And turn to 1st Kings Chapter 18, First Kings Chapter 18, and
also Job Chapter 19, First Kings Chapter 18 and Job Chapter 19.
And I'm going to start right off this morning in prayer and then
we'll get into the message and ask, ask God to calm my mind,
calm my heart. Father, I thank you for this day
you've given us. God, I thank you for another
opportunity we have to meet in your house today.
And God, I just, I pray that you'd be with thee, with the
Hamptons, with Tywana, with Trey, with Ryan and with Barbara
and, and all the rest of the family.
And I know it's a tough time. I know, I, I know the feeling.
God, we, we are able to suffer with them because of losses that
we've had. And I believe that's why you let
us go through some of these so that we can be a help and a
comfort to others. But God, it's, it's not easy.
It never is. And so God, I just pray that
you'd help them now that you again, that you lift them up
and, and, and just cover them. And I pray that you beat the
message this morning. And I believe this is the
message that you've given me. And I just pray that you'd, you
would calm my, my mind. And I just pray that you would
meet with your people this morning.
We've got so many people that are in the hospital that are
dealing with, with sicknesses and different things.
So God, I pray many of them I, I believe will be watching online.
I pray that you give them some comfort and and also some some
healing as well. I pray that you be with the
doctors in each one of those situations that you'd give them
the understanding that they need.
Yet I believe that most doctors would would say that in a lot of
cases, they have no idea what the body is doing and and they
need that wisdom from you. So I pray you'd give that to
them and give them the hands they need to to help your people
recover and, and come home. And I pray that you'd meet with
us again this morning as we gather around your word in Jesus
name, I pray, Amen. In First Kings chapter 18, we
have the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal.
And I think we're all familiar with that story, but I want to
just look at a couple of verses, verses 36 through 39.
And then we won't come back here again in the message.
But first Kings chapter 18 and verse 36, Bible says, and it
came to pass at the at the time of the offering of the evening
sacrifice that Elijah the prophet came near and said, now
to back up what we're talking about here is this the whole
story is completely played out. Now he has taken these prophets
of Baal, 450 of them to be exact.
And I always think it's funny in there.
I don't have these verses picked out, but I read it in reading
it, you'll see Elijah tells the prophets of Baal, I'm the last
one, the only one left. And we know that's not true
because we see him later when he goes and tells God I'm the last
one. God says I have 7000 of them
that have prophets that have not bent the knee to Baal.
You're not the last one, but you are an important one.
And here he is on on Mount Carmel and he's fighting the
prophets of Baal. And I would not, not in a
physical sense, but he has come, come to them with a, with a, a
debate, so to speak. And he says, look, we're at
odds. The children of Israel are
following Baal and they believe Baal is their God.
We need to settle once and for all who the true God of heaven
is. And so they have that.
And hopefully you're very familiar with this story.
They, they cry to their God and they cut themselves and Elijah's
making fun of them for hey, maybe he's asleep and all those
things. And now we come to verse 36 and
Elijah times it right at the time of evening sacrifice.
Now it's his turn and he calls on his God that Elijah the
prophet came near in verse 36 and said, Lord God of Abraham,
Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God
in Israel, and that I am thy servant.
And then I have done all these things at thy word.
Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou
art the Lord God, and that thou has turned their heart back
again. Then the fire of the Lord fell
and consumed the burnt sacrifice and the wood and the stones and
the dust and licked up the water that was in the trench.
And verse 39. And when all the people saw it,
they fell on their faces and they said, the Lord, he is the
God, the Lord he is the God. And I always thought when in in
reading that growing up that it was almost like, you know,
you'll hear people that English isn't their first language and
they'll throw extra words in there and think that's what it
sounds like. The Lord, he is the God.
That's not what that is. He is the God is what they're
saying, the Lord he is the God not, not Baal.
And then you see, you have the rest of the story, verse 40.
Elijah said unto them, take the prophets of Baal, let not one of
them escape. They took them and Elijah
brought them down to the brook Keyshon and slew them there.
But the point here is that Elijah prays to God and God
shows himself real to the people there on Mount Carmel.
Now go back to Job chapter 19. If you moved from there, Job
chapter 19. And before we read this verse
several months ago, Brother Nitin, we talk fairly often.
I'd I'd love to talk a lot more often than we do.
And it's not his fault. It's mine.
I get busy and with the time change by the time I'm like, oh,
hey, Nitin, can you, can you talk?
It's 4:00 in the morning. So oh, yeah, my bad, you know,
but anyways, we talk fairly often.
And he he texted one day and asked asked this question.
He's taking a a bunch of so he didn't go to Bible college.
He was saved here, got to stay here for about three 3 1/2 years
during COVID got worked all that out.
And so he was very much sitting under Pastor's discipleship,
really teaching him as much as he could teach him, but also
taking some classes online and things like that.
Well, he still takes classes online and one of his classes in
one of his quiz quizzes, it said it was, it was the question, is
the goal of the Bible or one of the goals of the Bible to prove
the existence of God? So he asked me and, and, and
pastor that, what do you think? Do you think the goal of the
Bible is to prove the existence of God?
I think it's a good question, but I think the answer is
absolutely no, because in Genesis 11, in the beginning
God, he doesn't try to explain where God came from, who he is,
what he just says this is a matter of fact.
God created the heavens and the earth.
So it's not trying to prove that there is a God, although it
backs it up everywhere all the way through the Bible.
And so in in Job chapter 19, we see in verse 25, Job is just
going through it. If you haven't read the book of
Job, I encourage you to read it from start to finish because it
is just, it's, it's not a long book.
It's longer than some, but it's not a terribly long book.
But you see, you, you understand what Job is going through.
And by the time you get to Job chapter 19 and verse 2025, well,
let's go to let's go to just go to 23.
Oh, that my words were now written.
Oh, that they were printed in a book.
Imagine that his prayer was answered right?
His words got written and printed in a book.
That they were graven with an iron pen and LED and LED in the
rock forever. This is what he says in verse
25. For I know that my Redeemer
liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the
earth. How did?
And this is what I want to talk about today.
It's not a question. My the title of my message.
The title of my message is my God is real.
But how did these guys know? How did Elijah know that his God
was real? That's a lot of confidence to
stand in front of 450 prophets of Baal and ask God to bring
fire down to not only consume the sacrifice, but remember, he
had them pour buckets and buckets of water all around it
to prove it's not because it's dry out here because it hasn't
rained, right? That was at the end of that,
that famine and that that drought that's he wanted to make
sure there was no excuse for what happened.
There was no scientific reason for what was about to happen.
And then he prays to God in front of all of them and says,
according to what you told me to do, will you send fire and show
them that you're real? And then any and he shows up.
Now God shows up and shows all those people.
He's real. But where did Elijah understand
that from? How did he know that?
Same thing with Job. Job is here.
I know that my Redeemer Liveth if you if you can.
We're not going to be back in in Job either.
Go to Psalm chapter 115. Psalm chapter 115 and I was
going to preach my whole message out of Psalm 115.
Instead, I'm just going to take one verse, but Psalm chapter 115
and verse. Well, we'll start in verse one
now not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name, give
glory for thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake.
And verse 2. Wherefore should the heathen
say, where is now their God? Verse three, he says, But our
God is in heaven. He hath done whatsoever he hath
pleased, and he goes through in the next several verses.
Their idols are silver and gold, their work the work of men's
hands. They have mouths, but they speak
not eyes, have they? But they see not, They have
ears, but they hear not noses, have they?
But they smell not talking about all these idols.
And then verse 9, he says, O Israel, trust thou in the Lord,
He is their help in their shield.
O House of Aaron, trust in the Lord.
He is their help in their shield.
Ye that fear the Lord, that's us.
Trust in the Lord. He is their help in their
shield. The Lord hath been mindful of
us. He will bless us.
He will bless the House of Israel.
He will bless the House of Aaron.
Here's our promise. He will bless them that fear the
Lord, both small and great. The Lord shall increase you more
and more, you and your children. You are blessed of the Lord
which made heaven and earth. So the title of my message this
morning is my God is real. And in a in a world full of
doubt and distraction and deception, there's a lot of
people that are asking that question, is God real?
I had a guy at work asked me that several months ago.
He didn't actually ask that question and come up and ask, is
God real? But we started talking a little
bit about some different things. And he said it actually was
about the Bible. He said, I don't believe the
Bible, That's a book of fairy tales.
And I said, is it? And we got to talking and in
about 30 minutes, we have an atheist who's everybody knows
he's an atheist saying, I have to rethink this because not
because the Bible's proves the existence of God, but that it
makes such a case for what we already know what we are told
God is real. And so I'm going to skip through
a little bit here. I've got tons of notes.
I always over, over prepare and then I can't get through my
message. But in, in Exodus chapter 6, you
can go over there if you want, or, or I'll just go over there
and read it. But Exodus chapter 6 and we, we
talked about this with the names of God.
I don't know if you remember this in our Sunday School
series, but in Exodus chapter 6 he's talking to Moses.
This is right after the burning Bush and verse verses one
through 3. So it says Exodus 61.
Then the Lord said unto Moses, Now shalt thou see what I will
do to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand shall he
let them go, and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of
his land. And God spake unto Moses, and
said unto him, I am the Lord. And verse 3 I appeared unto
Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, Jacob by the name of God
Almighty, but by my name, Jehovah was I not yet known to
them. So how did, how did you know
everything that Moses went through?
How was he so confident that that God was real?
How was how did these fathers of Israel, these Isaac, Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, how did they know? Because they saw God work in
their lives. And so I am here in my message
this morning to tell you that I know God is real because of the
work He's done in my life. And we're just going to look at
4 things. There's so, so many more that we
could look at, but four points about how I know that my God is
real. And I hope that you do.
And if you don't know he's real, maybe you are still skeptical.
Maybe you have not seen him work in your life in in a mighty way.
I hope by the end of this that maybe you won't have seen him
work just in this service, but you'll be hungry for him to work
in your life. And so Psalm chapter 34 and
verse 19 is where I'm going to start.
My first point is I know my God is real because He's my
deliverer. Psalm 3419.
He says many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord
delivereth them out. Delivereth him out of them all.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord
delivereth him out of them all. He's our deliverer.
Psalm chapter 116. I have it written down, so you
don't need to turn there, but Psalm chapter 116 verses 7 and
8. Return unto thy rest, O my soul,
for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee and get
and this is a Psalm of David where he is just agonizing in
his heart of of where is God? I'm not seeing him.
And verse 7 he tells himself, Return to thy rest my soul, for
the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee, for that has
delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my
feet from falling. And we see this all the way
through the Bible. But think about how God
delivered Israel out of Egypt. And I'm not going to go through
these stories. You were very familiar with
these stories. How about 1 even more familiar,
how about Daniel being delivered from the from the lion's den?
How about Paul and Silas being delivered from prison?
And those are Bible stories that sometimes we look at and go,
yeah, but he doesn't do that today.
But yes, he does. He still delivers today.
And I would say that we have a taskmaster like the the children
of Israel had, but we have a taskmaster more cruel than any
Egyptian. And we have a a beast more
destructive than any lion in a lion's den.
And we have a chains that bind tighter than any prison chains.
And that's sin. We, we are under the weight of
sin. And so were they.
But they saw these specific times where God moved and
delivered them in their lives. And but we have a sin that binds
us that we must be delivered from we and I, you know, you
think about it in the Bible when Jesus was in the Garden of
Gethsemane praying, let this cup pass from me.
I don't believe that he was afraid of the pain.
I don't believe that he knew he was going to resurrect in three
days. He wasn't afraid of the pain.
I don't believe he was afraid of the of the humiliation that he
was going to get. I believe that what he wanted to
pass from him was having to have that separation from his father
because of sin. And and his father said this has
to be done. And he said not my will but
thine be done. But that was the that was the
pain that Christ was suffering. And so we are under that.
We have that same sin. Christ delivers us from it.
But if we don't accept him as our Savior, we are under the
weight of that sin ourselves. And Christ delivered us from sin
and Satan the moment that we got saved.
Bible tells us that we're out of the family of Satan and into the
family of God. John 844 says that at the end of
the verse, ye are of your father, the devil, the lust of
your father, you will do. He was a murderer from the
beginning and abode not in the truth, because there's no truth
in him. But then we are placed into the
family of God, adopted into his family, and that covers our sin.
But then in our fallen state, we still deal with addiction, we
still deal with depression, we still deal with anxiety, we
still deal with fears, we still deal with all kinds of problems.
But God can deliver us from this.
And that's how we know that our God is real.
And I hope that you have times in your life where he does that
for you, times where you've you've fought a certain, maybe a
besetting sin. We hear about that often, a
besetting sin. And you go back to him and back
to him and back to him every time it happens and you and you
confess it and forsake it and he forgives you and here you are
again. He can deliver us from that.
And I, no, no 12 step program can deliver us from that.
It can help, but no 12 step program can deliver us from
that. Christ is the one that delivers
us. Now are we automatically
delivered from sin because we're saved now we're delivered from
the payment, the penalty of sin, but we're not delivered from sin
itself. We are, we are have a fallen
nature. And so we fight that.
We fight it daily. If you don't fight it daily, it
means you're giving into it because it's there and we fight
it. But He can deliver us.
And I think the best thing that he delivers is we already
mentioned this, but he delivers us from the second death and
eternal separation from God. And David says that in the
Psalms, the Lord is my light and my salvation.
Whom then shall I fear? Nothing because of that
deliverance that he gives us. I read a story about a little
boy that fell into an old dry, deep well that was in the back
of their farm. It wasn't used anymore, but it
was still a big hole. And he fell into it and he cried
and, And the father heard it. His dad heard it, but he
couldn't tell where it was coming from.
He finally pinpointed it, rushed over there and found his son in
this well. And the father hooked a rope
around himself, tied it to his tractor, lowered himself down in
there, grabbed up his son and pulled him out.
And I got to thinking about that story.
The father didn't yell to him, hey, do this and do that and
give him all kinds of instructions.
He went down in that hole and grabbed his son.
And that's what Jesus Christ did for us.
Bible says that in Psalm 40, verse 2, and you may be still in
Psalm 34. If you are, go to Psalm 40 and
verse 2. Very familiar verse, but He
brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the myri
clay and set my feet upon a rock and established my goings.
That's how my God delivers us. He doesn't give us a program to
follow. He comes down in there after us.
He brought me up also out of a horrible pit.
I think that gives us the picture that He didn't just, you
know, He didn't just throw us a rope.
He went down in there and grabbed us and brought us up out
of that horrible pit and out of the miry clay and set my feet
upon a rock and establish my goings.
He delivers us and that's how I know that my God is real.
Second point is that God is my director and go to Proverbs
chapter 3, another familiar verse.
Proverbs, chapter 3 He directs us.
And because of that direction, we, that's how we can know that
he's real. You can tell me all day long
that something's real until I experience it for myself.
It's just faith at that point. But we can know that God is
real. Job said that I know that my
Redeemer liveth. It's not a, it's not a hope,
even though we have that hope. It's a it's a knowing that God
is real. Proverbs chapter 3 verse 5 and 6
says trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto
thine own understanding in all thy ways acknowledge him and he
shall direct thy paths. I hope that you go to God for
direction. I hope that you don't just well,
this seems like a good move. I'm going to do that.
I'm going to go talk to all my friends and see what they think
I'm going to go talk to my parents and see what they think.
Those are all good things in the multitude of counselors.
There is safety, but God is the one that directs our paths and I
hope you go to him for that direction.
I won't tell you the whole story, but when we came down
here to help with this brand new church plant in Virginia, God
directed us here. It was not a well, he's asking
for help and they need help. They they didn't need help.
They got there's plenty of people to to come help start a
church. You can, you could find, you
know, anybody in a, in a Bible college to come help start a
church. God directed our paths and it
was very, very clear. And I hope that he has directed
each one of you here to this church.
And when he does that, when he makes it known to you that he's
the one leading you, that's how we know that God is real.
It is a it is a peace in knowing that he's directing our our
lives. You know, sometimes we chalk it
up to coincidence. You know, I cannot believe that
happened, that this happened to happen at the exact same time.
That's not that's God directing our paths.
And when we take that glory from him and chalk it up to
coincidence, I believe it hurts his heart.
You know, it'll be almost like you setting something in place
for your kids for them to find. They find it and they go, wow,
who knows where this came from? This must have a bird must have
dropped this though. I'll put that there.
I put that there for you. God does that and he directs our
paths. I, I read a story and this is a
true story, but Jim O'Neill, a man named Jim O'Neill was a, a
British, a British man and he was flying a little Cessna, a
little 4 seater Cessna. He's about 15,000 feet in the
air. And he started getting a blur in
his eyes and he thought he was going into clouds or something
like that. And he said, so he radioed into
the tower. He said, Hey, Tower.
I'm, I'm, I'm going blind up here.
Well, I, I'm not a pilot, but I believe that is lingo for I, I
can't see what's going on. I can't, I'm, I'm, I'm whited
out from clouds or my, my controls aren't working or
something like that. So they said, all right, well,
where you at? He said, I don't know.
Not exactly sure. Last I checked, I was 15,000
feet and they said, well, what are you now?
I don't, I don't know what I'm, I don't know where I'm at.
And they said, all right, well, we're going to guide you to the
nearest airport. We can see where you're at.
All right, can you, can you come down out of the clouds and see
if you can? He said, no, I'm, I'm literally
blind. So this man, Jim O'Neill had had
a, they call it a ocular stroke, I believe.
And it was where the pressure was put on the glands on the
blood vessels going to his eyes. And it actually cut the blood
off and blinded him. And so when they actually
realized he was truly blind, they scrambled a, a fighter jet
that was in the area. He was already up in the air
doing a practice run. The guy's name was Paul Gerard,
and he was a Royal Air Force Wing Commander.
They told him where he was at. He came over there, got real
close to that pilot, and he said started radioing him.
He said, can you see me? He said, I can't see anything.
I'm complete. It's completely black.
He said, all right, and you're going to have to do exactly what
I tell you. I'll get you on the ground, but
you're going to have to follow what I tell you to do.
And so he did. He guided them all the way down.
They got feet from the runway. And he said, you're going way
too fast. You're going to have to do a
family around and so that he did it did another round came back
in ended up doing that three times completely blind.
This other pilot guided him down, landed his plane safely.
No injuries, no harm to the to the to the airplane.
And I, I tell you that story to say that I think sometimes we,
we sing that song that God sees our story from the other side.
We're looking up from the bottom, seeing, you know, maybe
a tapestry and there's strings hanging out everywhere.
I don't know if anybody's ever done any cross stitching.
If you look at the backside, what in the world, you can kind
of sort of maybe see the picture, but it's ugly.
But you flip it around. That's what God sees.
And so when he's directing us, we've got to let him.
We've got to let him lead us in our lives.
You know, if that if that pilot would have said, I feel like I'm
way too low right now. Well, you're not going by
feelings. You're going by the direction of
somebody who sees what's going on and is telling you what to do
for your safety. God never leads us in a
direction where he's putting us through harm.
He might put us through trials, but he doesn't mess with our
lives. And I hope we know that God's
not up there going watch this one.
That's not God. We may do that as practical
jokes. God doesn't do that.
He knows exactly what he's what he's doing.
He knows exactly what He's, and he has our best intentions in
mind always. God directs our lives.
He directed Abraham to a promise.
We talked about this in Sunday school a few months back.
Abraham several times tried to make that promise happen without
God. He went and went to his
concubine and had a baby. That's not what God wanted.
And 90 years old, 90 and 99 years old, he's known something
was missed here in translation. Not something happened.
I must have heard God wrong. And God said, no, you didn't.
I've got that promise for you still.
And then he follows through and he directs Abraham to that
promise. He directed Moses to the
mountain. He, he, he directed the wise men
to the Manger. And he directs us in our lives.
Now we've our story may not be written in a in a book for
people to tell, but it's just as important as any of these
stories in the Bible that he directed these men.
I hope that's not my phone probably is Yep, it is sorry.
So God is my director. And thirdly, God is my defender.
Go to Psalm chapter 91. I'd like you to I'd like you to
see this and we're going to read a few verses here.
But God is my defender. And the point I'm making here is
that the Bible, I am not trying to prove to you that God exists.
There's whole other platforms for that.
Guys will debate with atheists and and science and history and
all kinds of things and they will debate that God is real.
I'm not trying to prove to you that God is real.
I'm trying to tell you that I know God is real in my life and
that he wants to show himself real in your life.
Also, Isaiah chapter 54 verse 17 says no weapon formed against
thee shall prosper. He's our defender.
He defended David against Goliath and that's how David
knew God was real. Remember when David went to
fight Goliath, he said that you have you have blasphemed my God
and he's going to take you down, not me.
He's going to take you down. He defended Shadrach, Meshach
and Abednego in the fire. He actually stood in the fire
with them and we remember that story go to.
So hopefully you're in Psalm chapter 91.
I want to do, I wanted to preach a message on this, but just
didn't have a piece about it. But I do want to look at it just
for a few minutes because if you look at Psalm chapter 91 and
verse, let's see verse 11, Psalm 9111.
For he shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in
all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their
hand, lest thy this thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Now hopefully you recognize that passage Satan used that passage
with Jesus when he said here, jump off the temple.
Your angels will catch you that he's he's quoting.
So the Satan knows the Bible, but he's quoting verse 12.
They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot
against the stone. He even told Jesus that is it
not said and he quotes that verse but look at verse we'll go
to verse 2. I will say of the Lord.
He is my refuge and my fortress my God in him will I trust
surely he shall deliver me deliver thee from the snare of
the Fowler. There's, there's our He's our
deliverer and our director. But from the snare of the Fowler
in front of noise and pestilence, He shall cover thee
with his feathers, and under his wing shalt thou trust his truth
shall be thy shield and buckler, which his shield is our defense.
Thou shall not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the
arrow that flieth by day, nor for the pestilence that walketh
in darkness, nor for the destruction that wasteth that
noonday. And you'll hear a lot of
soldiers quote this verse. 1000 shall fall at thy side, and
10,000 at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee.
Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the
wicked, because thou has made thou hast made the Lord, which
is my refuge, even the Most High thy habitation.
All of Psalm 91 and I and you can go back and read it on your
own is hinges on 2 verses the first verse, and this is where
kind of guardian angels come from in verse 11.
He shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all
thy ways. But it hinges on the first
verse. I don't, never mind.
I was going to say something about angels, but never mind.
Psalm 91 verse one says He that dwelleth in the secret place of
the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
And then all these promises are for those people, the ones that
are dwelling in the secret place of the Most High.
They will abide under the shadow of the Almighty in verse 9,
Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the
Most High, thy habitation. Then verse 10 and following
there shall no evil thing befall thee, neither shall any plague
come nigh thee. And my point in going to Psalm
91 is if, if you're sitting here today and you say, I've never
seen God defend me from anything.
Yeah, he might protect me from a few things, but I don't think
God defends me. My challenge to you would be
maybe you're not making him the Most High in your life.
Maybe you are not dwelling in the secret place of the Most
High so that you can abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
Those are the ones that have this defense and this protection
from God. I'm going to give you a really,
really brief story. The church I grew up in in
Indiana, Fair Haven Baptist Church, the pastor that started
it was there for 40-5 years. And anyways, way back in the
70s, and probably Doc would know this story better than me, there
was a woman named Hillary Rodham that was just out of law school.
And she went, she was from Illinois, went to Yale, and then
she came back to Illinois and was working for the Child
Defense League. And what that was, was the, the,
the pilot program sort of for child abuse, but not, not, you
know, not, not any kind of sexual thing.
It was child abuse where they were getting spanked, spankings,
corporal corporal punishment. And so she, it was her job to to
get into these schools and to and to give these kids a way to
reach out, to rat their parents out if they were, if they
thought their parents punishment was too much, things like that.
And so she went to a school or her people went to a school
right there 10 minutes from the church, Portage High School.
And they put up these signs and one of the women in the church
that had just started coming on the buses.
I'm not sure if her husband was dead or, or in prison, I don't
remember, but she started bringing her kids to the church
there. And anyway, she got saved and,
and her kids were in the school and everything else.
And Long story short, that young man, one of her, her oldest son
was 16 years old. I believe this is in the 70s,
got a spanking and he didn't like it.
So he called this number that was being put in the in the
schools. And, and anyways, he got his, he
got the, the police involved. They came, arrested the pastor
and the principal of the school for writing the handbook that
allowed for spanking in the school.
That's how they got involved. And anyway, long story very
short, they ended up putting our pastor in prison.
He was there for several days. It went to, it went to, to, to,
to a trial and everything else. And the judge in that case told
the pastor and his lawyer, I may not win this case, but I'm going
to bleed your church to death. You will not be a church when I
finish with you. And as I as I know the story, as
I've heard it, he went on 60 minutes and interviewed with
them. The judge did.
And he interviewed with them and he talked about this whole case.
And he said, yeah, you know, they're, they're in the wrong.
We're going to bleed, bleed that church to death.
And I don't think he said that on 60 minutes, but after he went
on 60 minutes, he told our pastor that.
And they said, I believe within 24 hours that law, that judge
was dead. Nobody killed.
God killed him. And then the new judge was put
on the case and he came, he called our pastor and his lawyer
in there to meet with him. And he he got on his knees in
front of our pastor and said, pray for me so I don't hurt the
cause of God. That's God defending his people.
And I promise you, you know, that was early in our pastors
ministry. I don't know, maybe the church
was maybe 5 or 10 years old, little church, probably no
bigger than ours, probably smaller than ours actually, when
that happened and Satan turned his guns on that church and God
defended them. And from then on, not that he
didn't know before, but that pastor never questioned that his
God is real in his life when God would would move him to hey,
let's go start, you know, build this building, Let's go start
the college. Let's do this.
He'd move God. I know God is real and he would
preach, preach messages about that often, how he knew God was
real in his life. God is our defender.
And then fourthly and lastly, God is my desire.
You're not far from there. Go to Psalm chapter 42 and verse
one very familiar verse, but I want to look at it just for a
second. Psalm chapter 42 and verse 1 and
I have a story here but I'm not going to read it for sake of
time or tell it for sake of time.
But I will make the points that we have here.
Psalm 42 verse one as the as the heart panteth after the water
brooks, so panteth my soul after the O God, my soul thirsteth for
God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear
before God? My tears have been my meat day
and night, while they continually say unto me, Where
is thy God? When I remember these things, I
pour out my soul in me, for I had gone with the multitude.
I went with them to the House of God, with the voice of joy and
praise, with the multitude that kept holy day.
Why art thou cast down, O my soul?
Why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God, for I shall
yet praise Him for the help of his countenance and countenance.
And Psalm 42 continues on. But that's the verse, those
first 2 verses. As the as the heart paneth after
the water brook, so panteth my soul after the O God, my soul
thirsteth for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
If if God is your defender and your deliverer and your
director, I hope that your prayer is that he will be your
desire as well, because he's not always we, we get distracted, we
get busy and we lose, we lose that desire to just know God.
And the story I was going to tell you give you was about a,
you know, you could ask somebody about something maybe in history
or maybe about a maybe about a car and they could give you all
the stats on this car. Yeah, it does this zero to 60 in
this many seconds. It's got this many horsepowers.
But you talked to the to the guy who designed that car, you're
going to get a lot different story, right?
He's not going to tell you all about the horsepower.
He's going to tell you about some of the details that he put
into that maybe nobody else knows about.
But this is a really cool feature that, you know, this is
how it happens. That's how we need to know God,
not just know him, but be known by him more than blessings.
And we all want blessings in our lives, right?
We want blessings, but more than blessings, we need to want him.
We pray for healing often for, for we even prayed for that this
morning for people that are in the hospital and things like
that. But more than healing, we need
to pray that we can know the healer because God doesn't
always heal. But in those trials that we're
going through, the prayer should not be heal me, heal me, heal me
God, heal me, I can't die. The prayer should be, what are
you trying to show me in my life?
And if it's nothing but just getting closer to you, that's
what you're after, then let me do that.
But more than healing, to know that one that heals more than
miracles, to know the Master, the one that does those
miracles, that's what our prayer should be.
Is he your desire and I'm done. You know, I wonder though,
Philippians chapter 3 and verse 10 says that I may know him and
the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his
suffering. You know, that's Paul, Paul
talking. He wanted to know his Savior and
I'm sure he could have done without the suffering and he
could have done without a lot of the things that he went through.
But he said, if that's what draws me close to you till I
actually know who you are and what you're trying to do, let me
go through that, that I may know him and the power of his
resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering.
And here's my challenge to us this morning.
You know, if you've seen God in your life direct you and you so
you know he's real. I know He's real.
This is not just a church thing that I've had since I was a
little kid. I know God's real and you've
seen him deliver you maybe from maybe from sin or maybe from
temptation, and you've seen him direct your life.
My challenge then to you is make him the desire of your heart.
God wants more than we do to, to walk with us.
We talked about that a little bit last week with Adam and Eve.
They wanted that fellowship, but God wanted it even more than
they did. And, and here's my challenge.
I wrote a couple things down here.
Has your heart grown cold toward Him?
Has something else taken His rightful place?
Have you grown bitter and stagnant and you've lost Him as
the desire of your heart? Then, then we need to come up
here and I say come up here. You need to.
You need to go home and spend some time with God and do
business with Him getting that taken care of.
You've gone cold toward Him. And I'll tell you what growing
cold toward Him looks like you do get bitter.
You get stagnant stale just you know not really of any use to
him. You get you get mad at others.
You lose your desire to to live for him, your desire to work for
him, your desire to love the the the body of Christ that he's put
you in Bible says great peace. Have they that love thy law and
nothing shall offend them. Nothing means nothing.
I, I don't, I don't know how else you can take that other
than if you love the Lord and his law, you're not going to
have little problems with people in the church.
You know, you're not going to have little problems with the
pastor. He's not perfect.
Great peace of they that love thy law and nothing shall offend
them. The idol of bitterness takes
over. The idol of pride takes over in
our life and and my challenge to us is do like David there in
Psalm chapter 42. Let our soul long after Christ
and you make him the desire of your heart and he will show
himself real in your life. He will be your director, the
director of your paths. He will be your delivery.
He will be your defender. He wants to be He's not going to
do that for people who's, you know, only call on God when
they're in a in a situation. Oh yeah, where's that
abracadabra stick? I have God, please help me.
He's not coming to help those. Remember Psalm 91, the ones that
dwell in the secret place of the Most High, Those are the ones
that get to abide under the shadow of the Almighty and see
all these things that prove or shore up that our God is real.
So I hope that was a help to you this morning.
I'm going to close with a story real quick.
This old lady, older, older widow lady was, was at her house
and every morning she had an atheist neighbor.
And every morning she would go out on her porch and she would
pray aloud. She would say, thank you, Lord,
you're real and you've never failed me.
And this atheist, he hated it. It would drive him crazy.
So one day he said, I'm, I'm, I'm going to get her.
I'm going to play a joke on her and she's I'm going to show her
that God's not real. So he bought a bag of groceries
and he put them on her porch. And the woman came outside her
house and she shouted, thank you, Jesus, you did it again.
You're real and you never failed me.
And the man jumped out of the bushes.
He said, ha, that wasn't God. I put those groceries there.
She said, thank you, Lord. You even made the devil pay for
it this time. But I tell you that to say, even
when the enemy thinks he's winning in our life, God gets
the glory. If He's real and he's the desire
of your heart and you're letting Him lead you and deliver you and
defend you, He gets the glory in your life.
Let's stand with our heads bowed and our eyes closed.
We are going to have a couple stanzas of invitation because I
think we can always do better at this, and I'm not.
I'm not asking you, begging you to come forward.
That doesn't matter to me. But I hope that you will.
If you think you have these things shored up in your life,
talk with God and make sure you do.
If you know you don't, today's the day, it's time and I would
go back to that first point that I had.
He is our deliverer. If we've, if you've never been
delivered from the bondage of sin by accepting Christ as the
Savior for your sin, you know, heaven is great, but heavens not
the goal. Having our sin taken care of
between US and Christ, that's the goal.
That's what salvation is. We're being saved from the
penalty and the death that sin causes and we get heaven with
it, but we're being saved. He is our salvation from that
sin. And I would encourage you today,
if you don't know for sure that you are on your way to heaven
because Christ has paid that penalty for your sin, come
forward and we'll have somebody take a Bible and show you.
I can know that for sure. That is the most important
thing, the most important decision that we can ever make.
And I would encourage you not to leave here without making sure
that that's taken care of. She's going to play the piano.
You come forward if God has worked on your heart.