July 21, 2024, Message by P. Kevin Clancey
1 The earth is the Lord ‘s, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him. 2 For he laid the earth’s foundation on the seas and built it on the ocean depths. 3 Who may climb the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? 4 Only those whose hands and hearts are pure, who do not worship idols and never tell lies. 5 They will receive the Lord ‘s blessing and have a right relationship with God their savior. 6 Such people may seek you and worship in your presence, O God of Jacob. Interlude 7 Open up, ancient gates! Open up, ancient doors, and let the King of glory enter. 8 Who is the King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty; the Lord, invincible in battle. 9 Open up, ancient gates! Open up, ancient doors, and let the King of glory enter. 10 Who is the King of glory? The Lord of Heaven’s Armies he is the King of glory. (Psalms 24:1-10, NLT)
So open up, open up the gates of your heart tonight and let the King of Glory come in. We are worshiping Jesus, and He is not an idea. He’s not an ancient philosopher.
He’s not a dead religious leader. He is a risen savior. And the Triune God is alive. He actually brings His spirit to dwell in us, and as we worship Him, to dwell among us.
You can experience His presence. Whether or not you experience His presence, His presence is still a reality.
The single best thing you can do with your life is not eat right and exercise, as valuable as some people think those are. The single best thing you can do with your life is to praise God.
And that is a verbal thing. What does this mean mentally? It means to use your voice to thank and praise God. One of the greatest tools we have to do that is music. You can do it without music, but music is a tool God has given us to praise God.
We’re thankful tonight that we have David Sheldon. David is Mick’s son and just a brother in the Lord who I love. He is going to lead us in worship tonight. So welcome, David.
~ Testimony by David Sheldon ~
Amen.
So as Pastor Kevin said, my name is David.
And I just wanted to. I wasn’t planning on doing this, but I just wanted to take a moment to give my testimony on how I got connected with Pastor Kevin.
He grew up in a Christian home with great parents. My dad is here tonight and my mother, Patty, who just recently passed away, went to youth group, went to church. But in my teen years, I drifted off, kind of doing my own thing, going my own way, and ended up getting addicted to drugs. It started with marijuana and kind of partying on the weekends.
But eventually it was no longer me doing the drugs, but the drugs were doing me. They really grabbed a hold of my life.
And the Bible talks about sin being fun for a season. And there’s that time where the devil can really grab ahold of you and entice you with the passions and the things of this world to deceive us. He wants to come to kill, steal, and destroy.
And so going through that process still, you know, recognizing what I was doing was wrong.
I ended up, I think it was my mom saying, you know, there’s this interim pastor who wants to, you know, talk with you or is willing to talk with you and come to find out. That was Pastor Kevin.
So through that time where I was kind of going back and forth and struggling, recognizing what I was doing, I knew it was wrong. I’d been brought up better than that. I ended up going over to Pastor Kevin’s house, and he really played a real powerful role in bringing me to the Lord.
I still hadn’t fully repented.
I was still battling, going back and forth, but just always appreciated Pastor Kevin and how much he invested in me, even though I wasn’t worth investing in.
And so I ended up stopping counseling for whatever reason. I don’t really remember what it was, but then ended up going into a treatment center, trying suboxone clinics, all these different things and different methods to try to modify my behavior, because I thought that’s what it was. I just thought I had a drug problem. I thought if I just get off the drugs, everything’s going to be great and fine.
But really what I needed is I needed a heart transplant. I needed a heart transplant.
Jesus Christ is the only one that can really change your life. We can modify our behavior. That’s what religion does, is modify your behavior, modify your behavior, stop doing this, start doing this.
And we see that in the Scriptures. We see that we are to not do some certain things and we are to do other things. But Jesus wants to change your heart. He wants to transform your life.
And ended up finding out about a program out in Indiana called Saul to Paul ministries. It was a discipleship ministry. I grew up in church, so I understood some Christian lingo, but I’m like, discipleship ministry? What is that, you know?
Going out there, it’s a place. It was actually a program for guys who were struggling with addiction, but it wasn’t a twelve-step program, it wasn’t a rehab. Their philosophy was fall in love with Jesus Christ. Give Jesus Christ your heart. Surrender to Him.
Give your life over to him and allow him to transform you.
So leaving Indiana, I was at that point, essentially homeless and nothing to my name. I burned all the bridges with the people that I cared about. Even my druggie friends were like, man, David’s really messed up. We need to watch out for him, you know?
So it’s like I had no. I had nobody left. Nobody left and down to nothing. That’s really when I came to the understanding of realizing that even though I was down to nothing, I realized that God was everything.
And going out there, handing my life over to Christ, and he’s changed my life completely.
Now I’m out there. I have a ministry. It’s kind of a second phase ministry called Ladder Glory for guys who are coming off of drugs and alcohol out of that same program that I went through. We give them a place and try to help them with a job.
I have a wife and three beautiful children. We have a home out there, a business. We have all these different things and all these blessings that are so great.
And God will bless. Sometimes in life, the material things and the family, all those things are blessings. But the greatest blessing of all is having God and having God in your life.
We can be happy. A lot of different things in life can make us happy. Those are based off of our circumstances, our happenings. But being blessed is a position that we have in God. And whether we have a lot or have a little, we can be blessed because we have Christ.
We’ve been seated in the heavenly places with our Lord and Savior, and that’s what makes us blessed.
So this song’s graves into gardens,
~ Sermon by P. Kevin Clancey ~
25 Whom have I in heaven but you? I desire you more than anything on earth. 26 My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever.(Psalms 73:25-26, NLT)
Thank you, King Jesus. Amen.
Thank you, David. It’s good to have live worship here at the firehouse church. Thanks for sharing your story.
So, 2 Kings, dear ones, 2 Kings 19 tonight, and I’m going to read the whole chapter to you. We’ve been going through the Old Testament chronologically here.
And so I’m going to bring you up to speed on where we’re at because I know it gets confusing as you’re reading through your chronological Bible. And then there’s this king, and that king, and this king, and this king did wrong, and that king did right. And who are all these kings and what exactly is going on?
So here it is. In just a few short minutes, we’re going to bring you up to speed. God called Abram, all right? I figure he got Adam and Eve, Noah, you got that down. All right.
God called Abram and said, okay, I’m going to make a people. I’m going to make a people to save humanity.
And remember last week we talked about the Bible being a book, a book of spiritual warfare. That is capital G, God. Or as Moses came to know him, and Israel came to understand his name, which could not be spoken, but we speak it, Yahweh, that God is the one true God, but he created these angelic beings. And some of these angelic beings fell.
They rebelled against God, and they became what you might call small g gods, and they tried to rule the nations.
And so God, after Adam and Eve fell, people naturally flocked to these small g gods. And you read about them throughout your Old Testament, gods like Baal and Asherah and Molech, and these idols that people would make, and the principalities and powers behind these idols.
And really the story of the Bible, to a large extent, is God, capital G, against the gods, against the small g, fallen angelic beings, all right?
And so human beings in their fallen state are naturally drawn to polytheism. They’re naturally drawn to worship many gods, to worship these small g gods.
God takes Abraham and he says, I’m going to create in this sea of polytheism, many gods, an island of monotheism, one God, me, the true God. And I’m going to grind it into a people’s mind and heart that there is one true God, and here is my heart, here is my law, here is who I am. And I’m going to make covenant with those people.
They’re going to be my people, and I’m going to be their God, and I’m going to reveal myself to the world through these people.
And specifically, that island of monotheism is going to become a landing strip for Jesus Christ, the son of God, the savior of the world, to enter the world and to win this war on behalf of human beings and to restore the universe and to put everything right.
And this is his strategy. All right, Israel is his strategy to do this.
I’m going to make these people, because think about it this way. If Jesus had come into a polytheistic culture and said, hey, I’m the son of God, they’d have said, great. We could always use one more. All right.
He wouldn’t have been specific, he wouldn’t have been unique, and they wouldn’t have gotten the message. But he came to Israel, and when he said, hey, I’m the son of God, to Israel, they’re like, wait a minute. Who is this? And it really caused a huge wrestling match during his time with, is he the Messiah?
And is the Messiah the Son of God? And is Yahweh able to express himself in human form? Is this who is before us? And so that’s how the thing plays out.
Here’s where we are in that story. Okay? Abraham got called. They went down to Egypt. 400 years in Egypt. Moses delivers them out of Egypt, gives them a covenant, gives them a law, and says, here’s how to live in response to this God who’s delivered you. And so they live in that covenant with God, and they do a terrible job of following that covenant.
That’s the book of Judges, where everyone did what was right in his own eyes, and they completely fell away. They were chaotic and confused and worse off than the nations around them.
They asked for a king. God gave them a king, Saul. Saul was not a good king. He wasn’t a man after God’s own heart. He started well but faltered pretty quickly.
Then they had another king, King David, who was their best king.
And God made another covenant with David and said, from your line is going to come a ruler who will be on the throne of God forever.
But things got bad after David. David’s son, Solomon, started well, ended poorly. And then Israel divided. They had a civil war.
Twelve tribes of Israel. Ten. The ten northern tribes separated from the two southern tribes. The ten northern tribes are called Israel, or Ephraim. The two southern tribes are called Judah.
The capital of Israel was Samaria. The capital of Judah was Jerusalem.
And then we read in 2 Kings and Chronicles the story of these two nations and specifically their kings. The Bible says when the kings would worship God, the land would be blessed. When the kings were evil and would worship the false gods, the land would be cursed.
For hundreds of years, the northern king, Israel, had it’s a real easy number to remember zero kings who worship Yahweh faithfully.
And in 722 BC, 722 years before Christ, the Assyrians out of Nineveh came to Israel as God warned them through the prophets. They captured them and they exiled them. And those ten tribes have been lost. They’re the ten lost tribes of Israel.
All right. When the little latter-day saint boys come to your front door and say, oh, no, those were the American Indians, don’t believe them. It’s not true. They weren’t the American Indians. They were lost, they were exiled.
They were intermingled, and they just became a part of the Arab world because in the southern kingdom there were several good kings. They did not get exiled nearly as quickly. And the best of those kings, from the time of King David until they were finally exiled in 586 BC, is King Hezekiah.
And that’s where we are in the story. We’re in the 600s. Israel has already been exiled. Isaiah is now a prophet to Judah. And King Hezekiah, a good king, a righteous king, is ruling over the southern kingdom, Jerusalem.
And the Assyrians are still the big dog in the region. And the Assyrians are just attacking everybody in the Middle East, wiping them out and exiling their people and garnering their wealth. They’re the power, and they come to Jerusalem. And that’s where our story begins.
2 Kings 19.
So there you go. Ten minutes of Bible history get you up to date. Y’all follow. Now y’all know where we ate. All right. All right, here we go. I’m going to read the whole chapter.
1 When King Hezekiah heard their report, he tore his clothes and put on burlap and went into the Temple of the Lord. 2 And he sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the court secretary, and the leading priests, all dressed in burlap, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. 3 They told him, “This is what King Hezekiah says: Today is a day of trouble, insults, and disgrace. It is like when a child is ready to be born, but the mother has no strength to deliver the baby. 4 But perhaps the Lord your God has heard the Assyrian chief of staff, sent by the king to defy the living God, and will punish him for his words. Oh, pray for those of us who are left!” 5 After King Hezekiah’s officials delivered the king’s message to Isaiah, 6 the prophet replied, “Say to your master, ‘This is what the Lord says: Do not be disturbed by this blasphemous speech against me from the Assyrian king’s messengers. 7 Listen! I myself will move against him, and the king will receive a message that he is needed at home. So he will return to his land, where I will have him killed with a sword.'” 8 Meanwhile, the Assyrian chief of staff left Jerusalem and went to consult the king of Assyria, who had left Lachish and was attacking Libnah. 9 Soon afterward King Sennacherib received word that King Tirhakah of Ethiopia was leading an army to fight against him. Before leaving to meet the attack, he sent messengers back to Hezekiah in Jerusalem with this message: 10 “This message is for King Hezekiah of Judah. Don’t let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you with promises that Jerusalem will not be captured by the king of Assyria. 11 You know perfectly well what the kings of Assyria have done wherever they have gone. They have completely destroyed everyone who stood in their way! Why should you be any different? 12 Have the gods of other nations rescued them such nations as Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Tel-assar? My predecessors destroyed them all! 13 What happened to the king of Hamath and the king of Arpad? What happened to the kings of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?” 14 After Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it, he went up to the Lord ‘s Temple and spread it out before the Lord. 15 And Hezekiah prayed this prayer before the Lord : “O Lord, God of Israel, you are enthroned between the mighty cherubim! You alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You alone created the heavens and the earth. 16 Bend down, O Lord, and listen! Open your eyes, O Lord, and see! Listen to Sennacherib’s words of defiance against the living God. 17 “It is true, Lord, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed all these nations. 18 And they have thrown the gods of these nations into the fire and burned them. But of course the Assyrians could destroy them! They were not gods at all only idols of wood and stone shaped by human hands. 19 Now, O Lord our God, rescue us from his power; then all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you alone, O Lord, are God.” 20 Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent this message to Hezekiah: “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I have heard your prayer about King Sennacherib of Assyria. 21 And the Lord has spoken this word against him: “The virgin daughter of Zion despises you and laughs at you. The daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head in derision as you flee. 22 “Whom have you been defying and ridiculing? Against whom did you raise your voice? At whom did you look with such haughty eyes? It was the Holy One of Israel! 23 By your messengers you have defied the Lord. You have said, ‘With my many chariots I have conquered the highest mountains yes, the remotest peaks of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars and its finest cypress trees. I have reached its farthest corners and explored its deepest forests. 24 I have dug wells in many foreign lands and refreshed myself with their water. With the sole of my foot I stopped up all the rivers of Egypt!’ 25 “But have you not heard? I decided this long ago. Long ago I planned it, and now I am making it happen. I planned for you to crush fortified cities into heaps of rubble. 26 That is why their people have so little power and are so frightened and confused. They are as weak as grass, as easily trampled as tender green shoots. They are like grass sprouting on a housetop, scorched before it can grow lush and tall. 27 “But I know you well where you stay and when you come and go. I know the way you have raged against me. 28 And because of your raging against me and your arrogance, which I have heard for myself, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth. I will make you return by the same road on which you came.” 29 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Here is the proof that what I say is true: “This year you will eat only what grows up by itself, and next year you will eat what springs up from that. But in the third year you will plant crops and harvest them; you will tend vineyards and eat their fruit. 30 And you who are left in Judah, who have escaped the ravages of the siege, will put roots down in your own soil and will grow up and flourish. 31 For a remnant of my people will spread out from Jerusalem, a group of survivors from Mount Zion. The passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will make this happen! 32 “And this is what the Lord says about the king of Assyria: “His armies will not enter Jerusalem. They will not even shoot an arrow at it. They will not march outside its gates with their shields nor build banks of earth against its walls. 33 The king will return to his own country by the same road on which he came. He will not enter this city, says the Lord. 34 For my own honor and for the sake of my servant David, I will defend this city and protect it.” 35 That night the angel of the Lord went out to the Assyrian camp and killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. When the surviving Assyrians woke up the next morning, they found corpses everywhere. 36 Then King Sennacherib of Assyria broke camp and returned to his own land. He went home to his capital of Nineveh and stayed there. 37 One day while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with their swords. They then escaped to the land of Ararat, and another son, Esarhaddon, became the next king of Assyria. (2 Kings 19:1-37, NLT)
God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, Lord, our Rock, our Strength, and our Redeemer.
So just because you’re a righteous king doesn’t mean that bad things aren’t going to happen? Kind of.
When you read through Kings and Chronicles, it seems like that’s what it says. If the kings were bad, bad things happened. If the kings were good, good things happened. What do we call that? Kathleen? Retributive theology? All right, all right.
Good things happen to good people. Bad things happen to bad people. It’s true. A lot of that is true, but it’s not absolutely true. Bad things happen to good people.
And the Bible struggles with, why do the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer? And so Hezekiah is a good king. But Assyria is this mighty army, this mighty nation. And they come and they lay siege to Jerusalem.
Hezekiah knew they were coming. He built a canal to supply water during the siege, before the Assyrians got there. He was a wise king. And the Assyrian army gets out there. And if you read in 2 Kings 18, they mock Israel. They mock Israel’s God several times. They say, don’t trust your God.
They tell the people of Israel, don’t listen to Hezekiah. Your God’s not going to deliver you. We’ve captured all these other countries, all these other fortified cities. Their gods didn’t help them. Your God’s not going to help you.
And they continue to just kind of mock and threaten. And Hezekiah hears this. They’re outside of his city. They’re surrounding it. They’re going to starve them out. Like, that’s what siege warfare is. You just starve them out.
You surround the city until they go hungry or until their water runs out. They’re going to starve them out until they come out and fight.
Basically, here’s how it went. The army would surround the city, and they would say this: the spokesperson of the king, or the king himself, would say, here’s what we’re going to do. If you come out and surrender, we won’t kill you. We’ll take you back to Assyria and we’ll relocate you. You’ve got vineyards and crops in Jerusalem; you’re going to have vineyards and crops in Assyria.
We’ll give you land. You’ll be fine. We’re going to send Assyrians into your land, and they’re going to live in your land. Basically, we won’t kill you. You have to leave your homes, you have to leave your country, you have to become Assyrians. But we won’t kill you. But if you fight, you’re all going to die. You’re all going to die. We’re just going to wipe you out.
So that was the deal. But this is God’s place. This is Jerusalem. We’re not going to do that. King Hezekiah is not going to do that.
And so King Hezekiah does some incredibly wise things. The first thing King Hezekiah does is he takes the threat seriously. This is for real. There’s a powerful army surrounding our city. They’re bigger than us, they’re stronger than us, they got more arrows than us, they got bigger chariots than us. What are we going to do?
And so he mourned for the threat that was to Israel. He recognized the threat was real. He didn’t take it glibly, nor did he surrender, but he did grieve it. He took it seriously.
And when you take something seriously, Hezekiah knew exactly what to do next as a righteous kingdom. He said, go to the prophet Isaiah, because we need to hear from God. We need to hear from God. What does God say about this situation?
And so they listen for the prophet. Dear ones, there are going to be armies surrounding you some days. There are going to be seasons of your life where it’s either unemployment, where it’s relationship trouble, where it’s health issues, where it’s addiction. There are going to be seasons in your life.
Whether it’s a prodigal child, there are going to be seasons in your life. And it’s like. And the taunts of the devil are coming, and you’re going to need to hear from God.
Let me tell you something, there are two ways to hear from God. The first way, we call the Greek word, we call it the logos. That is the mind of God. In other words, you’re so immersed in the biblical worldview that you know the will of the Lord in this situation. You’re just immersed in it. You know the right thing. Right.
Somebody sins grievously against you, and if you’re like me and somebody sins grievously against you, you think of ways to pay them back. All right? That’s, you know, and I’m not physically strong. I can’t fight. And so I get all passive aggressive.
I think of ways to make them look foolish. I think of ways to win an argument. I think of sneaking out at night and putting a rock through their window. Just something they don’t get caught just being just. How do I get them back?
But then there’s the logos.
I’ve read the Bible for 40 years, and what does the Bible say about that? Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, forgive those who have hurt you. And if there’s going to be any vindication, it’s going to come from God, not you.
And so I got to do nothing. I got to do nothing. Oh, man. And you know, the hardest one for me, obviously, as I already said, physical confrontation is out. You know, unless the person is really puny, physical confrontation is out. All right.
But, oh, to get into a verbal with somebody and to be able to be sarcastic and, you know, and just do my best to make them look stupid and feel puny. And I’ve had so many of those discussions all by myself in the shower. I’ve won every one. I always win. I always make them look bad. I’m always clever and witty, powerful, and then the voice of the spirit comes.
You know you can’t say that, right? You know you can’t do that, right? See, I know the logos of God.
I don’t need a. I don’t need a prophet to come tell me to love my enemies and forgive my offenders. I don’t need a prophetic word. I don’t need to go to a charismatic service and have somebody say, thus saith the Lord.
I’ve read the book. It’s in the book. People come to churches like ours and they say, oh, pastor, I need a word from the Lord. Well, read your Bible. Lots of words in there. This is a prophetic book.
And so Hezekiah needs the word of God.
But then there’s the other word of God, and that is the rhema word. That is the specific word. That is the now word. That’s the word in season.
Let me give you the example. If you’re a young man or a young woman, the Bible, the logos, tells you to marry a believer, marry somebody who has your same worldview, your same values, your same principles. It’s hard enough to be married when you’re on the same page, let alone twelve pages apart. All right?
You don’t need a prophetic word for, you know, listen, you know, girls, someday some guys, you know, he better be a Christian. He better love Jesus, all right? Or your dad and I are going to show up at his front door, and he will either love Jesus after that conversation or not. And you don’t want to subject a young man to that. So find one who loves Jesus so that doesn’t happen to him.
Okay, we’re clear on that. All right, good.
All right, so here’s the deal. But.
So the logos tells you to marry somebody like that. But the logos doesn’t tell you which one to marry. But the rhema might, right, Jake? The Lord might speak to you and say, hook up with the Clancy clan, because there’s not enough craziness in your life.
And the Lord spoke to him about Caitlin. The Lord spoke to me about Jill. Now, that doesn’t mean how he’s going to have all of you get married. Not all of you are.
The Lord is going to put his finger on that person and say, that’s the person you’re going to marry. But with some of you, yes. And so both are legitimate.
And I’ve got evangelical friends, and they’re so afraid of the prophetic. They’re so afraid of. Oh, the prophetic totally throws out the Bible. Well, no, it doesn’t, because the Bible says, earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially that you might prophesy. Hello. It’s in the Bible. It’s in the inerrant, infallible word of God. It doesn’t have. It doesn’t denigrate the scripture. It fulfills the scripture.
You know, if somebody says, I have a word of God, word from God for you, it’s like, oh, call 911. But there are other people, my charismatic friends, and they’re running around for a prophetic word and trying to get the word of the Lord. And Lord, speak to me. It’s like, well, read your Bible, dude. Get some logos in you.
And so it’s not either or. It’s both. And. All right. The logos says, preach the word of God. Share Jesus. The rhema says, Kevin, you’re called to do it as a vocation.
And the rhema said, do it in the Pacific Northwest. Do it in Bremerton and Poulsbo.
So Hezekiah sought the word of the Lord, and the prophet Isaiah gave him the word of the Lord. Then the second time, they mock him again. See, here’s what happens. The word of the Lord is fulfilled. They’re not going to attack you. The king gets a report that there’s an attack forming on his army somewhere else. And so he withdraws his troop. He withdraws the siege from Jerusalem to go deal with that threat. But he sends a message.
He says, we’re coming back. We’re coming back.
And now Hezekiah says, you know what? I don’t need to talk to Isaiah. Here’s what I need to do. I need to go lay this letter before God, and I need to go into the temple and pray.
Dear ones, sometimes we need the church to help us. We need the prophet to speak into our lives. We need one another to bear one another’s burdens.
And that is so true in life, because life will sometimes hit us hard. We can’t do it by ourselves when there’s a loss of a job, a death in the family, some tragedy, or some illness. We need the body of Christ to come around us, to pray for us, and to carry us.
The Bible talks about bearing one another’s burdens. But you know what? There are other times when there’s a crisis, and we need to just strengthen ourselves in the Lord. David confronted a crisis. The city where all their…
All of David’s men’s wives and children were raided. While David and his men were out on a campaign, they were kidnapped and taken. David’s loyal, mighty men now wanted to kill him. They wanted him out. They wanted him ousted. I mean, they were like a bunch of democrats after a bad debate. Just saying, and here’s what David did. The Bible says David went and strengthened himself in the Lord.
Hezekiah had already spoken with Isaiah, but now he said, you know what? I need to go to talk.
I need to go talk to God. I have a relationship with God. I don’t need a relationship with God through somebody else.
I’m going to Africa in the beginning of October, and I’m going to visit Laurie and Rob Mangus and preach at the Grace Covenant Conference for the churches in West Africa. Laurie and Rob have spoken at our church before, and Rob’s a marine. I always like to say he was a marine, but whenever you say that to a marine, they get all offended. They get all, you know, tough guy on you.
What’s a marine? Always marine. Yeah. It’s like, everybody else wants to get out of the service. Marines like, where’s the fight? Where’s the fight? We got a fight.
So Rob goes. Rob and Laurie go to Nigeria. Their first year. Before they go to Ghana, they go to Nigeria. Had the worst first year of any missionaries. You hear these horror stories about the first year, but they had a horrible first year. Horrible first year on the mission field. Everything that could go wrong, they were robbed, they got sick.
The pastor who was going to be there and be their support decided he wanted a minister in America and never came back to Nigeria, although he invited them to go there. It was just a terrible, terrible year.
And I asked Laurie about that. I said, Laurie, that was a hard year. She goes, that was such a hard year. I said, did your husband comfort you? She said, yeah, sort of. I said, well, how did he comfort you? She said, I went to him, I said, Rob, this is so hard.
Our health, our finances, our support, it’s so hard. And I said, well, what did he say? He said he put his arm around me gently and tenderly, looked at my eyes, and said, suck it up, buttercup. Thanks, honey. Thanks. That’s a marine. That’s as tender as they get. Suck it up, buttercup.
You know, we bear one another’s burdens. Other times, dear ones, you gotta pick it up. You gotta strengthen yourself in the Lord. You gotta have a relationship with God.
Oh, I went to church, and the church hurt my feelings. You know what? Yeah. You know why that church hurt your feelings? Because it was made up of people.
Yeah, but those people are Christians. They should be better. Yeah, you’re a Christian and you should be better, too. Suck it up, Buttercup. You’re with wounded people. Strengthen yourself in the Lord. You be the answer to the problem. You see, instead of being the problem.
Now, I realize there’s abuse and other things. I realize there’s times to leave churches and all that kind of stuff.
I’m not saying that. What I am saying is we tend to be in a little bit. As the pendulum swings, we tend to be in a little bit of an oversensitive culture right now, all right?
And I love the fact that Hezekiah, all right, I need the word from Isaiah. I need the prophet. But the second time, it’s like, I need God. I need God. And he goes and he prays, and God answers him. And he says that Judah will be delivered.
He said, the prophet still speaks to Hezekiah after Hezekiah goes to the Lord. The prophet hears the word of the Lord and says, tell Hezekiah. The Lord says, tell Hezekiah, I heard his prayer.
And so Isaiah goes and says, the Lord heard your prayer. And here’s what he said. You’re going to be delivered. They’re not going to enter Jerusalem. They’re not going to shoot an arrow. Their threats are empty.
By the way, I love Hezekiah’s prayer. Hezekiah doesn’t pray. Lord, they’re picking on us. You know, it’s going to protect us, save us.
Those are all legitimate prayers. Lord, protect your people. But here’s what Hezekiah says. Lord, they’re trash talking you. This is about your glory, God. Jerusalem exists for your glory, Yahweh. It exists to be a light on a hill. It exists to be different. If Jerusalem is destroyed, what will the nation say?
Moses used to pray that way, too. I got to tell you, we seek for guidance in our life. Lord, what’s my destiny? What’s best for my life? I’ll tell you what your destiny is. What’s best for your life. Live to glorify God.
That’s your destiny. That’s what’s best for your life. Where. Where you’re planted. Well, when should I move? When God tells you to move.
But live for the glory of God.
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.6Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. (Proverbs 3:5, NLT)
God, what’s my specific calling? Love your wife. Be a good dad to your kids. Love your neighbor. Yeah, but that’s so mundane, that’s so general. Yeah, do that. Become a disciple of Jesus. I love that.
I was listening to the song History Maker today by Delirious, and they’re in a huge auditorium singing before a great crowd.
Martin Smith gets up there and he says, being a history maker is not so much about this. What, being a rock star in front of a huge crowd. And then he goes on and says, being humble, being a good friend, being a good spouse, you want to shape history. The first place is in your home.
The first place is just with your feet on the ground in your local church, in your home, in your community, in your workplace, in your neighborhood, following Jesus.
I got a feeling when we get to heaven, all the people that we thought were famous and great and amazing, you know, I’m sure many of them have just been faithful and great and amazing. But I got a feeling that we’re going to see a bunch of heroes that the history books never recorded. We’re not going to see the Billy Grahams.
We’re going to see the people who interceded for the Billy Grahams.
Winston Churchill was a great hero that rose up and led the world to defy Nazi Germany, a terrible cruelty that came upon the earth. Very few people know that Winston Churchill’s nanny was a devout Christian when he had two dysfunctional parents and taught him the Scriptures.
Although Winston Churchill was not a godly man, he still was so infused with the Christian worldview from that nanny. When they were fighting Hitler, he said we are fighting to defend Christian civilization, the greatest civilization known to the human race to this time, with a bottle of scotch in one hand and a cigar in the other.
You know, Winston Churchill one time was at the White House, and the butler came in. You know, let’s say the butler’s name was Charles.
I don’t know what his name was, but the butler came in and saw Winston Churchill late at night, alone with a drink in his hand. He said, Charles, I’m so glad you came in. And Charles said, why is that, sir? He says, well, if the wicked rumor ever comes out that I’m a teetotaler, I expect you can correct it.
And yet, perhaps because of an anonymous godly nanny, western civilization was saved.
There are history makers and heroes who will never know until the next life because they simply had a relationship with God and lived their lives for God’s glory and honor in this world. And God will answer that.
And so Judah will be delivered, Assyria will return home, and Sennacherib will be killed by his own children.
I love you, Caitlin, but if you do it, do it quickly. And it all came to pass.
All right, this has relevance just as a story to tell us and to teach us the ways of God.
I think it also, though, is a picture for us in the contemporary world of spiritual warfare. It is a picture of the warfare that we battle. The armies of the enemy sometimes surround us with taunts, and we’ve all heard them. They come at us at different times. The most common one, I think, that most of us have heard is the oh, and you call yourself a Christian because we failed one more time at being perfect.
And the enemy tries to discourage us, tries to defeat us, tries to tear us down, tries to get us to stop and quit pursuing Jesus and quit putting one foot in front of the other.
The other big temptation the devil gives us is to take a, you know, somebody says something or does something and we’re like, get all hurt about it and we don’t forgive, and we just carry the offense with us.
And these are the attacks. These are the basic attacks of the enemy. And the enemy taunts.
And I want to tell you that the threats are real, that these threats, that if we fall into those traps, that if we quit or we get overly discouraged, or if we take offense and we fight back, then those are real bad things that then can happen because of that, the threats are real.
And so what do we do when we are attacked by the enemy, which is constant? Listen, if you’re not being attacked by the devil, you’re not serving the kingdom of God. So don’t.
You’re not a bad Christian if you’re getting attacked. You’re a good Christian if you’re getting attacked. All right, he’s wasting his arrows on you, which means he can’t shoot them at somebody else.
But here’s what you do. You do what Hezekiah does. You seek the word of the Lord. What does God say about this? What does the word of God say about this?
Well, the word of God says, don’t take offense. Forgive the offender. The word of God says, don’t believe the discouragement. Don’t believe the discouragement.
But look to the encourager and don’t quit, but have faith and to hold on and to hold on to hope and to practice love and to endure to the end with the strength and the grace that God gives you. And so you seek the word of God. And sometimes there are different times where you’ll get a specific rhema, word of God, a detailed word of God that will apply to your life, and it’ll be like. It’ll set you free. Be like. That’s what I needed to hear. It was the right word at the right time.
I remember the first time in my life I was tempted. I was a young Christian, and this girl, I had done something kind of. Actually, my friend had done something kind of rude, and I laughed at it because I was a high school boy, and high school boys are stupid, and they laugh at rude things.
My friend had thrown like a piece of sandwich at these two girls, and I thought it was funny, and so I laughed.
Later, I realized it wasn’t funny, and so I went to apologize to one of these little girls. I went to apologize to her, and I said, hey, Joan, I’m really sorry about what my friend did, and I’m sorry I laughed.
Joan had already taken offense. Joan went, humph, and turned around and walked away. She did not accept my humble apology. Well, you know what I did? I took offense at her offense. Humph to you. I’ll double humph you. I’ll see a humph and raise a humph.
And I went home, and I was a young Christian. I was all mad at Joan and wanting to talk to me. And I humbled myself before her. Who does she think she is? Just because she’s a little cheerleader, a little hoity toity, I open up my Bible. It wasn’t even the words of the scripture. It was one of the headlines of the scripture. You know how the Bible has the little pericopes before the, I mean, the little headline before the pericope, you know, summarizes what’s about to be said. And here’s what it said.
Forgiveness for the offender. Holy Spirit came in the room and said, stop your humph. And you forgive Joan for not forgiving you. It’s the word of the Lord.
For three months, I was nice to Joan, and she didn’t talk to me. Three months. Hi, Joan. How you doing?
One day we were late for French class. Normal for me. A rarity for her. She was a little later. Don’t worry, James. I’m almost done, buddy. A little later for me, she was a little later than me.
I held the door open for Joan, and as she walked by, I said, even if you won’t talk to me, I’ll hold the door open for you. And this little voice comes back and says, thank you. And Joan started talking to me, and a friendship was restored.
Seek the word of the Lord. In spiritual struggle, God will give you the logos word. You know what you’re supposed to do in general, but he’ll give you specific strategies of how to deal with whatever you’re dealing with.
Commit yourself to pray for the glory of God.
Lord, be glorified in this situation. Not just get me out of trouble, not just get me out of pain, but be glorified in this situation.
Lord, let this circumstance, which is uncomfortable for me, which is difficult for me, bring glory and honor to your name. I’m your dime. Spin me how you want instead of God. Bless me, bless me, bless me. Make my life happy and rich and prosperous. I’m down with all that. I’m not against that. I want you all to be happy.
You know, I think the whole world should be as happy as Kathleen. I just do. That’d be great.
But you know what? My immediate happiness is not the top of God’s agenda. God’s agenda is to make me like Jesus and to pray that whatever circumstance I find myself in, whatever the devil throws me into, the best way to defeat the devil is not to pray. Oh, God, deliver me and make me better. The best way is to say, God, be glorified in this situation.
Oh, the devil hates that prayer now.
He’s defeated because no matter what he does, he loses because God is glorified. Pray that prayer long enough, maybe he’ll start leaving you alone. You might get sick of that prayer. God, be glorified in this situation. Let your name be honored and God will deliver you, and God will defeat your enemies.
How do I know this? Jesus Christ rose from the dead. That’s the decisive battle. Remember, I started with the island of monotheism amongst the sea of polytheism. All right, God against the gods. This spiritual struggle.
And Psalm 22 is a prophetic picture of Jesus on the cross. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Jesus points us to that psalm, and in that psalm he says, the bulls of Bashan. These demonic creatures have surrounded me. These howling dogs, these wolves, they’re all around me.
And it’s like Jesus on the cross. It’s not enough that the Pharisees are mocking him. It’s not enough that the passersby are wagging their heads and mocking him. It’s not enough that he’s hanging up there naked and humiliated in horrible pain.
But the demons of hell are rising up and they’re saying, yeah, we’ve got you. We’ve got the son of God. They are trash talking to him, and they’re slobbering and slobbering, just waiting to get their hands on him as he descends to the place of the dead, which they believe their master has all power over.
He’s coming to our realm. We’ve got him. We won. We’ve won this battle. But oh, wait. Because he dies and he’s buried. And it says, he descends, but when he descends, they don’t get a tooth in him.
They don’t get a claw in him. Instead, he goes to the devil himself and he snatches away from him the keys of death and Hades. And then he rises from the dead. And all hell wails and all history wins. And, dear ones, we win with him.
I said it last week. Christ is the victor. The army surrounds Jerusalem. The devil surrounds you. Listen, you are playing a game. You’ve already won. Jesus Christ rose from the dead. You have one thing to do and one thing only. Put your hand in his hand and don’t let go.
Don’t let go because he’s not going to let go of you. And through every storm and every trial, you will emerge.
You’re singing bless the Lord. And I was thinking that, and when my days are failing, man, I don’t know how my failing days are going to look. But it sure would be great if on my deathbed I had enough breath left to sing the praises of God and say, I’ve run the race to the finish line. And I win. Because Christ won for me, dear one, that’s our hope.
Hezekiah knew what to do. He sought the word of the Lord, and he prayed, and God delivered him from his enemies. Not rocket science. You don’t have to be a genius to get this, all right?
Turn to somebody next to you and say, it’s good. That’s good news for you. You don’t have to be a genius to get this, all right? You can be dumb as a bag of hammers. Read your Bible and pray. It’ll work.
My young life leaders, that’s what they taught us. We first read your Bible and pray. That’s not all there is to Christianity.
But, man, that’ll get you down the road a piece.
Hezekiah, you’re surrounded by enemies. I need the word of the Lord. Hezekiah, the enemy said, they’re coming back. I’m going to go talk to God about this.
Hezekiah died. Was buried with his fathers as the second most honored king in the history of Israel. Sennacherib, the most powerful man in the earth at that time, was murdered by his own sons.
By the way, a little archaeology, and then I’ll finish the Assyrians. Recently, you know, people.
People doubted whether this story was true because they always doubt the stories in the Bible are true. And then another archaeological find. So they came across a tablet as they discovered Nineveh. On the tablet, it is written about Sennacherib. It says, I, the great king of Assyria, attacked the Moabites. The Moabites, I completely destroyed. I, the great king of Assyria. It just goes through and through and through. And then it goes.
And I, the great king of Assyria, came to Hezekiah, the king of Jerusalem. And I. And I surrounded you like a caged bird.
And then it goes on to the next one. What does that say? What does that say? He’s bragging. About what? I surrounded you like a caged birdhouse. But all the other ones is. And I defeated you. And I destroyed you. And with Hezekiah and Jerusalem. Yeah, but. Yeah, but, yeah, yeah, but I had you surrounded. Yeah. How did that work out for you?
Even archaeology points to this and says, get the word of the Lord, say your prayers, and God will deliver you.
Israel, thousands of years before, were slaves in Egypt. And God saw their misery. And he sent a deliverer, Moses. And Moses gave them these instructions. He says, I’m going to deliver you tonight with a great deliverance. And I’m going to have a great victory over Pharaoh and all the false gods of Egypt. And here’s what you’re going to do.
The night before you leave, you’re going to take a lamb, you’re going to kill it. You’re going to roast it. You’re going to take the blood of the lamb and put it over the doorpost in, not ironically but prophetically, the sign of a cross.
You’re going to take unleavened bread and you’re going to eat it because you’re on a journey and you need to go quickly. And I will deliver you from your enemies and I will bring you into a land flowing with milk and honey, for I am your God.
And they call it the Passover because the angel of death, the angel of judgment, passed over the households that had the blood of the lamb.
About 1,300-1,500 years after Moses, Jesus comes and he sits down to eat the Passover with his Jewish friends and he says, let me tell you what this was pointing to. Like everything else Jesus did, in complete humility and yet complete confidence, he says, this was pointing to me. I’m the lamb and it’s my blood and my body. And death is going to pass over humanity.
Death is going to pass over you because the resurrection and the life has come. And so whenever you gather together, you know, as Israel, you’re supposed to do this once a year. Church, when you gather together, do this: take my body, my broken body, take my shed blood, take it into yourself, take my life and death into yourself. And as you do, you become more like me. You’re reborn, you’re renewed, and you’re my forever children.
You know, the Bible doesn’t say we’ll just get to go to heaven. It says we’ll be like him.
How good is that? How good is that? We get to be like Jesus.
So if you want to be like Jesus, right? What was the old commercial? The old, I think it was a cereal commercial. You might remember, Jake, I want to be like Mike. I want to be like Michael Jordan. Well, you know, the commercial was, well, then eat what Michael ate.
Well, I want to be like Jesus. Then eat the food of Jesus. His body and blood given for you, dear ones. This is the food of God.
Listen, anybody ever been to a health food store? Some of you, yeah. Good, good for you. Good for you. I never have. I never have. I don’t know if that comes as a shock to you.
I think you’re. What, Kev? You’ve never been to a health food store? I don’t know. Is Dunkin Donuts a health food store? I’ve been there. Yeah, that’s right. So good for you. That’s good. I’m not belittling that at all.
What I am saying is this, though. This is the healthiest food you’re ever going to eat.
There’s no food like this food. This is the food of God. And Jesus invites you to his table. Come and eat.
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