Bible Teaching

Calvary Temple Teaching Library

Rest That Remains Pt.2

Hallelujah! Some good things are actually happening in my natural family: more of an openness. My mother is now professing a belief in the Lord Jesus, that's something that's exciting. We'd like to see some fellowship and some strength taking place in her life, with her health and different things she's not getting out, but she needs that fellowship, so she's been fellowshipping off of our web site; that's exciting! I think I shared with you that there was something very strange with my father that I hadn't learned--my mother actually hadn't told me because she was so mad at my Dad when he died. Well, she was actually mad at him before he died too, as they were having some problems. And afterwards I was talking to her one day and she was telling me--just sharing some different things, I said, "The guy's dead, man, why are you going to carry bitterness and hatred and you die and go to hell? You can't be forgiven if you won't forgive." And all these times she wanted to pray and wanted to accept the Lord and that bitterness was in her life, and it wouldn't take. I told her, "You can't be forgiven if you won't forgive." It wasn't too long after that that she called me and she said, "You know I've done it, I've chosen to forgive, and I'm free, I feel..." It was just the week after that that she had said that she had accepted the Lord and things have been going good with her for this last number of months. So, good things happening, it's never too late. That's exciting when somebody gets saved at 80, isn't it? I haven't given up on my Grandma yet. I'm going to see her in about a few days, we just sent her ninety-sixth birthday I guess it was. On her eightieth, no, ninetieth birthday I gave her ninety red roses and then I received a picture back--we weren't able to be there for her birthday. A number of the family got together; we were going to Chicago for something and we weren't there and so we had the roses delivered. The next day or so I get this picture: my two cousins, Tim and Jeff, are standing there with those ninety roses and a card that they made out said, "To: Grandma, From: Tim and Jeff." So I'm showing up this time! We'll find some way to take care of those guys. A lot of interesting things are going on, and this year has been for us. Does that bring us up-to-date? I think it does.

Let's turn to the passage that we were dealing with on Wednesday as we were concerning ourselves with that topic that's so needed in this hour and that's the divine rest, the peace of God. We are living in the midst of an anxious world, a fearful world, and we don't have any reason to be afraid. We have not received the spirit of fear, amen? But of love, power, and a sound mind, a whole mind; one that thinks properly, it's disciplined, the renewed mind, the spiritual mind. "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 2:5) So we're talking about guarding our minds and our hearts from anti-faith, which is fear, in this generation. When people are afraid, they try to disguise it in many different ways. Some become very aggressive and boastful, others become reclusive, others become silly, some will chatter, some will become quiet. Everybody deals with it in different ways. Fear is a very powerful force. It can shut down all of your natural resources. People can be paralyzed in fear, just freeze. I respond the other way: I speed up! When I'm afraid, you can't catch me, man. I think I told you this story: One time we were out and we were in trouble. The police were chasing us, and we took off. We were running from the cops and this one cop pulled his gun, he's pulling down on us. One of the cops had my buddy up against the wall, the other cop was sitting there and they said--my buddy said he was watching--he was down on us. He was squeezing the trigger, and we went around the corner; he didn't squeeze the shot off and we took off through the city and we dove into this dumpster--we were hiding in this dumpster. Max looked over at me and said--we were sitting there, and he looked over at me and said, "You can't run that fast." I was stride for stride with him; he was one of the fastest 100-meter high school guys in California, and I was stride for stride with him. It's amazing what a gun can cause you to do! Fear! I was fast, but I wasn't that fast.

Fear can cause many things to happen in our lives: some become paralyzed; some become supernaturally strong as the adrenaline kicks in. How are you going to deal with fear? You are going to face it. We're not immune; we're going to deal with it constantly. So we saw then that God had promised us a rest. In Exodus, Chapter 33, verse 14, "And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest." This rest, this peace--I want to talk about the rest of God, the peace of God; they are pretty much synonymous. Peace. We know the Hebrew word peace is shalom. Everybody knows that, as they walk down through the streets of Israel, they greet one another that way. So here you are and when they speak peace upon them, shalom, shalom doesn't just mean tranquility, but it means wellness or wholeness and it has to do with the state of mind and your state of being. Peace, wholeness, tranquility, wellness, soundness, emotionally, physically. Jesus said, "Peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth..." (John 14:27). So that's what we want to talk about a little bit this morning, how do we come into that gift of the peace of God? Jesus is the Prince of Peace, isn't He? He offers us a peace that passes understanding, the Scripture says. So as you and I are getting ready to tap into--as we see these principles in the Word of God is one that goes beyond natural comprehension. You'll have peace when it doesn't make sense. We'll have peace contrary to circumstances. A lot of people have peace when everything's going well. "Whew, I'm finally at peace." But are you at peace in the midst of the warfare, in the midst of the raging storm? When the other eleven people around you are panicking and bailing, can you find your way to the back of the boat and sleep with Jesus? When Jesus rose up and the Disciples were being overcome with fear, He rose up and He spoke to the elements and what is it that He said, what? "Peace, be still." What about the storm in your life this morning, do you think just one word would stop it? Then why doesn't Jesus just speak that peace upon us, why doesn't He just declare victory over your circumstances and have all the circumstances go away so you could be at peace? Because He doesn't want you to draw your peace from the environment, He wants you to draw it from His presence. Amen?

"And my presence shall go before you, and you shall find rest." We saw in Matthew 11:29, He said to take His yoke upon you and learn of Him, and you shall find rest for your souls. We talked Wednesday night a little bit about the fact that if we're not at rest, if there's no peace there (supernatural) then we're not yoked up, we're still on our own, we're trying to do it in our own strength. He doesn't need your help. You remember the illustration I gave as we were speaking on this a number of months ago? When you get yoked up with Jesus, your feet just don't quite touch the ground; and you really think you're helping, man, and you're just. You're not providing anything, He doesn't need your help, He doesn't need your strength. We need to be yoked with Him, praise God, for His yoke is easy and His burden is light. How heavy is life on you right now? That might answer whether you're yoked up or not. How easily are you coping with circumstances, with your own emotions right now? That will determine whether you are yoked up or not. So, God's calling us into this rest and He wants to lavish His presence upon us.

Look over at Psalm 29 for just a second, in Psalm 29, verse 11, "The Lord will give strength unto his people; the Lord will bless his people with peace." "The Lord will give strength to His people." Now, that strength isn't necessarily strength to change the circumstances; it is strength to believe in His presence, to rest in His presence and in His promises. I'm not believing God for enough strength to move the mountain; I'm believing God for enough strength to believe the mountain will be moved, that you can say to that mountain, "Be cast into the sea," and it would obey. We're talking about that principle that Hebrews speaks to so clearly, and that's the laboring to enter rest. The work is not the effort to get it done; the work is the effort to get you out of it. Work to enter into rest, work to cease from your own works is what Paul goes on to say in Hebrews. So my labor is in having to deal with self, self-will, self-confidence, so that I can cease from my own labor, so I can cease from my own works. The moment I'm free from having to do it in my own strength, I'm at rest. Now, God could still use me. God might require me to actually add physical energy to it, He may ask me and require of me to spend time in prayer, in fasting, in study, in meditation. I'm going to be involved, but I'm not going to be the sufficiency, I'm not going to be the source; I'm going to be a part of the equation, but the answer is Jesus, the resting in His promises.

So, He gives strength to His people, Psalm 29 tells us, and He will bless us with peace. We saw in Philippians, Chapter 4, that we're to be careful for nothing: "Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus" (verses 6-7). Think about that for just a moment. We're so familiar with the verse, and we quote it so easily: "...the peace of God that passes understanding!" Have you ever had anybody walk up to you and say, "What are you so calm about? Don't you see what's going on; are you too stupid to worry"? In their eyes you're just standing there looking like Alfred E. Newman (I want to see who's old enough to know who Alfred E. Newman is). How many of you remember the phrase Alfred E. Newman, Mad magazine, "What, me worry?" There are a few old people. So here you are, and they're thinking you're just stupid, mad, you're not in touch, but in fact we've been renewed in our minds. You know, worry takes a lot of energy. Did you know that worry, fear, will sap so much energy from your spiritual energy that your body will begin to decay and collapse and get sick and break down? It takes X number of measurements of energy to sustain our lives, physical, mental, emotional, and when you're draining one of these resources--how many of you know that you can physically beat yourself down so much that your mind doesn't work? Well you can worry so much that your body doesn't work, this thing's a unit. God's called us into a rest to where we can cast our care upon Him because He cares for us. Be anxious, careful, fearful, for nothing, but in everything with prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, make your request be made known unto God. We talked Wednesday night about being thankful. Are you?

Prayer and supplication. Detailed, specific, itemized praying. Are you "shotgun" praying, or are you praying specifically? "Oh I'm praying specifically; I'm praying; I'm believing God. I want this house, and I want this color paint, and I want this color carpet, and I want these colored drapes." You're praying about the wrong thing; that's not what we're talking about when we're talking about specific itemized praying. If you're taken up with the color of the house and the draperies, and the car, and the paint, and the flowers, and the cubic inches, and the miles per gallon, and whatever else it is, then maybe we're praying about the wrong specifics. Maybe we need to be praying specific itemized prayers about: service, preferring others, being salt, being light--a daily cross. Because when we seek first the Kingdom and righteousness, when I begin to pray specifically about my righteousness--you see, I know what needs to change in my life. Did you guys know the Pope died? I think I heard it on the news: the Pope died. Wouldn't it be a bummer to be the Pope? How would you like everybody, a billion people, saying you're infallible, and you know who you are? Why do you--think you know the bad guys are usually all those St. Louis Cardinals. If you look at the corruption, it's usually regional, the power, study just go back and do a study of western civilization--not that I ever did, but if you make a study of western civilization and you also do a study of--Get Shaft's book on Christian history and look back into the third century, and you'll see the corruption, you'll see the establishing of the Roman Church, you'll see the marrying of western politics and religion, you'll see the power struggles, you'll see that this was not about religion, it was about landlords. The guy that got to be Pope was set in order by all of these regional powers, and just like our political system it's, "What can you do for me?" The man at the top in these situations is usually controlled from the next level. I don't want to get off course. The point I'm making is, the Pope knows who he is. Why do you think the Cardinals, immediately on his death, go in and get all of his journals and destroy them? The guy knows who he is! Do you know who you are; do you know what manner of man you are? When we're praying, we are praying specifically about the need to be righteous; when we seek first the Kingdom of God and righteousness, then all of these other things begin to be added unto us. Let me say it this way: if you're going to be anxious about anything, be anxious about your righteousness; if you're going to be uptight about anything, be uptight about the fact that you're not righteous enough yet. All the things you're worrying about will be taken care of by the Lord if you'll seek Him first. Amen? You want to solve all of those anxiety problems? Just seek God! In His presence is fullness of joy, at His right hand pleasures ever more. My presence shall go before you and I will give you rest, praise God!

Anybody uptight this morning? Anybody worried about life? There's different stages of it, isn't there? There's the mild anxieties of just different frustrations and things that bother you, and then there's the fear of real substantial areas of life, of health, of our very life's being. Of house, land, clothes, food, all these things that your Father knows you have need of, those are the things we cannot be worrying about. Now you shouldn't be frustrated either about other insignificant things. "Oh, I'm having a bad hair day." Some people are just bummed out, "Oh it's such a bad hair day." Just look at Richard and be thankful you have hair! There's something to be thankful for, "Thank God it's a bad hair day, and I have hair!" See, I can make fun of Richard, I still have some hair. I don't know how much longer, but I still have some.

So we realize there is a rest for the people of God and that we're living so far below where He wants us; in this world environment that we're in, running to and fro and the lack of quietness and the ability to just rest in God's presence. I wonder what your average Christian goes through who doesn't have the times set apart that you do in prayer. I wonder what the average person does that goes in to a church service and just has certain liturgy and two or three stanzas and then goes away without a great time of worship as we just had, and the refreshing. This is the refreshing, the Scripture says, praying in the spirit. No wonder everybody's uptight! Isn't it great to be able to come into a worship service like this and just decompress? You can come in and you're uptight, and bad hair day, and you're late. You're trying to get in on time, and you look and you've got on one blue sock and one black sock. You come in and you've got so much to do on Monday and here it is Sunday and it's going to be 70 degrees and the grass has grown over your house, and then His presence comes, your hands are raised, you escape into the heart of God and you find rest for your souls. You worship, you make God big, and everything else falls into proper priority because of a glimpse of eternity. We can live there. It doesn't just have to be for worship service; you can live there, but it's not by accident, it's by ceasing from your own labors, it's by meditating upon the Word day and night, and then your way is made prosperous, then you can have good success in this walk in the spirit. And the peace of God which passes understanding will keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Look at that Philippians 4 passage: "Be [anxious] careful for nothing; but in [say it] every thing...," how many things do you leave out, how many things do you take on yourself, how many things do you take for granted? "...in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." How many things do you do a day that you don't include God in? No wonder you're uptight! Now I'm not saying that if you're doing carpentry work you've got to go, "Okay, in the name of Jesus." Now, some of you swinging a hammer may need to do this, but "In the name of Jesus, Lord, I'm believing You for grace and favor and good aim, and I ask You to make a quick work of this Lord, and to be honored in the driving of this nail." That's not what I'm talking about, but you go to the job and as you go you're praying, "Lord, give me an opportunity to reveal Your presence today to somebody, to show the peace of God in my life, if not in witnessing, just in my behavior." You know, like when you do miss that nail? "Oh, Hallelujah! Thank You, Jesus"! Is your response always the name of Jesus, to glorify God? That's what He's calling us to, and it's in everything.

We need to pray, "Lord, what would You have me to do?" We get our schedules made up and God's not even a part of it. Today, we know the doctrine, you can quote the doctrine, you don't say today I'm going to go to such and such a city and I'm going to accomplish these matters, but you say if what? But how many of you say, "I'm going to the store, then I'm going to the mall, then I'm going to run down here, then I'm going over to this sale, then I'm going to that sale, and this sale, and that sale, and this yard sale, and that yard sale, and this" Or, I'll just go over last week--"this child's birthday party, this child's birthday party, this child's birthday party, that child's birthday party, and then I'm going to." "Father, what would You have me do? What do You want from me today? What's going to bring glory to you? Here's what I am anticipating, but is this going to rob the peace of God from my life? Am I scheduling You out, am I scheduling anxiety into my day?" Am I going to schedule anxiety and then pray for peace? See, that's what--how about asking for the wisdom of God as to what you should or should not be doing, what would bring the most glory to Him, if the Spirit is going to lead us into all truth? Because to be spiritually minded is life and peace; well, spiritual mindedness. That's not just a Bible doctrine or term. Spiritual mindedness is being led by the mind of Christ, having the mind of the spirit, being ordered in God's eternal wisdom and not setting up a plan running through our day and saying, "Bless it, Lord." And that's why so many of us who have the right doctrine are just as uptight as everybody else. So it's important that we get the eternal perspective and the spiritual perspective: "Be [anxious] for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God" (Philippians 4:6) And then the supernatural peace that passes understanding comes and keeps your hearts and your minds. Have you quoted that Scripture since we were last gathered? Be anxious for nothing! You ought to go through next week, that Scripture ought to be in your mind and in your mouth, daily, daily, hourly, momentarily. "Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests..." "Lord, if it be Your will, I will do such and such."

So, that's the way the Spirit of God leads us, that's how we stay free from anxiety. Jesus said over in John 16--Turn over there and take a look at what He's saying to us. John 16 He said, "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation..." Now, let me draw a contrast here again, "In Me you will have peace. In the word ye shall have tribulation..." Are you at peace, or are you tribulating? That will let you know where you are. You can't be abiding in the Son, you can't be walking in faith, you can't be resting in God, and be uptight at the same time. Now remember, when we are talking about this we're talking about it in the same way that we deal with sin. We're talking about being dominated, habitual; we're not talking about momentary anxiety that you pull down with prayer and supplication, that you pull down with the meditation of the Word that you say, "Lord, thanks for showing me that, I'm not going to be caught up in that." Those are the tests, the trials; it's the decisions that you make; it's whether you're being dominated and habitually living this type of a lifestyle. That's what we're talking about.

So Jesus says in this sixteenth chapter, "In me you have peace. In the world you have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." It's great to be in the world but not of it, using the world but not abusing it. You see, one of the great things of abiding in the Lord is that you can use the world, not abuse it. We spent a lot of time over the last years trying to get us to this balance, to where we were not people that are living in fear of the world. We're not having to run and become monastic or ascetic in our thought processes, to stay away from works righteousness and self-righteousness. Then we share those principles, and we go overboard, and we begin to use our liberties as an occasion to the flesh. We have to bring back principles of righteousness, and holiness, and obedience, and point out that the cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches and lusts of other things will come and choke the Word--constantly warring for that balance, but one of the ways to find out where you are in that constant war is, are you at peace or not, are you content, are you thankful, are you using or being used by the world? So the Lord's called us into that rest and He said, "I've overcome the world; if you live in Me, you can live victoriously in the world; I've overcome the world. If you abide in Me, you can use the world and not abuse it. If you abide in me, there's a peace that passes understanding." So we're called constantly to this walk.

In John 14, verse 27, the Lord's speaking again, a passage we referred to earlier, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." So the Lord, calling us to that realm of peace where there is no troubling or fear from the world. "Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you..." You see I love the context of this. He said don't be afraid, and then He tells us why: because I'm going and I'm preparing a place; your life doesn't end here; regardless of these circumstances, you've got a victory that's been won. So He goes on in the twenty-eighth verse and He says, "If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it come to pass [I want you to know], that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe. ...For the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I [obey]." And then He goes and brings the teaching on the vine and the branches. Now, where does this peace come from in the context of this? It comes by the person of the Holy Spirit, verse 26, "the Comforter will come in My name, He will bring these things to your remembrance that I've shared with you, that I've gone to prepare a place and I will doubtless come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am there you may be also."

Are you going through the day looking for that city made without hands? Do you understand that at any moment the trumpet of God can sound? Look what's going on in the world today; we are living in exciting times! I was sharing in Men's Breakfast, I may have been sharing a little bit Wednesday, I don't remember. We were talking about the world's arena and what's going on now, and the establishing of the spirit of antichrist, and the growing hatred for Christ. The Europeans hate America. I think I shared--Did I share Wednesday about the documentary I saw on France, or was it at Men's Breakfast? As I was watching this thing, the thing that stood out to me was this, there was this documentary, and the French especially, of course, being very vocal on how they hate America and they hate George Bush. The largest organization behind this movement, the one that actually caused them to pull out of the Alliance and these different things: This whole group, their leadership, they were speaking and then it came down to the reality of what they were really talking about: They said, "You know, we're not against the politics of America, and we're not against democracy, if that's what the people want; we're against occupation and the occupation and these invasions." And the person that was speaking with them, the American representative said, "Well, were you against them the two times we delivered your country?" They didn't have too much to say about that. The guy told them, he said, "You'd be speaking German today if we hadn't have come over." They kind of got off that subject, and here's what it came down to, and I thought this was fascinating! They said, "The real problem is this: George Bush says, 'God said,'" and they said, "That's what offends us, because we are secular humanists. Now, we're not opposed, necessarily, to those who have religion, but you need to realize that in our country the attendance in mosques is growing and churches are diminishing [France], but primarily, we are secular humanists." You know, they are the ones with all of the geniuses, like your Jean Paul Sartres and the different ones. The great philosophers! Don't even know enough to come in out of the rain, these people; they live lives of theory, and you put them into reality and it doesn't hold up, just like their argument of occupation. It's okay to set us free, but--it's okay when it's not my children, it's okay when it doesn't cost me anything. And that's man, and man never changes. Mankind, humankind, never changes; that's what's in you, that's your flesh's natural response to everything.

None of us are any different. But we are a people called to walk in the spirit, we are a people called to live with those impulses under control, we are a people who have been taught that that natural response is a lie to the reality of God. We are a people that are taught to look up into the heavenlies, to look for Him who is invisible, to look for that city whose Builder and Maker is God. Are you living above the natural? How can we be uptight with the temporal when we know we've got an eternal reward, praise God; that this life is a vapor, in a moment it's going to be gone, and then we'll be in His presence forever? And in a world, now, with this rise of one-world government and the common market and the rise of European power--beloved, listen, we as a nation are in jeopardy, if you are trusting in this broken reed of Egypt called the United States of America, you've got your trust in the wrong place. I want you to understand that right now China and Europe absolutely dwarf us in what's taking place economically right now; China primarily, the king of the East. The ten nation confederacy of the European alliance of which the beast will rise and the Antichrist will come, the apostate religious system, a one-world religion; watch for a moderate Pope. All of the rhetoric is going to be in one that's conservative, but there has to become compromise, tolerance, a one-world religion; a unified Europe, a strong Asia, and then the end will come. There must be a collapsed America, because none of this can happen with America being in the condition we're in right now. The only way it could happen would be an amalgamation of us into Europe--a London tea party. So we're living in this hour. Where's your hope, where's your rest, where are you looking? That's what we are talking about in the preparation of our hearts.

Isaiah 26:3, we'll end with this for this morning, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee." This is what we're going to take up tonight: a mind stayed on Him. When there are so many avenues, is your mind stayed on Him? We've asked this question over and over again over the last months. Are we being robbed of our faith because of our prosperity, because of our insurance companies, because of our health insurance, because of our life insurance, because of our car insurance, because of our doctors, because of our medicines, because of our credit cards? We are living in this self-induced peace based upon credit and technology, and we've convinced ourselves we're living in faith because we have the right doctrine. The question I'm asking is: What do you do when the environment changes? Do you still have the same rest, the same peace, the same confidence, the same testimony? That's what He's calling us to.

Father, we thank You for Your Word this morning. We just ask that You challenge our hearts and cause us to be a people that live in the spirit and walk in the spirit, that are not overcome, who are not of faint heart or mind, who are not wearied by the footmen and so we can dynamically contend with the chariots of this world's system, the fiery darts of the enemy, the internal impulses of natural man. We reckon ourselves dead indeed unto fear, anxiety, sin, and alive to Christ. We reckon that, we acknowledge that, the price has been paid, it's been put to our account, and by faith we draw on our account, and we ask You for that peace to become a reality. That rest to manifest itself in boldness of pursuing the eternal, the invisible. Make it real, we ask, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Let's stand before the Lord. Thank You, Father, amen. Turn to somebody and say, "He keeps us in perfect peace." Amen. Go in peace, God's love go with you.

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