Bible Teaching

Calvary Temple Teaching Library

Enduring the Cross Pt.5

Amen. Let's turn to Hebrews. We'll pick up where we've been in our study. I'd just like to wish all the mothers here a happy Mother's Day. I think that's one of our holidays that's very worthwhile. So many times the ladies aren't told enough how much we appreciate them. Amen? I think we ought to have a happy Wife's Day. Being a mother is one thing; being a wife is something else. It's a cinch to take care of the kids; it's keeping those husbands in line that's tough. We're just so thankful for all the ladies and the job you're doing, growing in that ministry and learning the greatness of that position of being able to serve and nurture these children. I was telling the men yesterday in our men's breakfast how important it is for them to be more involved in the lives of the wives and the children and to realize that to love your wife is the biblical way to love your own self and to love your own body, and no man ever yet hated it, but cherishes it and nourishes it. Take that time and energy and put it into our helpmeet and into our children and see a godly seed raised up. It's quite a task. So, you ladies are doing a great job. We're thankful for you.

There's a rumor going around that Greer is pregnant. She is not. All of the rumor mills around here are sometimes accurate, they're about 50/50. We'll let you know. It's going to be July. That's the plan right now. It's pretty cool being able to really pick a time. It works great! She'll only be about four months for the Disney vacation, seven months for the Tahoe vacation, and in time for racing season. Everything is according to the Lord's will, planned. That little baby will hit the ground running. It will have its own calendar and will fit into our schedule and go. Praise God! Amen! That's the way it works.

Hebrews, Chapter 12. I don't know who started that false rumor. By the way, she did have a procedure. I mentioned that she had a procedure and some things that she had to go through. Everything is looking well there. So we'll keep you all informed. You'll know the baby is here when you see her very tired, and me still refreshed. Chapter 12, we want to take a look at what Father has been saying to us here, the ministry of being able to embrace the cross and being able to come into that personal death with an expectation of the peaceable fruit of righteousness. We're looking forward to that. The chastening for the moment is grievous. Amen? We're not in any way trying to imply that it's fun to be under the chastening hand of the Lord. There's not an immediate appreciation of the cross as we take it up. But it's the faith; it's the expectation of what's being worked in us. The Hebrews passage, let's take a look at this and we'll refresh ourselves in it. "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, [I'd like to make just one point there. You're not the only guy that's ever gone through this, or ever had to go through it. Everybody preceding us has, and you're no exception. Can you say amen to that? This is not unique. Why me? Poor me! It's everybody. Everybody who ever has pursued, finished this race, and all of us who will finish this course will go through the chastening of the Lord, will bear a daily cross. There's no way out of it. So, if you're going to finish this course; if you're going to be on this journey, you might as well resign yourself to this fact. And the great cloud of witnesses is there to tell us it's worth it. Praise God! And God is faithful. And God is just. And God is true. And so this great cloud of witnesses that is before us tells us, here's the way you're going finish the course:] let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith."

So we've been talking about this pursuit that we're in and the importance of running this race with patience, consistency. That's what it's all about. It's about just standing up under the pressure and being consistent, doing the same thing every day. We don't see any change. Things aren't getting better. That sin that seems to have been having power over me, it doesn't seem to be broken yet. The healing hasn't manifested. My child hasn't returned home yet. You just stay on course and say what God said. Amen? Run it with patience, constancy, standing up under it, calling things that are not as though they were, hoping against hope, looking unto Jesus the Author and the Finisher of our faith. It's all about faith. We want to have forensic evidence, proof. We want written guarantees. It's all about faith. Where's the guarantee that the money will come in? Faith. Where's the guaranty that I'll get healed and not die? Faith. Where's the guarantee that my child will come home? Faith. Amen? There is no peace, there is no fruit of joy, the peaceable fruit of right standing without daily exhibiting faith, calling things that are not as though they were. Faith: the substance of things hoped for, the evidence, the proof. It is proof to me. I need no other guaranty than God's Word. The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

See, beloved, this cross, this chastisement, is all about emptying you of self trust, of bringing you into a daily trust in God, an eternal hope and treasure, a redirecting of priorities and a redirecting of where our confidence is, where our assurance lies. Until that's done in our lives, God just keeps chastening us. He keeps putting pressure on us. He keeps showing us that we're not adequate. We're not going to pull this thing off in our own strength. "So let us run this race with patience, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. And to those of us who overcome will He grant to be seated with Him on His throne." Amen? And so here we are, a people that are enduring. We're walking in this thing and being daily purified for His presence. And so he goes on in verse 5 and he says, "You need to understand this: stop despising the chastening of the Lord." You see, many of us are in the same dilemma that Job was in. We despise God's chastening. We don't think this is right. We shouldn't have to go through this. I don't think I'm being treated fairly. I'm not all that bad. I'm better than so and so. Where are my blessings? I'm not a sinner like my younger brother. I've been staying here at home. I've been faithful. I've been doing the job. He's been running out and squandering it and he comes back and he gets blessed. And we're all puffed up with our self-righteousness and all of these things. Why should I have to endure this? Regardless of what perspective we're coming from, if we don't receive the chastening joyously, if we despise it, then we realize there's more to come. You might as well understand you haven't arrived at that point of death. The moment there's self-justification, the moment there's questioning the Lord, we're keeping ourselves in great jeopardy.

In fact, let me show you something. Turn back to Job for just a second, and I think this could be helpful to us. Job, Chapter 23. Now, you all know when you turn to the book of Job you're in trouble, right? But I think this will help us understand the chastening of the Lord. The thing we need to understand is the Lord chastens those that He loves. This is the expression of Father's love for us. We talked a couple of sessions back, I don't remember which one, about being able to really realize that when God is giving us instruction and direction, because we saw that chastening is not always punitive. It's not always punishment. But, in fact, much of the time it is disciplinary. We confuse the word "discipline" with punishment, with punitive consequences. Discipline is going to the gym every day. That's a discipline. Discipline is memorizing scripture. Discipline is memorizing your times tables. A discipline, putting yourself under a regimentation, a pressure and a training process, is what all of us are going through because we are being made disciples. A disciple is a disciplined one, one who has been put on course, one who is being instructed, one who is being placed into the way. So, here we are following and being disciplined of the Lord, constantly being trained and being held to regimen. When we fail to do that there is punitive action, God will punish us. There will be the stripes that we have to bear. But how are we responding to this? "If we endure chastisement, the Hebrews passage says, it shows that we are sons, that we have a relationship." The willingness to stand up under the discipline of the Lord, the punishment of the Lord, is an indicator that we are sons of God and that we are receiving the love of God. We know that this is happening because God loves us. So, when there are requirements placed upon us, when our parents tell us no, when our husbands tell us no we're not doing that at this time, here's what we're doing. And you begin to see that as an expression of God's love to you. Romans 13:1, "The powers that be are ordained of God." You're beginning to learn this personal death to self, self-reliance, trusting, and not only trusting in self but feeling the necessity of self-preservation. I have to protect myself.

See, many of us don't realize this, but when we allow these thoughts to come into our minds, we're saying this: "I have to protect myself against my dad. I don't trust him." "I have to protect myself against my parents." "I have to protect myself against my husband. He's eventually going to turn on me. He's going to do something that will kill me. I can't trust him." Ultimately, we're not trusting who? Father. To put this thing in proper perspective, who then alone are we trusting? So the question I ask you this morning is: how good of a god are you? And that becomes the real issue to our standing up under the love of God, the training of an all-wise Father. Isn't it interesting what people will do? What about the sacrifices parents made to take their children to Bella Karoli, the gymnastics coach? What sacrifices do parents make to get their kids into certain colleges, to sit under certain instructors? And here we have the all-wise, all knowing, Almighty God who wants to instruct us daily and we blow Him off. We know better. But there's one thing about this that's different than all of these other instructors. You're not blowing Father off. He's coming after you. Amen? So you might as well quit. Job gives us this. Where are you going to go? The psalmist, "Where am I going to go from the presence of the Lord?" Why don't you stop running and let Him do what He wants to do in your life? It's for your good, we've seen in the Scriptures. It's what's best.

Look at the arrogance of Chapter 23: Then Job answered and said, "Even to day is my complaint bitter: my stroke is heavier than my groaning. Oh that I knew where I might find him! That I might come even to his seat! I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. [Does anybody know who he's talking about? It sounds to me like he's calling God out, like he's calling God on the carpet. "It's a good thing God is hiding, because if I could get a hold of Him right now, I'd put this thing straight." Have you ever felt like that? I have. I've even said words similar to this. But you'd better watch out what you ask for. Guess what? I found Him and He beat the tar out of me. Listen to him.] I would know the words which he would answer me..." Do you want God to answer to you? I want to tell you something. Job's wrong in every account here so far. You can't even begin to understand. If God gave you the answer, you couldn't understand it. We'll go to Deuteronomy in just a moment and I'll show you the same principle in the children of Israel and the reason they wandered for 40 years. This is the very reason. They couldn't come to that place of trusting God, of relying on God's wisdom. The constant battle of despising the manna, the daily provision of God. I want more. I want to be in control. I want to understand. And then God said, "I've chastened you for 40 years, I've proved you in the wilderness and now I want to give you the greatest warning of all. You're getting ready to go into the promised land and you want to know what you're first temptation is going to be? To think that your own hands got this. Beware that you don't forget me in the middle of your prosperity." We're a mess, man.

Do you see why you have to die daily? Every day we have to start this whole process. You know what? We're living in Groundhog Day. Did any of you ever see that movie? Every day is the cross. You just get up and get nailed to the cross. And so, Job goes on and he makes this comment. He said, "I would know the words which he would answer me, and understand what he would say unto me. Will he plead against me with his great power? No; but he would put strength in me. [Self reliance. I'm going to convince Him that I'm capable of this thing. I'm different than everybody else. I can handle it.] There the righteous might dispute with him; so should I be delivered for ever from my judge. Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him: But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. [He knows the way that I take. He doesn't just know it He has determined it. And in every step that we're taking, God is ordering us that He might refine us and bring us forth as pure gold, to hold us under that purifying factor.] My foot hath held his steps, his way have I kept, and not declined." See, he's evaluating himself. He thinks he's doing a pretty good job. Now you see many of us that are not involved in unacceptable, social sins are in the same bondage of Job, self-righteousness. We're performing great. We're doing all the right stuff, but I want to emphasize that word ‘we'. We have great plans. I'm going to do this, and I'm going to go do this in the ministry for God and I'm going to build and I'm going to win this many souls and I'm going to preach on television around the world. I. I. And I'm going to pray 40 hours a day. See, you can't just do what's natural. The real issue is to come to grips with who you are and what God has called you to do. Who are you? Who has God ordained you to be? How does He desire to place you in His body for His glory, not yours? How confident are you in God's capacity to love, to honor and to give the equal glory to the least member with what we would perceive to be the greatest? Because I want to tell you something: little Grandma Carter who was such a blessing to me in Fresno, California, is going to receive the same glory as some of the great pastors and evangelists and apostles of all time. The way I read the Scriptures, there's only 24 that are especially emphasized and everybody else is just asked to do what they were called to do, placed to do.

So, we're going to look at this from two different perspectives: those of us who are trying to just get by the least we can do and live as close to the world as we can, and those of us here in our midst (and we have a number) that are really puffed up and think you're somebody and you're not all that. And in the process there's that chastening to bring us to the understanding that everything that's taking place is for His glory. It's not about you. It's not about programs, ministries, organizations. And none of us, none of us will come to the place where we will ever live a day without the chastening of the Lord, the instruction, the disciplines, the correction of God.

And so he makes this comment: "Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. But he is in one mind, and who can turn him?" See, basically what he's saying is this: If I could get God to answer to me, if I could have Him explain this thing, then I'd be able to comprehend it. After all, I am a righteous man. I'm doing what's right. I'm more spiritual than everybody around me. I love His Word. I'm ready to hear, and when I hear what God says and understand, then I'll go out and put this thing to work. I'll put this whole thing together; I'll organize it real well for Him and go do something that will really be a blessing to Him. But see, Job's running into a little bit of a problem here. Verse 13, "He is in one mind, and who can turn him? And what his soul desireth, even that he doeth. For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me...." Now see, this is the problem most of us are facing. We have one plan and God has something else. I want to tell you something. If you think you know what God's plan is for your life today, you don't have a clue. You don't have a clue. "What do you mean? We can't know the will of God?" No, you can't know the specific, daily directives that are going to come to you. Here's the will of God: your righteousness. Amen? We know the general will, but we don't know the specific will.

"For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with him. [Look at the next phrase. This is where we are, isn't it? And since I don't know and it's out of my control,] Therefore am I troubled at his presence: when I consider, I am afraid of him. For God maketh my heart soft, and the Almighty troubleth me: Because I was not cut off before the darkness, neither hath he covered the darkness from my face." Now the end of this whole matter, and we'll turn back again real quickly and look at that. Turn back to the fortieth chapter of Job and let's see the conclusion. There are a lot of other passages in Job that make reference to the chastening and the need to come to instruction. Job's comforters make many true statements about God that are misapplied. Job makes many true statements that are misapplied. Job misunderstands his own heart and his own righteousness. And so, in the midst of all of this, you can find in the book of Job a lot of very, very accurate theology with misapplication. That's the problem that many of us run into, because we apply biblical principles from our perspective, and where we get into trouble is we apply them toward others and not ourselves. That's a whole other teaching and I'm not going to get off on that right now. Let me put it in its simplest, capsulized form. What God's doing to you doesn't necessarily mean that's what everybody else has to do. God's dealing with you doesn't make it a corporate dealing. As God cleans up your heart, as God cleans up your life, even you men, the priests of your house, doesn't necessarily mean that's what has to be done in your family. You're wife isn't necessarily dealing with the same things you are. Your kids are not necessarily dealing with the same things you are. The principle is we are all coming into the need of a trust in God, a fulfilling of our role, a divine order. I'll just throw something out in general. "I'm watching too much TV, so we're throwing it out. Nobody in this house is watching TV." You're the only guy with the problem. The point I'm making is a right revelation can be specific to you. As leaders, as the priests of your house you have to become aware of the needs that are around you and see what God is doing in each of those needs and give counsel and instruction that is specifically helping each one. But it's going to be as diverse as there are people in your house. It's not easy to pastor. You can't just make one rule for everybody. You have general principles and then specifically apply them. What is God saying to you this morning when we're talking? Don't think about anybody else but you.

Here's what Chapter 40 says in God's dealing with Job. This is what Job's comforters were doing. They were getting proper theology. They were dealing with things that they had received in revelation with God, things that applied to them and they were applying them to Job. And Job says, "That's not true; that's not who I am." They said, "That's who you have to be. That's who I am." Now, we're all sinners. We all have sin in our members, but it's not the same problem. So we have to identify where each of us is missing His lordship, the humbling of ourselves, the subordinating ourselves to the will of God. As we said last session, "I have meat to eat that you know not of, to do the will of He who sent me and to finish the work." See, a lot of us get this thing started and we don't finish it. You have need of patience, endurance. Get this thing done. Having our senses exercised, we have to get something accomplished. I would say the number one problem we have in most of our homes is: we don't see it through. We get the thing going in the right direction and we make proper judgments and we bring proper disciplines and then we stop too soon. It's kind of like America as we've dealt with all of the different wars. We just stop too soon. Aren't you glad God doesn't stop until it's finished? If you endure chastening, then you're children. If you stand up under it, God will keep it on you and refine you and purify you and purify you until it's finished in that area. Then that one area of covetousness gets dealt with and finally you're refined, God just purges it out of your life. And now you're so proud of that, then He starts on another area.

Chapter 40:2, "Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him..." God says to Job. Are you going to tell me what to do? Did you know that's what much of our prayer lives are all about? We're telling God what's going on and what we want Him to do about it. "And Lord, here's what I think." We don't always say that, but we try to make it very pious. We try to hunt down promises that will persuade God in our direction. Has anybody ever found yourself doing that, going through the Word, hunting down all of the promises that will effect my will and then go pray them? "God, Your Word says this and that's what I want. And Your Word says this and that's what I want." And God said, "You're not getting that. "Well, boy I tell you, you sure can't trust the Word of God." No, you can't trust your application of it. Amen? But you can trust the Word. It's sure to a thousand generations. Heaven and earth will pass away; His Word will not pass away. Praise God! The problem is you know the Word and you don't know God.

So, here we're coming to know the Lord and this is basically what Father is saying to Job. He's saying, "You know about me, but you don't know Me." And that's going to be Job's confession in a moment. "You have all this theology and you know all about Me and you're still in charge of your life and you're still judging Me. And you're more worried about what all those people think of you, why you're not a success, why you're going through these trials; you're more worried about winning a theological argument than you are about standing before those guys and telling them how good a Dad you have and just saying, I don't know why all of this is going on. But I do know one thing, Dad is good." Amen? God is good. He doesn't make any mistakes. There must be sin in your life. I don't think there is but it sure wouldn't surprise me! Amen? All I know is God is good.

And so, Father is speaking to Job and He says, "Question for you"-and you know we've talked about that in the past. When God says, "I want to ask you something," you're in big trouble! Father says that all the time to me. If I'm ever arguing with Him in different areas, the Lord says, "Let me ask you a question." I go, "Oh." "Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? He that reproveth God, let him answer it." Look at that word ‘reproveth God', that's a powerful statement. Are you going to reprove God? You're going to tell God He's wrong? You're going to instruct Him? We usually do it with a three-letter word that starts with ‘W' and ends with ‘Y'. How many of you have ever whined, "Why, God? Why me? Why this?" You're reproving God. You're questioning God. "Then Job answered the Lord, and said, [and this should be something that you underline.] Behold, I am vile; [Have you come to grips with that yet? That's at your best.] I will lay mine hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken; but I will not answer: yea, twice; but I will proceed no further. Then answered the Lord unto Job out of the whirlwind, and said...Wilt thou also disannul my judgment? [verse 8] Wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous? Hast thou an arm like God? Or canst thou thunder with a voice like him? Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty. Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath: and behold every one that is proud, and abase him. Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place. Hide them in the dust together; and bind their faces in secret. Then will I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee."

That's what this thing comes down to. Where's the proof that your right arm can save you? Where's the evidence that you can stand alone? God is mocking Job. Is that where your trust is, right there in your own right hand, in your own right arm? Are you going to condemn God that you might be justified? Anytime you rebel against the chastening of the Lord, anytime you rebel against your parents' instruction and chastening, anytime you try to subvert your husband's direction and the course and you try to adopt mother Eve's methods and beguile and all of these different areas-that's exactly what you're doing right there. Because you don't trust God, because you're smarter than God, you're more righteous than God. God can't be trusted. So in Chapter 42 we see that he brings this conclusion: "I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee. Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? Therefore have I uttered that I understood not; [We do that quite a bit don't we?] things too wonderful for me, which I knew not" (verse 2-3). It never ceases to amaze me in hearing Christians, and so often fairly new, young adolescent Christians, wanting to tell us everything we don't know about God and all their great new revelation, and what God is saying and what God is going to do. And they stand, and they're prophets and they're whatever they take on, uttering things that they don't know. Prophesying out of their own ambitions, lusts, pride, ignorance, presuming to know the mind of God. I don't know the mind of God but I've chosen to submit to it when He speaks to me. I don't have to understand it; I'm just going to do what I'm told.

You know what Job is basically saying here, "I talk too much. I have too much confidence in my words. I think I know everything and bless God I'm just not afraid to enlighten everybody else." Verse 4: "Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Basically, what he [was] saying is, I was depending upon my knowledge. I was depending on my stature as I compare myself with others. This is one thing that we have to protect ourselves with. Many of us here have a knowledge of the Word of God, we follow certain disciplines that have been placed upon us, we have a course that we're on. We have a standard of holiness. We try not to compromise the Word of God; and the one thing we can't do is pat ourselves on the back. We're not even doing what the most basic Christian is supposed to do. We're nothing special. So what is it that God has called us to do as a people? "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself." What have you seen? What are you coming to grips with in your life? What is God doing to bring you to this place?

Basically, the conclusion is this, verse 7: [You've had the wrong view of who God is.] "...ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath," He says to the comforters. "Your theology was correct, but you didn't know Me. You don't know My heart, My application." Their whole understanding of God was from the pagan perspective. You do good, you get blessed; you do evil, you get punished. It was a performance perspective. It was a secular, humanistic, in our terminology today, application of reward and punishment. And God's righteousness supercedes performance. God's perspective is eternal. The things that He's looking to deal with in our lives are so hidden, so intricate, and so invisible to the natural He wants to purify because they're core issues. They're eternal issues. It all comes down to self-preservation, self-worth, all of these things that need to be dealt with, and God is going to purge them out of our lives. And it's not just the big sins. When everything seems right and yet God is dealing with us internally and there's no answer, then we have to realize that there's an eternal perspective. You can't know God. It may not make any sense in the natural, so we have to come to that conclusion that God is just, His ways are right. The Judge of all the earth does right. "Though He slay me, Job said, I'm going to trust Him. I'm going to serve Him. I'm going to honor Him."

So we realize that this is what that chastening is all about, the fact that we're uttering things we don't understand. Much of God's correction has to do with this: us establishing our own perspective, us bringing about our own agendas, us beginning to give-and whether we know it or not, we're tainting who God is based upon our own bias, our own preference, our own limited understanding. And as fathers, as husbands, it's very important that you know who God is and let Him deal with the specific, the individual independently under your care. What am I saying? Don't try to clone people. Let them be what God made them for His glory. Don't value one over another. Even if you don't express it in your own heart, your own perception, but value as God does. What does God value? Obedience. Faith. It's so important as we realize that He's going to bring us into this chastening. And so often we despise the chastening of the Lord but when we endure it we come forth as Job said, as pure gold.

Psalm 119:67 says: "Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word." We think we know right. We have the Word. We have these things. We have a course set. There's nothing that we're doing as the utterance went today that seems observantly wrong, but it's independence. We think we know. And then the Scripture says, "and God chastened me. Before I was afflicted I went astray. I was on my own course." He didn't say he was committing gross sin. But God's disciplines-He sets us in order, in the way. It's so important for us to realize God's methods and how it purifies us. Psalm 66, put this in your notes and it's a blessing for you. Verse 10: "For thou, O God, hast proved us: thou hast tried us, as silver is tried." Can I ask you this morning as we get ready to close, do you really-thou hast proved me. You tested me. "Count it all joy when you fall into different temptations, tests, trials, proving, knowing this: the trying of your faith works patience, endurance, consistency. Let it have its perfect work that you might be mature, complete, wanting nothing." I think this is the real issue. Do you want to know why so many of us cower back at these tests? It's like a test in school. Many of us don't want to come to grips with who we really are. We don't want to be confronted with who we really are. We have this image of ourselves. We have this image that we've conveyed to everybody else and God insists on revealing us for what we are. So we're always antsy, we're always uncomfortable. I have some good advice for you. Why don't you just fess up? Why don't you come to the light? Guess what? Father will love you. Your brothers and sisters will love you. Amen? You're going to gain one thing-I was talking to Forbe about this yesterday. You're going to gain one thing that most people don't have. I'm still experiencing this to a degree, but Father, a number of years ago did a great work in my life. And I just want to share with you my own testimony. It is so good to be free, to be able to say whatever needs to be said, to be open to the truth. I don't have an agenda. I no longer have a course. I don't have to prove anything to myself or anybody else. And you just do what God wants. Are you ready to experience that affliction, those trials that he speaks of there, so that you can come forth as refined silver, that great capacity to honor God? People can see it in you. You don't even know it yourself, but it's amazing.

Chuck, remember Joe Kayo? It was almost humorous to watch him there in the sitting room that day, wasn't it? I'm just sharing and he's watching. He's watching all these pastors and he's looking at me and he's watching. Afterwards he approached me and he said, "I've never encountered anybody with such liberty." Let me tell you something about preachers. They stink, man! These are people that the majority of them are prideful. They are ambitious. They are fearful, men pleasing. And they're out there as leaders. Can I just share one thing? They're just like you. They're like you with a big pain in the neck, of having to deal with everybody else's problems in addition to their own. That's why so many of them look the way they do. You have to see this. There is no difference. Flesh is flesh and you're dealing with all these things. And to be able to finally get free, and in that arena to be able to just love people and speak the truth and be no respecter of persons. It's very foreign to them, but it only comes by the way of the cross. And the same in your life, whatever area you're going to deal in. I shared Wednesday night, and some of you may have made some efforts and some of you haven't. I want to tell you something. If you're going to bring healing in your families, between husbands and wives and kids, you guys are going to have to die. There have been a lot of wounds back and forth and mistrust and different things. You're just going to have to become vulnerable and open up and speak the truth and find your role, subordinate yourself to it, trust God, love one another and He can heal you! Praise God! And He can bring wholeness. Some of you are going, "We're in pretty good shape." You don't have a clue how bad a shape you're in because you don't know what's going on. And God keeps trying to chasten you. He keeps trying to reveal the situation and you keep trying to find ways out and justify and make excuses and cover up. My encouragement to you this morning is just sit there and let God burn everything up that doesn't need to be there and come forth as pure gold. That's what's going to bring glory to Him. That's enduring the cross. That reveals our sonship.

Father, we thank You for Your Word this morning and we just ask that You would continue this work in us, the refining process. Help us to put our hands over our mouths and stop justifying all of the things that are taking place and just sit there and take what You have for us.

"Well, I don't think that person is being fair. I don't think their perspective is right." You don't know what God is trying to do in your life. You may be doctrinally and you may be forensically correct but eternally wrong, because you don't know what God is doing. The very fact of having to stand up under apparent injustice, to subordinate to apparent inadequacy, to fulfill apparent mundane roles with your great, superior gift is God's eternal good for you. The real question we end with this morning is: do you trust God? Do you believe that the steps of the good man are ordered by Him? Now, if you've messed up, don't worry about it. The good man falls seven times and rises up. Amen? Just get up. Praise God! Just say, "I'm doing it this time." Some people will stand and say, "Man, you've already fallen six times; why don't you quit?" No. Get up. Praise God! But Ecclesiastes says make sure that when you fall you're not alone. Have you surrounded yourself with people that love you, people that have vision? Don't fall by yourself. "I've fallen and I can't get up." What kind of relationships do you have? Ecclesiastes says, "Be smart. Don't hang out on your own so that when you fall you're not alone and there's somebody there that will pick you up." Praise God! Who knows what you're struggling with in your life? Who knows about the trials? Who knows about the areas of your fears so that they can be there to lift up your hands and encourage you and heal that so that it is restored as it's going out of the way, Hebrews says. Which one of us is going to get it right the first time and be perfect? None of us. And so the Lord chastens those that He loves.

We thank You for that, Father, and we submit ourselves to it because there is nothing we delight in more than being called sons of God.

Let's stand before the Lord this morning and allow Him to minister to us. We're going to have a good time tonight. The missions team is going to warm up on us, so we want everybody to show up. Don't anybody take a bath before you come tonight. Try to get them ready for the ambiance. That's gross over there. I tell you. If there's one thing that I thank God for that I love about America, it's our shower. Praise God! You can put up with a lot of stuff, but if you could just take your shower with you. God is doing great things there in Africa, and as He's preparing our hearts to go. He's doing a work in our midst right now. He's preparing us for something that's coming. I don't know exactly what it is, but you can sense God is trying to say something to us. He's trying to deal with some things here and we just need to listen and hear what He's saying and be ready. And when the cloud moves, we're going with it. You can almost sense it in some ways. The cloud hasn't moved yet but you can almost sense we're pulling up the tent pegs and things are happening. We're packing and God is doing something. We're blessed. I'm just excited about this hour that we're in and the preparation for the coming of the Lord. Well, before you go, turn to somebody and say, "Put your hand over your mouth." Amen. Go in peace, God's love go with you.

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