A Blocked Channel Twixt Us and God

Greetings in Jesus' name. I'm thankful to be here and be with you all. I'd like to start by reading a Psalm. Why don't we all stand for that? It's Psalm 28 in the Septuagint, 29 in the Masoretic Text. It says, And he shall grind them fine like the young bull and like Lebanon. But his beloved shall be like a son of unicorns. The voice of the Lord cuts through fiery flames. The voice of the Lord shakes the desert. The voice of the Lord shakes the desert of Kedesh. The voice of the Lord causes deer to calve and uncovers the thickets. And in his temple everyone speaks of his glory. The Lord shall dwell in the deluge. And the Lord shall sit as king forever. The Lord will give strength to his people. The Lord will bless his people with peace. Let's pray. Father in heaven, We thank you for being this God and Father. Your power and majesty. Your voice that can cut through flames of fire. Make the earth tremble. All the great things you can do. We just are in awe that we can gather before you. And that you want to call us your sons and daughters and your people. And that you want to bless us and that you want to give us strength. And so help us Lord to bring to you these things that the psalmist says. The glory and honor that is due your name. Help us as we look into your word here. I pray for your spirit to guide my thoughts. Give us all ears to hear. Hearts to understand. In Jesus name. Amen. That Psalm begins with a lot of Bring to the Lord. Give to the Lord. Bring to him Glory. Bring to him honor. Bring to him The things that are due his name. And then it talks about many great things about God. And then it ends by saying And the Lord will give strength to his people. And he will bless his people With peace. We see this. We see this relationship With God and his people. God is love. Love is a relation between the lover and the loved. That's what love is. It's this relationship. It's something you can't It's not something you can do by yourself. God cannot love without something to love. We cannot love without something to love. And so love is this relationship Between two people or two somethings. We see this all through scripture. God is saying I will be their God And they will be my people. He says I will be to them a father And they will be to me sons and daughters. He wants that relationship. The prophet Zechariah says I will strengthen them in the Lord And they shall walk up and down in my name. In the 89th Psalm in verse 21 He says with whom my hand shall be established Mine arm also shall strengthen him. I really like that. He says with whom my hand shall be established My arm also will strengthen him. It kind of leaves this picture as like The one who will take my hand The one who will walk with me hand in hand That man or that person He'll receive the strength from my arm. I sometimes when I hold my little children I'll lay their little hand on my hand Or their little arm against my arm. The striking difference In the strength there. This little child's hand I could probably take it and snap it in two. Sometimes for fun we'll arm wrestle I'll arm wrestle with the children And just allow them to take me way down here And then just Give them a little concept Of the difference in the strength here. And so there's like this no comparison. And yet when you're walking And the father's taking these long strides And the child is just barely keeping up And guess what happens When he just grabs a hold of your hand He just comes right along. He gets a little strength He gets partly pulled along And he's right there. I think something like that Is what the psalmist is saying here. With whom my hand shall be established Mine arm also shall strengthen him. If we take a hold of the Lord's hand The strength of his arm will flow into us. This is There's kind of like this channel Between us and God. He speaks And we listen And we speak And he listens We ask something from him And he gives And he asks something from us There's this channel between us. Jesus said it over and over He said ask and it shall be given. He says if you being evil Can give good gifts to your children How much more Will the heavenly father Give good things unto you? He says if two of you agree on earth They shall ask and it'll be done. If you abide in me he says And my word abides in you You shall ask what you will And it shall be given to you. And sometimes we say Well that's It just doesn't seem to be working that way. We ask And we don't receive. We don't I have felt that way sometimes Like I just can't claim I just can't quite always claim These things that Jesus says I don't sense that That I always just ask and receive. I think James helps us out Some with that Where he Where he says in James I think it's in chapter Four In chapter four verses two and three He says you lust and do not have You commit murder You are envious and cannot obtain So you fight and quarrel You do not have Because you do not ask And then he says You ask and do not receive Because you ask with wrong motives So that you may spend it On your pleasures Be careful If you're asking If you're asking from God For your own pleasures You're asking amiss He says That's why you ask and don't receive That's one of the reasons You ask and don't receive In the new covenant There were values And blessings In the old covenant When you were blessed by God It meant you had wealth It meant your fields Would produce bumper crops It meant there would be wombs That never miscarried You will lend and never borrow You will rule over people And no one will rule over you Those were blessings Promised in the old covenant In the new covenant Let's think into our minds For a little bit The Lord himself says Blessed are the poor Blessed are you when you're hungry Blessed are you when you're weeping Blessed are the meek And the humble And blessed are those Who are persecuted And falsely accused For my sake Those are the blessings We see in the new covenant It takes a It takes a It takes a change of heart It takes a change of Allegiance It takes something A whole change of mindset To accept those things As blessings When we enter the new covenant With the Lord Jesus We take his hand And these words of his Abide in us And we're always in this state Where we recognize Our dependency upon him Therefore we ask And therefore he gives He loves to give those He loves to give to those Who really from a true heart Recognize that they They depend on him giving That's why blessed Are the poor in spirit And why the poor in spirit Can ask and God can give God is very interested In communing with us In our lowest state He is close to those Who are of a broken heart And a humble spirit The channel Of a loving relationship Is open and unobstructed When we When we establish our hand Into the Lord's hand When we understand What his covenant is about What this life is about The asking The giving The prayers The blessings The strength The honor The power The grace The favor The love And all these things Flow back and forth Freely It's like a canal That allows ships To carry merchandise From one body of water To the other So I'm thinking most of you Remember this Back in March Of this Just this past year 2021 The news headlines Were all about This ship Called the Ever Given That was stuck In the Seuss Canal The Seuss Canal Is 120 miles of canal That connects The Red Sea And the Mediterranean It's It was built In the mid-1800s And it allows ships From the Arabian Sea To enter into The Mediterranean And the North Atlantic Without having to go Way down Underneath Africa To come up To come up Into the North Atlantic And into the Mediterranean It is It is one of the world's Most used Shipping lanes Most of the world In some way Is blessed By the merchandise That travels back and forth Around 97 ships A day Go through the Seuss Canal And in March Of this past year This 200,000 ton Container ship Called the Ever Given Got stuck The flow of merchandise Stopped And for six days Worldwide shipping Was jammed And around 10 billion dollars Of goods Were held up As ships were Backed up for miles The high winds Of a desert storm Had ran the ship Aground And it loomed Helplessly stuck In the sand So As I As I was recently Reading a little bit About that again I thought about How How this canal This channel Between us and God Sometimes gets clogged It gets jammed This This canal that Jesus built By reconciling us Back to the Father It It doesn't always flow Like it should This flowing back and forth Why is it not happening? Why is it not always Happening? Storms arise There's persistent Cross winds Over this channel Between us and God By the adversary That are meant to Send ships aground And this is not always Like this All out shipwreck But it's At least not in the beginning But it's this Something It's this something That clogs This These promises That Jesus gives us Of Of a Of a relationship Between us and God The circulation And the distribution Of giving and receiving Of blessing and honor Of all these things Things that hinder our prayers From reaching the ears of God And things that hinder His strength From reaching us So today I'd just like to look At eight things That clog this channel Eight winds That blow across this channel And this is Far from exhaustive And I suppose If we If I wanted to Or we wanted to We could make a whole message Out of each one of these But I just want us To think about Think about these things And how they affect This flow And perhaps If these If none of these eight things Apply to us Or to you Maybe it'll help you To think deeper What are more things Because we could go on And on I think Of things that have this effect Number one Is hidden sins Proverbs 28, 13 says He that covers his sins Shall not prosper But whoso confesses And forsakes Shall have mercy Isaiah 59, 1-2 says Is the Lord's hand Unable to save? Is his ear heavy So as not to hear? Is that the problem? He says no But your sins Stand between you And your God And he turned his face From you because of your sins So as not to have mercy Hidden sins Remember Achan In the book of Joshua After they had Destroyed Jericho And they were told To not take anything Out of Jericho It was all a curse And they were supposed To all leave it And Achan secretly Without people knowing it He saw a little piece of gold And a wedge of silver I think it was And a few garments That were valuable Looking to him And he just took them And he quickly took them Home in his tent And he hid them As far as we know No one knew about it And so a few days later They go up to take This little city of Ai Sends the Israel army To flight And Joshua rent his clothes And said What shall I do? Why did you bring us out here? And God said You've got sin The people have sinned I want you to Why didn't God say A man among you sinned He says The people have sinned He says There is an accursed thing Among you And I will not be with you Until you remove The accursed thing Don't think that Hidden sin Only affects you The flow of God's power To Israel To his people Was clogged By one man's sin There was trouble In Corinth In the church of Corinth And Paul says Examine yourself Judge yourselves rightly And because you're not Doing this Guess what Many among you Are weak and sick And a number of you Sleep It's a leaven It's a When leaven When you put a little leaven Into a lump of dough It doesn't just affect That little spot The whole lump Gets leavened When you add A little bit of sour milk To a whole container Of good sweet milk What happens? The whole container Of milk Turns sour Hidden sins Will certainly Clog This canal The wisdom of Sirach says His fear Talking about such a man He says his fear Is in the eyes of men Yet he does not know That the eyes of the Lord Are ten thousand times Brighter Than the sun Think about that The eyes of the Lord Are ten thousand times Brighter Than the sun And look upon All the ways of men And observe Even the secret places In Psalm 66 18 It says If I regard Iniquity in my heart The Lord will not hear me Notice that he doesn't Even just say If I If I commit Iniquity The Lord won't hear me He says If I behold Iniquity in my heart That word Or he says If I regard That word regard Means to like To approve Or to enjoy Or to behold Like We would never quite Do this wicked thing That we kind of like To enjoy Or observe Or think about We'd never do it Well he says here If we regard This thing in our heart He can't hear our prayer anymore It's It's jamming the canal Between us Number two Idolatry Idolatry We will certainly Obstruct This flow Between us and God In Ezekiel 14 The first five verses It says Now come I'm gonna read this At least read it first Here in the In the King James It says Then came certain Of the elders of Israel Unto me and sat before me And the word of the Lord Came unto me saying Son of man These men have set up Their idols in their heart And put the stumbling Block of their iniquities Before their face Should I be inquired Of them by Should I be inquired Of at all by them Therefore speak unto them And say unto them Thus says the Lord God Every man of the House of Israel That setteth up his Idol in his heart And putteth the stumbling Block of his iniquity Before his face And cometh to the prophet I the Lord Will answer him That cometh according To the multitude of his idols That I may take the House of Israel In their own heart Because they are all Estranged from me Through their idols I think we all know That idolatry Is not just This raven image That we make out of Wood or stone Or some kind of metal And set it up And then bow down to it Somehow think this metal Or this statue Did something for us Here he's talking about These men that are Coming here To inquire of the Lord They've got idols Set up in their hearts So obviously he wasn't Talking about Some physical statue What What are we devoted to? What What are we invested in? And idolatry is Simply this thing That Would take our devotion Away from God Into something else What treasures are we Laying up? Because that is Where our heart is Remember that Jesus Didn't say this thing Like When you have a treasure Somewhere be careful That you don't put Your heart there He says where your Treasure is There will your heart Be also Is it obvious That That God Is what we're all about? Is it obvious To others? Can others see That we're pilgrims And strangers here Seeking another country? Here's just some questions To ask And I'm not saying These are always The thing that will For sure judge But ask yourself Questions like What are the first Things you think about When you get up In the morning? What What's the thing That really makes you Tick? Like what What can you kind of Be drowsy And half asleep about And then somebody Brings up a subject And you're all awake And you're all into it What is it? It's probably the thing You're most interested in Okay? Is there anything Earthly Is there anything Earthly That you've ever Thought like Oh but if I get To heaven And that's not there I'll miss that Take heed Take heed I think I've told you I don't know Who all was here I don't think I've said This in a long time But years and years ago I was Maybe married Maybe not I'm not sure But I went to A livestock auction In Ohio Where I was growing up And I saw this I saw this Bumper sticker On the back of a Livestock truck Or trailer That said If there ain't no Horses in heaven I ain't going And when I When I saw it I just like I did not appreciate it And I wasn't I myself wasn't enough Of a horse lover A horseman To even think like that I used horses I mean I kind of liked them But I just wasn't Really into it But that That bumper sticker Just made me stop And think But is there for sure Not something else And I thought over my life And I thought You know what? They're just They're just are things Or I can't remember for sure Maybe by that time I had already repented Of some of these things But I I just knew that There were hobbies There were There were There were things That weren't bad things You know Things like Hunting Things like Things I just so much Enjoyed doing That I often thought like Oh boy I'm going to miss this If I can't have it someday It's It's idolatry It's just plain idolatry I want to read this I want to That passage in Ezekiel I want to read it now From the Septuagint It doesn't use the word idols And that's why I wanted to read it First in King James Because I'm talking about idolatry But it kind of has the same idea But I I really like Part of this reading at least It says Now some of the elders of Israel Came to me and sat before me Again the word of the Lord Came to me saying Son of man These men devised inventions In their hearts And placed before their feet And placed before their face The stumbling block Of their wrongdoings Shall I indeed answer them Therefore speak to them And say to them Thus says the Lord Any man of the house of Israel Who devises inventions In his heart And places before his face The stumbling block Of his wrongdoings And then comes to the prophet I the Lord Will answer him According to the things Which his mind is entangled So as to lead astray The house of Israel According to their hearts Which are completely alienated From me in their inventions That is really serious He says I the Lord Will answer them According to the things Their mind is entangled in So as to lead them astray Because their heart Is just so far from me How many times I don't know how many times I have heard people Tell me what they ask God for And how he answered them And it was contrary To what we have biblical Command and teaching on Be careful, be careful How many times I have heard people tell me How they prayed to God And asked them to free them From a marriage They were covenanted to Bound to And God answered that request I have heard numerous people Tell me after they had divorced The wife of their youth Ask God if they should marry again And who they should marry And God just miraculously Answered their prayer And gave them this person to marry This is What this is talking about You guys have Your mind entangled In wrong things The word of God Is not abiding in you And then you come Ask from me I will answer you accordingly Every time That I have met Mormons On the street Or just met them wherever And we started Interchanging And they tell me About their beliefs And I allow them To tell me all Some of their beliefs And they want to tell me About Joseph Smith And the great prophet And the book of Mormon And then I ask them Like So if I want to figure out If the book of Mormon Is true And Joseph Smith Is a true prophet How should I determine that How should I figure that out And they will always Tell you this My experience is They will always tell you The same thing Pray And ask God With a sincere heart To show you And he'll show you Brothers And sisters The scriptures Have plainly declared Joseph Smith Is a false prophet His deeds If by their fruits You shall know them He is a false prophet And then knowing that Going and asking him To show us We fling the door Of deception wide open This kind of This kind of idolatry This kind of setting things up In our hearts Obstructs the passage To ecstasy in God Number three Undervaluing The scripture Proverbs 28 9 says He that turns away His ear from hearing The law Even his prayer Shall be an abomination When the teachings The scriptures Don't have A consistent Place And a valuable place In our lives In our ears And in our minds Even our prayer Becomes an abomination Not just not heard An abomination I feel like I struggled a little bit With this With this one I feel like there's I feel like on this one There's There's two winds Blowing across this canal One from one direction And one from the other one You've got You've got You've got this thinking that That This for sure Could be a message in itself But But you have this thinking that Or you have this This kind of thinking that Worship the Bible Like This is You know This is it And And I think a lot of us here Have at least Kind of come to this This concept Which is Which is really kind of A partial truth But it's an important truth That there is a distinction Between the Word of God And the Scriptures There is some Some distinction The Word of God Is this Expression From God It is the message From God It is personified In the Lord Jesus Christ The Word of God Did not become paper and ink It became flesh It dwelt among us It lived here It has transformational power It can It can do miraculous things In that Is like the Capital W Word of God Okay The Scripture Is an Is an instrument of testimony It is something that Rationally describes What is happening When the miracle of God God's Word occurs Now Though Though having some concept Of that precious truth Helps us from idolizing The Bible There's There's There's another wind Coming from the other direction That just likes to say Well this is just Scripture is just a dead letter We've got the Spirit God communicates to us Just like he did To the twelve apostles And The Scripture Is on Or that the Scripture Has Has no authority Or no more authority Than many other writings Like And or oral traditions Those winds are also From the adversary Those winds are from the devil And they're made to shipwreck Or to To To drive our ship aground In John 10 34 and 35 Jesus refers To the Scripture As the Word of God It's a lowercase w But he refers to the Scriptures As the Word of God It's maybe One of the few places But Jesus himself said this And I think it's enough For us to recognize That Though that other concept Is a truth It's a partial truth That we have to balance Out or complete With the recognition That Scripture The Holy Writings Are not Just Another document That we can Lay beside Other men Who were godly men I just I just think We have to recognize that And to not recognize it Is bound To To clog our channel Second Second Timothy 3 15 to 17 I'm pretty sure you're all Fairly familiar With this passage But let me just read it He's Paul is saying this to Timothy And he says And that from childhood You have known The sacred writings Which are able To give you wisdom And that leads To salvation Through faith Which is in Christ Jesus All Scripture Is inspired by God And profitable For teaching For reproof For correction For training And righteousness So that the man of God May be adequate Equipped For every good work In the book of Jude He says He says Contend Something like this Contend earnestly For the faith That was once And for all Delivered to the saints That the faith Was once For all Delivered to the saints In Jesus Christ And the apostles It has not been improved on Since that Okay It's It's true that Through history Many many many Christians have lived Very very godly lives Probably lives That put us to shame And they never Had a Bible They never Many of them Were maybe not even Able to read So So So there's this There's this reality About the fact that Us being able To read this thing And memorize it Forward and backward And have it all Being able to come out Of our mouth Is not salvation And yet Historically God's people Have been people Who have had A book And when they lost Their way They found it by Returning to the message In the book When When Israel Had had a long season Of Sin and idolatry And it was in the days Of Josiah I think when When A certain priest Hilkiah Discovered the Discovered the The law The written law Hidden in the temple And he brought it out This thing had been Hidden for a long time And when Josiah He was just an Eight year old king And when he When Hilkiah Read this to To Josiah He in his childlike Faith or whatever He just brought Great reformation To Israel You know Like I say There's these two Winds that want to Blow people To either side Of this channel Or this canal And plug Plug the power That God wants You got You got the Bible thumpers On one side Who don't have The spirit of God And they like to They just like to Insist on Well this is what the Bible said This is what the Bible said And they don't have The spirit of God They don't They don't have This This love This compassion This mercy This reasonableness And then And then on the Other hand side You've got people Who Who just Esteem lightly The scriptures Did I ever tell you About that man I met in Springfield While street preaching I think I did Maybe But anyway He We would be Pretty far apart On a lot of things But he When he saw us There with signs He expected us To be these Bible thumping Republican Conservative Trump supporting You know Guys And so after Just a little bit Of conversation He was like Oh These guys Are not like this And so we had this Very nice conversation But he He said How he had this I don't think He called it Quite a vision But he had this Picture of like What happens with Bible thumpers You know They're thumping Their Bibles And pages start Falling out And then they don't Have their whole Bible But other people Come along Pick up these Drop pages And are like Oh this is what The Bible says I just haven't Quite forgot that I think it's pretty neat We need We need If If we If we have the Bible Without the Spirit We'll get it all wrong If If we think We have the Spirit And we don't have the Bible The Scriptures I should say To To test it I'm pretty sure We'll get it wrong Brother Michael Oestringer Would like to say that Or I've heard him say Multiple times Like You need a map And a compass If you just have the map You'll study this map But you don't know Which way You're lost In a barren land And you don't know Which way to turn your map You don't know Which way to go And if you just have a compass You don't have a map All you know All you know Is the directions And you have no No idea which way to go You need You need You need this map And you need to be able To put this compass on here And turn it And you get the You get the right perspective If we lightly esteem Or turn our ears From the Scripture It plugs the canal The blessings of God The blessings that God Wants to bestow Are backed up for miles Waiting for you To turn your ear to Him Some of these Won't take as long Number four Disobedience 1 John 3 22-24 says And whatever we ask We receive from Him Because We keep His commandments And do the things That are pleasing in His sight This is His commandment That we believe In the name of His Son Jesus Christ And love one another Just as He has commanded us The one who keeps His commandment Abides in Him And He in Him We know by this That He abides in us By the Spirit Whom He has given us And so we see here He's talking about Asking And receiving And about us abiding in Him And about Him giving us His Spirit And it's directly connected To what? To us obeying Him And what does it mean To obey Him? To believe in the name Of the Lord Jesus Christ And to love one another The obvious Antithesis to this Is that disobedience Clogs this Asking Receiving Abiding Receiving the Spirit This is already Even though the covenants Have changed This truth is already Established in the Old Covenant In Deuteronomy 28 He says it If you are careful To obey these things That I've commanded you Blessed you will be In the city Blessed you will be In the country Blessed shall be your field Blessed shall be your flocks Blessed, blessed, blessed And then He says And if you don't Obey these things Cursed you will be In the city Cursed you will be In the country Cursed will be your flocks And your fields In the New Covenant We'll be blessed If we obey Him And we'll be blessed With what? Humility Mourning Compassion Hunger for righteousness Meekness Peacemaking Persecution We'll be blessed With all those things These are the kind of blessings That follow the people Of whom the world Is not worthy Who declare plainly That they're seeking Another country Number five Unforgiveness Jesus said in Matthew 5 15 If you don't forgive men Their trespasses Neither will your Father In heaven forgive you I think it was George Washington Who once said You can't hold a man down Without staying down with him And that's what we do When we don't forgive somebody We just We're just down there with him Right? In fact Jesus said In one of When Jesus gave that parable In Matthew 18 About About the servant Who was forgiven This This Yeah this huge debt And then he refused To give his fellow Forgive his fellow servant This tiny debt And then the huge debt Got piled right back on him According to that Even if we've Been forgiven Even if our ship Has been Freed Has been Has been Freed so that it can flow And if we then Don't forgive Our fellow brother All that weight Is going to be Piled on it again And it's going to Run it aground again And it will obstruct The flow of God's forgiveness Number six Doubt James talks about this In his first chapter Verses five to eight He says But if any of you Who lacks wisdom Let him ask of God Who gives to all generously And without reproach And it'll be given to him But he must ask in faith Without any doubting For the one who doubts Is like the surf of the sea Driven and tossed by the wind For that man Ought not to expect That he will receive anything From the Lord Being a double-minded man Unstable in all his ways Now I The King James uses The word wavering This translation Uses the word doubt And I I did a little Short search on the word It kind of seems like Through Where this Greek word Gets used Throughout Scripture It gets translated In quite a variety of ways I think I think we kind of get the idea With doubt and wavering And yet I think He really helps us By saying this Being a double-minded man That's That's what he's talking about A double A double-minded man A man that is He's wavering He's He's not He's not He's not established His hand into the Lord's hand He's He kind of wants it there And then he wants to Take it back And then he wants to Put it back in He just He's full of doubts This man should not think That he receives any blessing From the Lord It's two-spirited We're two different people In a In a book I was reading About the Church history In the Dark Ages I I came across this story About In the Dark Ages When there was The feudal system Of governing Churchmen Would often Be called To lead armies And And And do fighting Not just The king didn't just Because of how the The governing structure worked It wasn't just the Counts and the Dukes That That were asked To lead armies And do the fighting But even bishops And churchmen And so A lot of people Noticed this inconsistency And one day There was this peasant And And he was staring At this This prince bishop He was He was a prince In the kingdom of He was a prince In the kingdom Of Of the earth That he was in But he was the bishop In the church Okay And this This peasant Was staring at him Because he was He was all decked in wealth And in armor And He was He was ready to Ready to lead an army out As a warrior And this peasant Was watching him And stood there amazed And somebody asked him What he's What he's staring at And he said Well He's surprised That the bishop Would also be a warrior And someone informed him that The display of arms and wealth Is the prince part Of the bishop Is the prince part Of the man's role Not the bishop part And the peasant said But Suppose the devil Should take the prince to hell What would become of the bishop? If we keep resolving To do right And then we get sidetracked And then we resolve To do right again And we just have this Double minded This divided Devotion to God That's what he's talking about I think If someone can really Easily convince us Of one thing Of one persuasion And then the next person Can just convince us Of another persuasion And on it goes And we're always agreeing With the last person We talk to That's double mindedness That's wavering The flow of God's power Is unable to find Such a person Number seven We read this one Out of 1 Peter 3 7 I try to stick with things That there's like Scripturally It very plainly says That if you do these things This thing from God Will not happen Husbands who do not Love their wives 1 Peter 3 7 Says you husbands In the same way Live with your wives In an understanding way As with someone weaker Since she is a woman And show her honor As a fellow heir Of the grace of life So that your prayers Will not be hindered So that your prayers Will not be hindered So We must dwell With understanding We must We must recognize That our wives Are fellow heirs of grace But a weaker vessel And with that understanding That doesn't mean Giving in to all her Whims and fancies But it means having That understanding And loving her And dwelling with her Like that If we do not do that Our prayers will be hindered There's a powerful message A passage in Malachi That I want to read It's in Malachi Chapter 2 Verses 13 to 17 He says And you do these things Which I hate You cover the altar Of the Lord with tears With weeping and moaning Because of troubles Yet still thinking It is worthy to look Upon your sacrifice Or take it as acceptable From your hands And you say Why? Because the Lord Has been witness Between you and the wife Of your youth Whom you have forsaken And yet she is Your companion And wife of your covenant But did he not Make another Having a remnant Of his spirit? Yet you ask What else does God Seek but offspring? But take heed To your spirit And do not forsake The wife of your youth But if you hate her And send her away Says the Lord God of Israel Ungodliness Will obscure your thinking Says the Lord Almighty So take heed To your spirit That you do not forsake her You weary the Lord With your words Yet you say In what way have we wearied him? In that you say Everyone who does evil Is good in the sight Of the Lord And he delights in them Or Where is the God Of justice? This wind That rises up That wants to Distance us From our wives From the wife Of our covenant And to not live with her In understanding This is This is a This is a wind That has driven many A ship aground And it has It has clogged The prayers That God would otherwise hear And may I say Like not just Return to her Physically If you're physically Separated But But But return to her In heart and in spirit If not The prayers will be hindered And the channel Between us and God Will be congested And number eight Wives Who are out of their place In Titus Chapter 2 Verses three to five He says Older women likewise Are to be reverent In their behavior Not malicious gossips Nor enslaved to much wine Teaching what is good So that they may encourage The young women To love their husbands To love their children To be sensible Pure Workers at home Kind Being subject To their own husbands So that The word of God Will not be dishonored We see something Happening here When this is not in its place The word of God And all that it wants To do for us Cannot It'll be It'll be blasphemed It'll be dishonored In that Corinthians passage Where it talks about The headship order He says The head of every woman Is the man So if you can kind of visualize This for a little bit The head of every woman Is the man The head of the man Is Christ The head of Christ is God God will always Always Give his blessings Through Whatever it is His blessing flows Through whatever order He has created And if If the wife comes out From underneath that order That blessing Is no longer flowing to her The word of God Gets blasphemed There is There is no freedom Outside the boundaries That God has set Think about a fish In a little pond This fish is in this little pond And he has He has Swam around the shores And he knows the whole pond And he's like Why am I confined To this little pond? I'd like to broaden my horizons And I'd like to Do a little exploring And so he thinks He'll flop himself Out of this little pond What's the result? Does he experience freedom? No, he experiences death And women get caught up In the ever-prevailing wind Of equality And my rights It drives the ship Aground And it chokes The flow of God's blessing There would be many more And And This is already Kind of Been longer A longer message Than I thought When I started out But let's ask ourselves Is our canal Obstructed? Is it clogged? And I think it goes Without saying That if it is It is not God's fault God is not stingy In giving He is love And love is giving And he is perfect love And God And Jesus said It is your father's Good pleasure To give you the kingdom There's nothing He'd rather do It is the thing That is most pleasing to him Is to give us his kingdom He's not stingy with that The problem Is always On our end A few verses here In 1 Peter I've already read the one In chapter 3 verse 7 About the husbands And what will hinder Their prayers If we look at Verses 10 to 12 In 1 Peter 3 He says For The one who desires life To love and see good days Must keep his tongue From evil And his lips From speaking deceit He must turn away From evil And do good He must seek peace And pursue it For the eyes of the Lord Are toward the righteous And his ears Attend to their prayer But the face of the Lord Is against those Who do evil The face of the Lord Is against those Who do evil But he But he But he hears The prayers of the righteous Now remember that And let's look One more verse here In chapter 4 Verse 7 I thought this was Quite interesting It says The end of all things is near Therefore Be of sound judgment And a sober spirit Why? For the purpose Of prayer For the purpose of prayer What we learn In these verses Is that We're not learning That That praying Helps us be righteous But that being righteous Helps us pray Isn't that something? And I don't I think that's one That's again Kind of like a A partial truth It's not like The other one Is completely untrue But in this We need to get out Of our minds That salvation Is this legal transaction That God does There's a law There's a transgression There's a sentence There's a payment And when you think Of salvation that way It makes it out As salvation Is all something That God does But But God is wanting A relationship With us He is wanting He did this thing So that we could be In a relationship But that's only one One leg Of salvation We can't sit on A one-legged stool We'll tip over There's There's just There's more to it Than that And he wants this He wants this relationship With us It's It's It's a two-way canal It's a two-way channel God is wanting To fill us Think about this This This might twist our minds For a little bit But God is wanting To fill us With his spirit So that We can obey him And yet He's wanting to find Someone who obeys him So that he can put His spirit in him Does that mess with us? But I think it works A lot that way And And It's It's kind of like Learning to ride a bicycle Okay? You learn to ride a bicycle And There is Absolutely no way That you can get on a bicycle And balance yourself Without moving forward But it is Absolutely impossible To move forward Without balancing yourself But as you As you As you As you get this As you learn this As If Probably I'm not sure which one Which one is God's doing And which one is our doing But But there's a relationship There's a There's a going together In this In which we In which we have Access To the strength From God Um That we would That we could not have Unless we reach out And take his hand Um And and and him Putting down his hand To where we can reach it Sometimes And very often God is waiting on us To act Um I'll share a little story With you When I was From the ages Sixteen To Twenty maybe I worked at a cheese factory And The factory was maybe A mile And a half-ish Away from our house And of course We didn't have cars And so I Most of Usually I'd ride my bike To work But there was a time When I was trying to I think I was trying to Build up some Physical strength Maybe lose some weight I'm not sure But I jogged to work In the morning And jogged back home Um And Uh Uh We usually got off of work Anywhere from two to three o'clock It was short days But then Because of Because of how the The cheese making went Somebody had to go back In the evening There was about a half hour Of work to do We had to do what we took Called taking off the plates The plates and the And the weights were there To press the cheese The cheese cloth Was underneath it And if you waited Until the next morning To do it It was real hard The cloth was stuck to the cheese And so someone went back In the evening Uh It was a matter of Lifting out about I don't know Fifty or more Fifty pound weights Lifting out those plates Pulling up the cheese cloth Trimming the The scraps Um And sometimes we kind of Compete with each other To see who can do it The quickest Like Twenty minutes was about As quick as you could do it But we took turns going Like One day out of the week It was my turn You had to do it like After six o'clock I think Or maybe after five I'm not sure But But you had to do it before Before bedtime Anyway One One day When it was my turn I I went home from work I can't remember all the detail But my My parents had told me I should mow the yard In the afternoon And I just felt So sluggish I I think I convinced myself I'm sick Not feeling real well I had no mood To mow yard And I just decided I'm not going to do it I'm just not up to it But I had no choice But to go take off these plates And so And so I I Five o'clock or whenever came I just Drug myself out of bed And I started I started jogging This mile and a half And as I jogged I I was invigorated I mean My strength and my spirit Came back to me And I was I was I was warmed up And I got there I took the plates off In record time Like eighteen minutes I jogged all the way back home I was so full of energy I went straight to the lawn mower I mowed the whole yard And And And my point in that is That like Sometimes It's just Sometimes we just have to We don't We don't Feel We don't have this feeling That we wish we would have But you just Dig yourself out of it And you start And then And then And then God Adds his power And his strength Because of your willingness And And it enables you to do more Than you even thought Possible I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I but I do appreciate some of the things I've heard from it. Years ago I kind of determined in my heart to just whenever I hear a message to just in my mind think that it was written for me. So I I got a lot to consider. I appreciated the many things you shared Duane and yeah just a lot of really good exhortation there. I don't really have much to add to it other than just to show my appreciation for for you putting that together. Yeah may God help us. Thank you. Yeah brother Duane thank you so much for that. I definitely want to go back over that message again. I know like Paul says examine yourself see if you're in the faith. I need definitely need to do some self-reflection. Yeah one thing I definitely need to repent of is many mornings I'll get up and I don't hit my knees and start praying and I need to repent of that. Yeah one thing I just decided to take a look when you're reading Psalm 66 verse 18 said if I regarded in my heart. I just wanted to see what what it said. I looked at both the Greek and the Hebrew and they're in agreement. It literally means if I watch if I see but you know reiti in Hebrew if I see and then theoro in Greek which from that word is where we get the word theater. So if I watch in my heart iniquity. I don't know what to think of it the word that is translated as iniquity. Same spelling can be used in other passages to refer to wealth and things of that sort. I don't know what to make of that but there's many passages with this same spelling to where it's the idea of maybe misery trouble but most the time iniquity or wickedness. I just thought that was interesting. Now that's the Hebrew. I'm talking about the Hebrew but yeah if I watch it in my heart you know so I thought I would share that. Thank you brother Dwayne. I remember last week I was talking about jealous and zealous. I don't know and very zealous and I don't think anyone could be listening to you and not felt edified and enthusiastic and bless you for that lesson and so many wasn't eight points was about 80 points that you made that really should hit the quirk I guess of the heart of hearts. Yeah I guess one of the first oh by the way I never heard that one a mile and an inch I think you said. I never heard that expression then you said a mile and a half. Did you say a mile and an inch? Well you said when you were going to the cheese factory well it was about a mile and an inch. Okay mile and a half. I thought I heard mile and an inch and I'm saying well that's a good one I'm gonna steal that one mile and an inch you know but okay it's my hearing is going but the word you know the word versus Bible olitary so to speak versus God and I guess the motivation is of course you mentioned it many times if you love me you'll keep my commandments so the commandments is the offshoot of the thing I don't know the scripture says Psalm 119 I have valued your valued your word word above gold and silver but still love is the motivation and things and I a couple other things when Brett mentioned Psalm 66 I thought of Psalm 22 when you know it starts out David my God my God why have you forsaken me and near the end of that Psalm it says and he's really pouring out his heart I have a tape of Psalms where an actor Charlton Heston is doing like ten of his best Psalms and he's putting his voice behind it he's an activist profess Christian too he's dead now but Charlton Heston and I listen to that often does ten of his favorite Psalms and when he does Psalm 22 he'll say one of the verses in the end you that fear the Lord praise him and you can see that the way he says it you fear the Lord praise him and one other point would be on Hebrews chapter 13 you're talking about one of the eight points it was more covetousness or idolatry and Hebrews 13 and verse 4 does say you know I will never forsake you I will never forsake you don't worry about food and clothing I will never forsake you and then the next verse says for I shall say the Lord is my helper and I will never desert you now I intentionally left out one word in Hebrews 13 in verse 5 where it says the Lord I just I shall say that the Lord is my helper and I will never desert you anyone know that word that I left out and I will boldly say confidently say courageously the word is boldly and you know that's boldly say and you think of some of the examples Ezra said so which it has worse out exercise well I was afraid to ask the king for horsemen and chariots or David you know you see David and Goliath well you you you criticizing the God of Israel and he ran after him and of course Daniel and you know big deal I'm not you know the God of heaven he can deliver me he can save me and countless dozens of examples of God being my helper but boldly say he is my helper and tell you know you lived in that road ministry in the middle of nowhere and get your bike stolen or certain things like that I'm pretty sure brother you've said the Lord is my helper and you made it and the God still working on you the Lord be magnified all of us the Lord is we boldly say the Lord is our helper thank you brother Dwayne for exhorting us in many ways I just challenged and I'm just especially at the end there that epiphany moment of oh it's it's it's be righteous that way our prayers can be heard not more so than pray then we'll be made righteous like thank God I just I don't know I just I don't think I've ever really thought that that plainly about it and I've just always been perturbed by the the lack of devotion in my prayer life I would I've always struggled with being able to wake up in the morning and just be like the Lord or Daniel and just quickly find myself on my knees but is it not because I am lacking elsewhere in my almsgiving and my good deeds and my fasting and my whatever else I could be doing if I was doing all the Lord wanted me to do which I'm not then I'm confident that it wouldn't be such a struggle to pray but that's just an afterglow some thoughts I had yeah brother Mike you just triggered a thought with me yeah this I did some reflecting on this sort of thing I appreciate that aspect of brother Dwayne's message about that almost like which came first the chicken or the egg kind of idea is it God makes us righteous and then he hears our prayers or do we choose to walk in righteousness and therefore God hears our prayers that's sort of thinking and of course I think I'm really grateful for the one very clear statement in 1st John chapter 3 he that does righteousness is righteous just as he is righteous pointing to since it was just talking about God in Christ but yeah to me like reflecting on this this I think the idea where intercessory prayer comes in and why at the end of James he encourages to pray for one another because at one point at any given time somebody has sinned you know like Aiken and in the camp there with Joshua and so God wasn't hearing his prayers right so if something that has happened among us and then we're praying for one another well then God is hearing us and you know we extend mercy like we see many times in the scriptures I mean Moses got these people that were going to be destroyed by God out of trouble because he interceded on their behalf so I just think yeah intercession kind of bridges that gap between somebody has committed some iniquity somebody has done something unrighteous and you know among us and and so now somebody's praying on their behalf and and James talks a lot about that he said you know actually I'm right here it says confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed and then it says the effective fervent prayer of a righteous person avails much or it's I appreciate the one translation it's the NIV but it says it's powerful and effective and even though that may not I'd have to go look at the Greek see that's an exact translation I really think that's what avails much is saying so the person that's walking in righteousness God is hearing their prayer and so so where he says there the the reason why he's saying that because it's in the context of is one among you that is weak let him go to the elders and be anointed with oil and and and if he sins he will be forgiven and and it's and then he says confess your sins one another in this whole context of helping one another if somebody is walking in righteousness he can intercede and the other one be forgiven because of the intercession and it also makes me think of in the Gospels where you've got this crippled man has been crippled his whole life and his friends carry him and they drop him through the roof and Jesus forgives his sins what why he says you know your sins are forgiven and he says when he saw that his faith there when he saw their faith I think it's plural if I remember right when he saw their faith so Jesus is seeing the faith of this crippled man who's helpless and and how is he seeing his faith right well through his friends there's an intercessory sort of thing going on right there and Jesus is seeing his friends caring so much about him that he drops him through the roof to be healed and so the collectiveness going there Jesus sees that and says your sins is forgiven and of course he heals him as well but anyway yeah I've also struggled with prayer or or what to pray about because made so many prayers to the Lord it's like he already knows these things but a brother one he a brother said sometimes in prayer you just just be silent and listen and it lines up with Romans that says we know not what we ought to pray for but the Spirit makes intercession for us and sometimes it's really nice just to meditate on your knees and just think about the Lord in silence yet one more thing I just wanted to add it's like there's just times when going through trials and tribulations and like we're just down but then like the Lord lifts us up and it's just like like inside it's it's like just really want to worship the Lord what is there's like almost like not enough we can do just give praise to him and it's just like this welling up inside I praise you Lord thank you just for his love it's like it's hard to explain but just don't when he lifts us up then it's like a whole Lord we just need him is uplifting it's like it's like he takes us through trials and desert then he lifts us up it's like it's like all we can say is praise the Lord you know praise him yeah amen I wanted to share one more thing too I remembered what yours when you're talking there doing about you didn't feel good and then you just started jogging to work and you started feeling better I think there there really is something to that I don't know really know what it is but I remember in the road ministry like if we had a house the sisters were preferred with the house and so they would you know the the woman's place is the house so they would stay back and then brothers would be asked to go out so that was a lot of going out you know we had to go out every single day and we had to go find something to do go witness and a lot of times you just wake up you'd be like oh what am I gonna do I've been in the library every day this week like I'm getting old and but um I just kind of I would just tell myself just thrust yourself out just thrust yourself I'll just get up and go just get out there and sometimes I wouldn't even I wouldn't even pack a lunch or anything I just gotta get up I gotta get out just get out and then by doing that I would I would oftentimes it would turn for it would turn for good and it would actually give me um like it would give me one one it would get me out and then and then things would unfold and and because I was out in it it would usually just kind of work for good but I think there's really something to that I don't know what it is but it's like that way with a lot of things it's like that way with praying just get on your knees you'd have you don't even know what you're gonna be doing or what you're gonna be praying for but just get on your knees and start just start that process or put your phone down if you've been looking at it too long or just whatever it is just just start that motion and let it it'll snowball it can snowball so I just I really appreciated you sharing that I just wanted to add that Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh