June 18, 2007

• Stay the Course by Pastor Don

  We read Psalm 95 (A call to Worship and Obedience) Oh come, let us sing to the LORD!
  Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. For the LORD is the great God, and the great King above all gods. In His hand are the deep places of the earth; the heights of the hills are His also. The sea is His, for He made it; and His hands formed the dry land. Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD our Maker. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you will hear His voice: do not harden your hearts, as in the rebelion, as in the day of trial in the wilderness, when your fathers tested Me; they tried Me, though they saw My work. For forty years I was grieved with that generation, and said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know My ways.’ So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’

  Pastor Don pointed out that obedience begins in the heart and is made manifest in life. We then went to look at what this Psalm was referring to regarding the rebelion of God’s people.

  Numbers 13:1-2 And the LORD spoke to Moses; saying, “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel; from each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a leader among them.

  So God told Moses to pick a leader from every tribe of Israel.

  Numbers 13:3 So Moses sent them from the Wilderness of Paran according to the command of the LORD, all of them men who were heads of the children of Israel. Verses 4-15 names the names of the men called from each tribe.

  Numbers 13:16-20  These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun, Joshua. Then Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said to them, “Go up this way into the South, and go up to the mountains, and see what the land is like: whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, few or many; whether the land they dwell in is good or bad; whether the cities they inhabit are like camps or strongholds; whether the land is rich or poor; and whether there are forests there or not. Be of good courage. And bring some of the fruit of the land.” Now the time was the season of the first ripe grapes. 

  We read out loud “Be of good courage. And bring some of the fruit of the land.” God wanted the people to see the harvest in the land, they were go go out for 40 days, checking out the land, the good land that God had provided. He even brought them to the land at the time of the first ripe grapes, so there would be sustenance for the people. So they went in and checked out the land and the people.

  Numbers 13:26-27 Now they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. Then they told him, and said: “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.

  They showed the people the fruit. (Heather’s note, in one passage the vines of grapes were so heavy it took two people to carry one bunch of grapes.) God gave them the command to go and take the land – HE HAD ALREADY GIVEN THEM THE LAND. It was God’s to give. If God gives you something it is yours. You may not have it physically, but it is yours. God does not go back on His word, and if He tells you that it is yours, IT IS YOURS.

  Pastor Don said, if only they hadn’t said the next word, “NEVERTHELESS.”

  Numbers 13:28-29 “Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the South; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan.”

  Paster Don said that when we say “nevertheless,” by our own words and mouth we are saying that we will never have more than the less.  “Nevertheless” is a word filled with doubt and unbelief. They saw giants there, these were the ones related to Goliath. Yes, they were giants, but GOD HAD GIVEN THEM THE LAND. They could not conceive in their minds how they could defeat these giants, but forgetting that GOD HAD GIVEN THEM THE LAND.

  Numbers 13:30 Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.”

  Praise God for Joshua and Caleb, someone the others thought was annoying. In the minds of the other 10 spies, Joshua and Caleb were a disruption. Pastor Don pointed out that at times when we want to throw a pity party, the “wrong” person comes. When you want to have a mollygrub (Pastor Don’s term) day, when you want to wallow in misery, and are happy to be miserable, pleased with displeasure, content with complaining, you want people like Joshua and Caleb to leave you alone. When a “Caleb” comes along and tells you to stop complaining, to be happy, to put on praise music, and give thanks to God. Who tells you, like our Praise and Music minster likes to say, “The first rule of holes is that when you are in one, stop digging.”

  It may be bad, but God showed you something good, so why are you calling it “bad?”

  Caleb quieted the people – who were questioning Moses. Moses was speaking for God, and when they questioned Moses, they were also questioning God. Moses was standing in the position of God before the people. Caleb was interceding for the people, interceding before Moses. Moses, could have called God’s judgment on the people casting doubt. If Moses had brought judgment, he could have in his anger, made a worse punishment for the people, and God would have honored that.

  God wants His word obeyed, we need to act with reason, correction, and obedience. God wants us to intercede before judgment is brought.

  Numbers 13:31-32 But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.” And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature.

  In the King James version, instead of “bad report” the words were translated “evil report.” When you contradict God it is evil. When God says to do something, you cannot think that it is OK to bring opposition to the Word of God. When you step from the Word of God, and say that it is OK, rationalizing why you cannot do what God has told you to do, that is evil, and the outcome will be “YOU WILL HAVE WHAT YOU SAY.” Numbers 14:28 God tells Moses to say to the people, “Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the LORD, ‘just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will do to you;”

  All the people with Moses who spoke against God’s word died in the wilderness, only Joshua and Caleb who brought back a good report, and the children of the people with Moses were able to enter into the promised land.

  Numbers 13:33 “There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.

  The people relied on their senses, they saw themselves as small. This is true, they were smaller than the giants, but they forgot that God was larger than their problems. They looked at their incapacity to deal with the problem, rather than God’s ability to deal with the problems

  Don’t call to God and say, “Lord I am yours,” then look at your ability to do what He tells you to do. He looks for weakness, humility, and those that He can use to show off His glory. It is not your ability, but God’s ability in you that makes you capable. Do not speak in the negative. Don’t justify negativity as acceptable to God. If you speak it you will have it. Be quick to repent if you speak negativity in error.

  STAY THE COURSE, stay on the path that God laid down for you. Don’t go to the left or to the right because of circumstances. Don’t change the course because the course seems too hard to you, just stay in the way God directed you. The path may be difficult, it may present obstacles, but do not change the course that is set in place.

  Moses did not change his opinion because of the report of the people. What if Moses had had fear and decided to go back to Egypt, to turn around? He did not change his obedience to God because of the report of the spies. Moses chooses to do EXACTLY what God does.

  In Acts, Paul set out on a mission given to him by God. He comes to a city, near the end of his mission, when he is going to Rome. Prophets came up to him prophesying that he was going to die if he went to Rome, one prophet bound his hands and pointed out that this would happen to him if he continued on to Rome. Paul continued onto Rome because that is where God told Him to go. Yes, the path would be hard and lead to death, but Paul chose to obey God and stay the course.

  When you get a Word of God, don’t speak negatively. Don’t look at circumstances. God has a design, place, and position for you. STAY THE COURSE. Don’t get off track.

  America is in trouble because our country wants to be compliant, to agree with everyone, moving with the winds of change. We need to get back to the place our founding fathers set for us. We are letting in a sea of confusion. Just look at what is happening in our country. When God is displeased often he permits a drought to occur in a country. Our midwest is facing one of the largest droughts in the history of the country.

  In the last days persecution will increase. We, who follow Jesus, will face more persecution, and when times are tough, we know God is saying, CHILD OF GOD, STAY THE COURSE. Stay doing what God tells us to do.

  Keep your eye on the prize.

  Remember, God made it. God set it in motion. What God sets in motion will stay in motion until it happens.

  Reading the books of Acts we can see how the disciples stayed the course, and when they obeyed God, God raised up miracles and many were saved. You can’t do these things unless you stay the course.

  The church is a hospital for sinners and a university for saints. We get on fire for God, and stay on track. We speak positive and aim for the victory. When God shows us what to do - stay the course. If your work is to preach, to fix stuff that is broken, prosperity teaching, the children’s ministry, the praise team, continue doing what you are doing. If God tells you to prophesy, prophesy. Sing, sing, What God has placed into you, do until He tells you to do something else. At times there will be a shift, and then we need to go in the new direction that God shows us.

  We spent some time praising and worshipping God, and before Pastor Don introduced the guest speakers, Pastor Don pointed out that it is important to state with clarity what is happening in this age and in the nations. God knows where we need to be to get a word from Him. When there was danger in Israel, the people would blow their trumpets to rally help. In order to do this, there needed to be a clear note sounded from the trumpets – there needed to be unity and clarity.

  Hebrews 6 tells us we have to get past man’s traditions and rituals and doctrine, and get a deep revelation from God. The church has made mistakes, some tolerate anything, others tolerate some things, some make legalistic rules and regulations, others reject all to do with church. We need a clear sound from the pulpit. For example, it is not a debate about homosexuality, or divorce, or premarital sex – it is a call for sexual purity.

  God wants us to have the Holy Ghost as our leader, and to have the church have a clear sound in the world.

  Hope this blesses you. It is so true that we need to stay the course, and the only way we can do that is to trust God. Today a speaker at our woman’s luncheon spoke a word of prophesy to me, “Faith, hope, trust.” Little words that are sometimes so hard for me.

  Have a blessed day,

  Heather

  • 9:02 am
  • 12 Comments