I do the next thing. Usually it's in the Word of God. Not always because the day's events sometimes fall apart.

Wake up to a broken pipe. That kind of ruined your morning. So, I I say, Now, Lord, before I launch into this next thing, this obstacle, this problem, help me to have internal holiness. Now, things that really capture my attention that the Lord's talked to me about throughout the day. Oh, it's all internal.

It's my internal complaining. My internal complaining. Why would you do that, Lord? I'm serving you. That comes into my head.

Now, I believe that thought's from Satan. How do I know that? Satan put the thought into David to number the people. That's what it says in the Chronicles. So, what happened was David acted on the thought.

So, I think that thought's from Satan because it's not of the spirit. Spirit would never say that. So, it's got to be of the flesh, which is satanically manipulated. So, I say, Lord, that thought's in my head. Satan wants me to act upon that thought.

I reject it. And I refuse to believe, What are you doing now? I choose to believe, You are doing that which is good. See, that's the key. That right there.

Now, when you go through multiple elements of your day like that and it becomes, say, a natural for you, more of a reflex than an intentional thing, what happens is your internal godliness begins to grow. Because you're moment by moment surrendering to the will of God as real things happen in your life. Now, this was really important to me because when I work in the emergency department, I get done with the day. I go, now I know why I don't want to do this anymore because it's so crazy. The only thing constant about emergency medicine is there's no constancy.

And so, I just go crazy with it. And people come in, Oh, yeah, my little pinky toe is turning pink. Is it abnormal? All those things, right? And I just am able to filter them in a different light.

And when I feel myself getting more and more irritated, I stop, I'll go and I say, Lord, I can feel myself getting very upset about all this. I can feel myself getting near to explosion. Please take it away. Please take it away. Take my emotions.

And those thoughts that are coming to my head, I reject them, Lord. Keep them from my mind. Right? Now, that is developing internal holiness, internal godliness. Now, this applies to temptation, too.

Temptation comes to you at all times of day, you know. How many of us men driving down the highway, all we're doing is we're minding our own business, we're looking around the traffic, but that billboard was some scantily dressed person that's right there in your field of vision. You didn't plan on it. You look for it. It just boom.

Right? You ever do that, men? You ever drive by the billboard like this? I ask the Lord, Lord, that thing can stumble me. Right?

And so, that's moment by moment. Now, that internal godliness, that kind of moment by moment. No one was ever seen. I let you into the chapter of my life and soul that no one else knows, right? But that becomes flushed out in this manner.

You know what happens? You begin to look like a Christian. And you know what happens? That Christianity is easy to be noticed and displayed because that's who you are. And it starts to show up in other things.

Like, Oh, here. Let me take your dishes for you. The other day, I listened to one of the nurses. She described a horrible life. She's Catholic.

I'm amazed she was so cheerful. She described this kind of husband, this kind of husband, this kind of one of her husbands is in prison. And she said, you know, I just prayed a lot. I said, wow. You don't even know Christ and you're acting like you know Christ.

So, just listened. I just took it all in. I said, I'm so sorry. That had to be a very hard experience. Well, yeah, it was hard.

Right? See, that external godliness now started to be picked up because you're showing spontaneous compassion and care for pitiful situations of people's lives. Now it begins to be seen. Don't do it to be seen. Just do it because it's an outgrowth.

Okay. I went on too long. Does that make sense? No? Okay.

No, doesn't.

46:46 Impressions of Christ in Revelation

Oh, yeah, sure. Well, let me say this. Christ wins. Alright, amen. You know, Christ is introduced in the first chapter of Revelation as this incredible person.

It's very hard to have any sort of reference point to that. There's some references that might lead you to think that way in the Old Testament, but not very many. You know, God went by Moses, put his hand over him, saw the back of his glory. That would be one. Preincarnate pictures of Christ as he appeared to Abraham, Jacob, you know, different ones like that.

Even David. So, those are some things there. But, in the book of Revelation, he is portrayed almost like the event on Mount Transfiguration, Matthew 17. Some people will think it was Mount Tabor. I think it was probably Mount Hermon.

They were at the base of Mount Hermon when that next chapter happened. And it was a high mountain. That's the highest mountain in Israel. And each author, the authors that comment on it say that he was brilliantly white. And it was Mark who said he had a white, he was whiter than any launderer could actually make things white.

I thought, John Mark must have did all the laundry or something. I don't know. So, it's a very unusual comparison. But it was just brilliance. Now, John, I think, remember, he was on the Mount Of Transfiguration.

And he was afraid. Remember that? The Lord, Peter said his thing. The cloud overshadowed him. This is my beloved son in whom I well pleased.

Hear ye him. I think hear ye him was kind of intense.

Hear ye

him, him. And then John, I'm sure John says, I told you to be quiet. It's not in the text. It's in my mind. And then so John then revisits that whole scenario in Revelation one and the Lord is just brilliant in his presentation and it's much more detailed.

And we got rainbows and we got mouths and eyes and feet and chests and the whole thing. And John is now perhaps being reminded of maybe something he might have seen. It certainly sounds familiar. And what is he? He's afraid.

Same response. And the Lord tells him, don't be afraid. Now, each of those things that are of the Lord Jesus in chapter one, are then revisited in each of the letters and each of them have a very sensitive element, or how should I say, picturesque element to Christ. So, eyes the flame of fire. Now, you've got to realize something.

If you walk into a dark closet with just your eyes and there's no light, what do you see? Nothing. But if you have a flashlight, which many of us put on the top of our head with one of those little dorky looking things like this, guess what? That's your light source and now your eyes see. So what he's saying is, if eyes are a flame of fire, they provide the light source to illuminate what's in front of you.

That's incredible. Right? Kind of freaky to me, but that's incredible. So, he provides not only the reception of what he's seen, but he also provides the light sources of what he's seen. And that is how he evaluated several churches.

My eyes, flame of fire. Looking at you, I can see right through your heart, okay? So, it's sort of frightening, but it's also very polarizing. I want you to see righteousness, not ungodliness. Okay, now you move forward to the book of Revelation.

And the book of Revelation has several different minor statements about the Lord Jesus in the bulk of the book. And then, of course, we have the brilliant presentation of him coming on the white horse and the victorious general's commander's stance. And he deals with the rebellers, the earth dweller rebellers in one breath. And you suddenly say, Woah. I don't think it's because he had bad breath.

I think he's just powerful. And so, get this really regal, incredibly powerful, majestic, magnificent individual who then says, Come see my bride. So, he's sensitive. And then he's loving. And they have the marriage, Supper of the Lamb.

And we have the new earth, new heavens, new Jerusalem. It's like we're having a honeymoon again. See that? So, those are some glimpses of Christ that I think are really quite astounding of him. Perhaps my favorite, though, is in Revelation five.

And in Revelation five, it was a chapter that deals with the initiation of regaining the title deed to the earth. So, the backstory is Satan stole the title deed to the planet. He did that because Adam and Eve had title deed and they signed it over to Satan and Satan just kind of took over because he fooled and lied to them. And so, they're now... We're all human races now with Satan and Satan has the title deed.

So, Christ does the redemptive story. What's he do? He rescues mankind. But that's not all. According to Romans eight, there'll be a coming day when all of creation will be rightly put back in the possession of Jesus Christ because he's the creator of all things.

And when that happens, then there'll be an official document that will show legal transfer of ownership back to the hands of the savior. And when we get to chapter five, that document is now brought forth because we're past all the redemptive story and the churches in heaven according to Revelation four one, and now we have this document and John is saying, well, who's gonna get to open the document? Where is he? And there's no one. And John goes, Oh, no, all this is not for naught.

We'll never get everything fixed around here. The earth will go on and it's tumultuous turmoil. And suddenly he says, Don't cry. There's the lion of the tribe of Judah who has overcome. John perks up.

Where is he? Oh, he's over there. Over your shoulder. And he looks and he sees, not a lion. He doesn't see a mane coat, you know, Aslan the Chronicles of Narnia.

You know what he sees? A lamb that had been slain. The redemptive story is what he sees. And that, I think, is so extraordinarily beautiful. So, he's my champion.

He's my conqueror. But when I look at him, I see a substitute. Maybe the Lord would have us think on that as we remember him tomorrow morning. You got one more?

Yes. Where did Seth get his wife? Actually, that's all the questions and we're right on our concluding time. So appreciate.

Thank you.

Part Three/Q And A - 1 — Revelation 4-5

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Part Three/Q And A - 1 — Revelation 4-5

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