Welcome to the Cross Power Church podcast.
You're listening to a service from our church in Campbell, TX.
We pray this message strengthens your faith and points you to the
cross. Now let's join the service
trials. In my life I've had questions.
I know God's in control, but for me to say I don't have questions
would be a lie. We have questions.
I don't understand when God doesn't heal because I've seen
it so many times. I've seen God heal.
I picked the bull rider up off the ground one night.
He wouldn't get up and this bull was turning back by and we
rushed out there to get him in a little old deal, little old
rodeo. And he began to scream as we got
to him and he had a spur with a Shank, about a three inch Shank
and a row. This big?
Stuck in his leg like this and we begin to move him.
He began to scream and I watched the blood.
There's no way he was supposed to live the blood that was
coming out of him. I don't know what everybody else
did, but I begin to pray and I begin to seek God right there.
And he lived. It was in his order, artery, his
main. I've seen God instantly heal.
I seen him heal my neck when it was broken.
I've seen God instantly heal. I've seen it.
I can't tell you that, God. Will heal you, but I can tell
you he can. But as I preach.
Wednesday night you know God gets us ready for things and we
did not have the result of all this stuff till Friday and I
preach Wednesday night under a heavy heart and God had given me
this in Habakkuk chapter 3. And those of you here Wednesday,
you heard it. But let's stand in the reading
of the word. And I know you probably don't
have this back there on your. Scripture but Habakkuk.
Chapter 3 and verse 17. Habakkuk was.
Preaching to a nation that repeatedly rebelled against God,
much like where we Live Today. And he kept getting.
Messages from God that. God was telling him I'm going to
destroy it all. I'm going to do away with it
all. I'm going to do.
Away with this nation of Judah. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm
going to destroy. I'm going to tear down those
things and Habakkuk chapter. Three, he said, though the fig.
Tree may not blossom in 3 and 17, nor the fruit beyond the
vines. Though the labor of the olive.
May fell in the fields yield no food, though the flock may be
cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls.
I love what he says in verse 18. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord.
I will joy in the God of my salvation the last.
Time I read this. To you I was.
Reading it under great. Faith that God was going to just
do away with this. Thing and in verse 19 the Lord
God. Is my strength.
He will make my feet like Deer's feet and he will make me walk.
On high heels, Father, we come before you today.
We thank You for Your word that is truth.
It's life to a lost and dying world.
Though we don't understand, we trust.
Though we don't see, we know that You have all things in the
palm of your hand. Yeah, though we walk through a
valley of a shadow of death, we. Fear no evil, for we know that
you're preparing a way before us.
We thank you for your love and your mercy.
It's in your son's name. I ask for the anointing to
preach your word one more time in Jesus name, Amen.
So what is Habakkuk saying? Here, though, there's times.
That are tough, we have to ask ourself there's times that we
will feel. All.
Alone. But when you're alone, you're
really not alone. We trust God to.
Accomplish what he promises. To us in his word.
But the real battle of faith comes.
Can I say that? Again, the real.
Battle of Faith comes. When he appears not.
To respond to our trust. I go and pray.
With James Reed and so does brother.
Tony, for years we've been praying here for a lung
transplant and then we see it and and if there's anybody
that's had faith, it's. James Reed.
Amen. If there's anybody that didn't
want prayer but wanted to pray for people, it's James Reed.
But yet complication after complication.
We see these things. We see, it seems that God
appears not to respond. Or trust.
And if you're a Christian to the day and you say, well, he
always. Does it always happen?
You're going to walk through a time that it seems that God does
not hear. You're going to walk through a
time that the enemy will try to convince you that God does not
even care. If he does, Why am I?
What do we do when God appears to have ignored our request?
Jesus felt that way. On the Cross of Calvary he felt
forsaken for a short period of time.
Will we continue to rely upon him?
Despite the disappointments. Yes we will, but many choose to
blaze their own path and turn away from the Lord in.
Discouragement. I've been there.
It doesn't work too good, but when we look at Ibaka here, he
demonstrates. A great essence of faith of
true. Faith that we must continue to
trust. God and know.
That Lord has wisdom. That can see ahead.
He's faithful, and when he seems inactive or uncaring in our
life, our faith. Becomes at this point.
A matter of devoted. Allegiance to the Lord Jesus
Christ, not for what he could do, but for what he's already.
Done for the blessings we already have, right?
But we all come to the place. We have to ask ourselves, do I
have confidence in him? Regardless of the circumstance.
That's a big question. A lot of.
Christians have an answer to their serving.
God on a circumstance say man and and if they don't?
Discourage and the circumstance is good enough.
We'll keep serving God. But if not, we may go backwards
a little bit, or we may withdraw from the church.
We may do that. What?
Whatever it is, ask yourself. Do I have confidence in him
regardless of the circumstance? Do I cling to God?
The second question I preached this Wednesday.
Night I had no. Idea what was in?
Store I I knew. Healing was in store, I had no
doubt. And then it hit and I had to go.
Back and read this Do I cling to God and his Word?
Despite silence. I'm going to preach on that
today. A little bit about silence.
Do I cling to God and His Word? Despite the silence as.
Habakkuk do we say? Yet I will rejoice in the Lord.
I've seen many miracles of God I we've had.
People here healed here. In the last month facing surgery
for sciaticas and things. Like that instantly healed.
We know. That God does, but there's a.
Great passage of. Scripture in the Bible that says
I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
That's God's choice. But we must.
Remember that God's. Word is an immovable anchor in
the times of ours, of the storms that we face.
How do I answer the questions? How do I?
Cling to his word. I want to look at some time
here. It's that God has.
Been silent many times throughout scripture for periods
of time, but we're as I'm going to build up to preaching.
Some. On the on the birth of Christ
and what it really means. Can I say that again of?
What it really means, it's not about a tree, it's not about
gifts, it's not about the things that we have really misconstrued
today, but it's it's about a it's about a savior sent to a.
Lost and dying. World but if you've read your
Bible and maybe you know this, maybe you don't, but the book of
Malachi, let's go to Malachi, the last chapter in the Bible.
I think it's very important and one reason it is very important
is because Malachi was prophesying the great and coming
day of the Lord in the last book of the Old Testament.
There would be 400 years of nothing recorded from Malachi to
Matthew. Not one prophet spoke.
We can only go to history to see that there was silence in this
400 years. Where was God?
He had made the children of Israel promises.
They had seen the man on the ground.
They had seen the fire by night leading them the way.
They had crossed Canaan, come on somebody and they had seen the
promised land, but yet they still rebelled against God.
Yet they still fell into their Pagan religions and and all
these things and God was telling Malachi something has got to be
done. Something is going to happen.
People no longer let the word of God have any impact in their
life. That is where Malachi was at.
He could they they had had the word preach, but in in chapter 4
Malachi one it says for behold. The day is coming.
This is the last words that God spoke to Malachi for 400 years,
for behold, the day is coming, burning like an.
Oven. And all the proud, yes, all who
do wickedly, will stumble, And the day which is coming shall
burn them. Up says.
The Lord of hosts. What are we waiting for today?
Believers are I'm just going to make this simple and I hear so
many messages today. They confuse us they they beat
around the Bush. What is it?
What are we waiting for today? Those that believe in Jesus
Christ and the virgin birth and the death and the burial and the
resurrection of him are waiting for a thing called a rapture.
That's a about to take place and take God's children out of here.
The others are waiting for what, Malachi, there's no in between.
You're in one or two places. See the church has gotten really
good at preaching this comfortable in between message
and it's not there. Amen.
God said my people are going to repent because after 400 years
of telling them, look, it's this thing fixing to burn up.
Those that aren't that do not know Jesus Christ today, What
are they waiting for? They waiting to burn up, Amen.
They're waiting to be destroyed. That's all they're waiting.
I come by to ask you, what in hell do you want?
I read about hell and I can tell you there's nothing I want
there. Amen.
I don't want the addictions and the things that hell piles on
me. I don't want the sickness that
Satan placed on me. There's nothing in hell that I
want. And there's nothing on this
earth that can keep me from going to heaven except my mind
and my feet. If I think the wrong things and
walk the wrong way, I will end up in hell despite of the
prayers that I have prayed. If I do not put God first in my
life. When I read this Bible, Hebrews
10/26, we need to learn it by heart.
He says if I if you go on sinning willfully after you've
received, that's a big kicker. I've received the knowledge of
the truth. He says that there no longer
remains A sacrifice for your sin, but a fiery indignation
that will devour the adversaries of God.
I'll never forget when I read that for the first time.
I was living and then trying to figure out how much of the world
I can hang on to and still go to heaven.
And that made it very clear to me.
There was no Gray area as people speak.
There's no purgatory, Amen. There's no praying a prayer that
and God saving you and you've never changed in your.
Heart and mind and. Giving it to Jesus Christ, put
it on the podcast, put it in every first, second, third
church you want to. There is no way unless you have
a relationship with Jesus Christ.
You're waiting to burn up this morning, he says.
The day which is coming. It shall burn them, says the
Lord of Hosts. They will leave them, neither
root nor branch. It's all going to be destroyed.
But you fear my name, boy, I like that.
But you fear my name. Why do I live righteous?
Because I fear his name. Amen.
The Son of righteousness, here we go.
He's about to, he's about to figure it how God is, God is,
it's like God is things are going through his mind right
here. But he says, But the Son of
righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings, and you
shall go out, and you shall grow fat like a stalled calf, and you
shall trample the wicked. Why not?
Put the word of. God in me to make me heavier.
So when I step on the devil, I'm going to trample him.
Amen. And.
To get this, he says, they should be ashes.
Of your feet. On the day that I do this, says
the Lord of hosts, remember the law of Moses, stay with me.
The last words God spoke for 400 years, they're pretty important.
Moses my servant, which I commanded him in Herod for all
of Israel. With the statues and the
judgments. He says, Behold I.
Will send you and Elijah and. Elijah the Prophet.
Before the coming and the great dreadful day of the Lord.
And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, in
the hearts of the children to the fathers, lest I come and
strike the earth with a curse. So what was happening I've.
Often wondered, you know. God, he can wake up and he can
look down as we look at an. IPhone and he sees all the
world, he sees all the people, he sees all the cancer, he sees
all the. Tears.
He sees all the strife. He sees all the.
Dictions that he don't even have to.
Click a button. He's omnipotent, he's
omnipresent, he can see it all. But yet this 400 years during.
The From the Old Testament of the Book of Malachi to the New
Testament, what happened? From to the book of Matthew,
they're often called the. Silent years.
But during this time it there's no prophets as I said spoke,
there was nothing recorded yet God.
People thought God was absent, but yet His.
Silence was anything but inactive.
He was getting some things ready.
He was preparing just as he is today.
The Bible says, you know, used to.
I'd read the Scripture that says man is without excuse.
You know, used to. Well, I hear this all the time,
mom and Daddy. Didn't take me to church.
You can't walk. Daddy Drake all time.
What does that got to do with you?
Yeah, it can affect you, but we get in this crippled.
Handicap spiritual mentality. But see, God was meticulously,
meticulously preparing. Something He was setting the
stage. For our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ, when God doesn't answer, get ready, child of God, because
when He doesn't answer, he's fixing the answer real big.
He was getting us ready. See the.
Period teaches an important truth.
Even when it seems like God is absent.
Even when it seems. Like he's not at.
Work. He's orchestrating a.
Perfect plan. See, the Bible does not record
any of this. In these silent years you have.
To go to history, you have to look in to some of those things
about the silent years, but I want to cover just a few of
these as we look at them. What was?
Happening in the silent. Years 300.
And 50. Some odd years before Christ,
what was happening? What was God doing the Greek
cultures in the languages throughout that they were being
spread, but yet they were being lined up See, by the time Jesus
had arrived, the Greek had become a.
Someone language allowing. The gospel message to spread
quicker to all the world. What does God do in 2025 years
later? He's been allowing as I.
Said a while ago, man was it is without excuse because one of
the promises of the Bible is the son of man will not return to
this earth until. Everyone has had a chance.
To hear the gospel, they've had a chance.
It's at the fingertips. If we're ignorant of the word
of. God, it ain't nobody's fault.
It ain't the preacher's fault. You can go way beyond my
knowledge. That fast and look it up, but
see we look. At this.
Alexander the Great and. He was spreading the Greek
cultures he was conquering. God was a lying.
We look at the Roman Empire. Which was established.
It was a vast network of roads and.
And be as Daniel. Prophesied in the last days,
people will go to and fro as never before.
You can go get on a step a foot on a.
Plane in. Dallas today and be anywhere.
Pretty much in the world by nightfall.
But see during this period. They were there.
Was a lot of. Creek connectivity and
creativity. Going on the the packs romaine
that we hear about the peace, the Roman peace provided the
infrastructure that was needed in the day when the Messiah
would come to spread the gospel. See, during this period, Jewish
people were doing what they were building great synagogues that
there had never been and places of worship for teaching that
people would go and say, we can now hear some of the things that
was in the that was in the Torah and that was.
In the Old Testament and they were.
Getting these things ready, they become hubs for communities that
a place that they could go. And and life.
Centers for discussing scriptures and setting the stage
for us to hear the gospel. Of Jesus Christ and for.
Paul to do what to later preach in these?
Cities and in these places across the Roman Empire, we.
Look at some other things that that was going on the the SERPT
agenda. It was being created.
It was a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scripture so that
people could understand them. Amen.
That that they could get it the gospel out.
It was all about the gospel. God had a plan in place.
During the silent years. See it made the Old Testament
accessible to non Hebrew speakers.
They can now read what the prophets had wrote, the
groundwork and the message was getting.
Ready for all these? Things and they can read about
the the things that were fulfilled, see the hardships
that were faced by the Jewish people under foreign rain from
the Persians and the Greeks and the Chaldean Sea.
All this was being set up to deepen the children.
For a longing of a Messiah. But see today it.
Seems that the more that we should fall into this same
category of being deep and longing for a rescuer, it seems
that God's children are falling more in love with the.
Activities and the things. Of the world.
Than they are the. Messiah that's about to.
Return Can I get a witness? See the silence?
Between Malachi and Matthew. It was anything but silent.
It was a season of preparation. Can I tell you today we're in a
season of preparation. What's God preparing us?
For you know, there's two ways to look at sickness and disease.
It's it we can get down or we can get up and say, God, what
are you preparing me for? Where you taking me?
Why are you healing me? Why if I am?
Healed. What will I?
What will? I do, you know, I like what
brother Randy said. He's honest like I am, he said.
I was praying for God. I.
Healed my shoulder and he said the Spirit of the Lord spoke to
me. So what have you done for me?
I'm glad he don't. Only deal with me.
That way. But some people say, oh God,
don't take deal. He don't.
Yeah, he does. See, the silence between Malachi
and Matthew is anything but silent.
It was a time of preparation. God was aligning political
powers. He was aligning all the cultural
and spiritual things, and the circumstances were made perfect.
So he could do what? So he could send his son into.
History. Galatians chapter. 4 I'm going
to back this up in chapter 4 and five.
Let's read Galatians chapter 4, verse four and.
Five, it says. But when the fullness.
That's what the scripture. Was talking about but when the
fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son from a woman
born under the law. Verse 5 says.
To do what? To redeem those who were under
the law. Thank God to redeem us that we
might receive the adoption as a son.
That's what God was doing. But see.
Just as God was working during this.
Season in the silent. Years.
He's working in your silent times as well, when you're by
yourself. Say it with me, I'm really not
alone. God was working during the
silent years. He's working in your life even
though you can't see, even though you can't feel His
presence. I want to look at these few
lessons that we can learn in the silent times, because it's not
our timing. Write this down #1 We need to
trust God's timing. We often want.
God to act according to our schedules, to perform according
to what we think should be done when it should be done.
But his timing is perfect, just as he waited for the fullness of
time. Just till he waited.
You know, they didn't. The gospel would have been very
hard to get out of Jesus with man.
Jesus was healing him. He was performing great signs
and wonders and what did the what did they do to him?
They killed him, but yet he was God was preparing for a way.
To spread this gospel to. Get it out.
We have to trust God's timing, the fullness of time He sent
Jesus. He awaits the right time in our
life to fulfill the promises in our life.
The second thing He does is preparation happens in silence.
When God doesn't speak, He's preparing us for something.
It's no time to stop. It's no time to quit.
But the enemy is. The enemy can become very.
He can become so real at getting us to quit during the silent
times. The silent years remind us that
these seasons of our life aren't wasted if we keep digging, if we
keep responding to God and what he wants to do.
And you never know when you begin to respond in that quiet
season. You never know when God's about
to speak and answer big. God prepares.
Us and the circumstances around us for what he has planned, not
what we have. Planned.
Can I get a witness? Trust that God is shaping you
even when it doesn't happen immediately and you don't see
the results. I'm going to try to move ahead.
I'm running out of time but. Another thing we must.
Remember is God works behind the scenes, He's working in things I
cannot even see. Even when we don't hear.
His voice or it seems unclear or the evidence of activity is
nowhere around us. He's at work, He's at work.
He's preparing opportunities, opening doors that we cannot
open. He's a closing doors and opening
doors that no man can shut. But you can rest.
The next thing I want to share with you can rest that God's
promises are sure. The promise made in the Old
Testament about the Messiah were fulfilled after this 400 years.
God had not forgot his promise, though he had not spoken, the
promise remain. Somebody ought to say man, they
were fulfilled with what Jesus Christ.
The assurance to us that God promises that we know are
reliable and that he will return.
Isaiah 55 and 11 Let's read it. His promises are sure they will
happen. But our faith.
Should grow in silence. Say that with me, my faith.
Should grow. In silence, seasons of silence,
they challenge us to learn and to lean not on our own
understanding, right in Proverbs 3, five and six, that they lead
us to trust in God's character, trust in God's faithfulness,
that to know that God is able to do is seatingly and abundantly
all that we can think, ask, or imagine.
Faith grows in silence, but we tend to do right the opposite,
right? We get hung up on the thing, at
the task at hand, when sometimes we need to skip over and just
keep moving, keep moving, keep moving, keep moving.
Perhaps you're in a season where God feels distant, where you
feel like you're alone. God speaks to us.
I'll never, I'll never forget I was feeding cows a day.
We were waiting on this call Friday.
And you know, if you, if you let it, the call will just get in
your mind. And I said, wait a minute, I'm
not putting my faith in the call.
And I was out there in the mud with a bunch of old cows and I
laid over the steering wheel and the power of God hit me and I
felt that he I felt man, if I've ever felt that she was healed, I
felt it. And then the let down of what
the doctor said. Y'all been there, but see we got
to learn not to have the let down.
What I do know is I felt the presence of God, something this
world did not give me, though it was not the answer I was looking
for. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
yet I will rejoice. But see the story.
Of the silent year is reminding us that God is never inactive.
He's always at work orchestrating our details to
accomplish His glory. Isaiah 64 and four it.
Beautifully captures this truth. That says, since ancient times
no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any
God beside you who acts on the behalf of those who do what?
Wait for him. Trust that God is working in
your waiting. The silence is not an end to the
story, It could be only the beginning.
What happens after this 400 years?
It's preparing for something far greater than mankind could ever
imagine. I'm sure mankind was waiting for
the for the second destroying of creation which God had already
done. Wasn't playing with this deal.
He had already destroyed. Everything he had made.
Save what? Save no one.
The ones on the ark. He'd already done it, and he was
about to do it again. But.
But he had found a man way back there in Genesis named Abraham.
Why does the church today leave the God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob? They're good at leaving him out
of the church. And they're creating this God
for America, this God for Russia, this.
God for the. World No, he's the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob because the plan of salvation was set up
on Mount Moriah with a man named what?
Abraham? Because God found a man that
says I will OfferUp my only son and I'll obey you God, and I
won't question why I got to put the knife to his throat or stab
him and kill him and let the blood.
I'm not going to question it because you're in control.
And therefore God set up the blood covenant with us that we
read about in Matthew and I got news for people.
John the Baptist did not come say saying once saved, always
saved. He was in the.
Desert, he said. Repent for the Kingdom of heaven
is at hand. Repent what happened?
He got his head served up on a platter.
What happens to a lot of the churches?
Today that. Tells you once you got saved,
you ain't always saved. You got to serve.
God, you got to fight till the end.
You got to keep. Reaching till the author and the
finisher. But if you do what John the.
Baptist said repent. For the Kingdom of heaven is at
hand. Yes, you will be saved.
But go look up what repent. Means when you find Jesus,
repent. I'm gonna get.
To preaching here in a minute. Repent.
Will mean a whole nother thing. See the time between.
Malachi and Matthew. It was not a pause, it was God's
plan. It was a crucial part of it.
It was a season of preparation, a season of alignment.
But in our lives we can take comfort in knowing even though
God's silent today, he's still in control.
He's still in control. He's still in control.
I had someone tell me one time you prayed for that person, they
didn't get healed, they died. And how do you still preach it?
I said because God can. I can't tell.
That's all I can tell you. I don't know.
I don't know when your healing's coming.
I don't know when the wayward child that you pled blood.
Sweat and tears. For is going to be here?
I don't know, but I know God can.
But I can tell you. And your deepest, darkest.
Point is, you stand your feet and I'm going to close.
I felt this message for a few weeks and I have not.
Preached it. I felt it because I heard a song
about about it one late night. But I come by to tell you when
you, when you. Feel like you're alone when you
feel. Like God is silent.
You're really not alone. Crank it up, let's worship.
If you need prayer today, just come say Pastor, I want to know.
That God's with me. Maybe the world's.
Crumbling down on each and every side.
And you? Feel alone.
I just want to remind you, you're never really alone.
Thanks for listening to the Cross Power Church podcast.
May you know that true hope, peace, and salvation can only be
found in Jesus. If you're near Campbell, TX, we
would love for you to join us in person.
You can find service times at crosspowerchurch.com.