Cure-All
If you will pray and then turn to the Word of God, you’ll find that it has a healing effect in your mind and heart and emotions.
Transcript
And hello again radio friends. How in the world are you? Doing alright? Oh, I’m fine thank you. Nice to be back with you. Come with me again if you will please, to Psalm 107, we got — the last time we were together we reached in to verse 13, “Then they cried onto the Lord in their trouble and He saved them out of their distresses. We’re talking about how and when people pray and what happens. First of all when you leave God out of your life it’s a lonesome, aimless, nonrelated kind of a way, there’s no satisfaction for your soul, and you finally give up. That is the profile of trying to live without God.
The second section of the Psalm talks about what happens when we reject God’s will because it says, “They rebelled against the words of God and refused the council of the Most High, therefore He brought down their heart with labor, they fell down, there was none to help”. Now, there are two sets of results from refusing to obey God’s will. One is your own feeling about things. They sit in darkness and in the shadow of death being bound in affliction and iron. There is a feeling of being hemmed in, closed in, not being able to get anywhere and everything seems dark around you. This is the ultimate result of disobeying God.
Not that He has forsaken you. People write to me and say, “Dr. Cook, has God forgotten about me? Has he forsaken me, is He mad at me?” No, but when you go into a room and close the door, you shout out the light and then you close the door of your life to the will of God, you shut out His light and so it says, “They sit in darkness and in the shadow of death”. Then the other set of results from disobeying God is the force of circumstances, things seem to work against us, He brought down their heart with labor, they fell down and there was none to help, then they cried unto the Lord.” Being out of the will of God results — it does seem in circumstances turning against me and I can’t tell you how that is. I only know that that is exactly what happens. The Psalm said, “When I kept silence, my bones, even my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. Then I said I will confess my iniquities to the Lord and thou gave us then he forgive my sin”. He said, “Everything worked against me when I tried to have it my own way.”
Oh, beloved I hope that you and I have learned that lesson. For me to say no to God results in darkening my life and for me to say no to God, results in circumstances working against me in spite of my best. Would you remember that and the next time you have the temptation to go at your own way instead of saying, “Yes Lord”, just remember that if you close the door you darken the room of life and circumstances begin to work against you instead of for you. Now the other side of the coins is true also, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God”, said our Savior and all these things shall be added on to you. God makes things work for you even troubles. “Our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory”, God makes things work for you, my dear friend when you trust Him and obey Him, have you learned that precious lesson of grace? Oh, make it part of your life today. He said, “He brought them out there out of darkness and the shadow of death and broke their bonds and sunders” when you say to God, He turns on the light and He sets you free to do His will.
Now again this refrain in verse 15, “Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children of men”. That’s sounds like the words to a very good course I wish somebody would write a chorus with those words they sound pretty singable, don’t they? If I were a musician I’d try it but I’m not, so I won’t. Now what next it says, “He hath broken the gates of brass and cut the bars of iron and sunder, fools because of their transgression, and because of their inequities are afflicted, their soul abhorreth all manner of meat and they drown near onto the gates of death. Then they cry on to Lord in their trouble and He saveth them out of their distress, He said His word and healed them and delivered them from their distractions.”
Key word in all of this is “fools”. And the Bible uses this word for someone who will not allow God in to his life and will not listen when he’s corrected by the Lord. It says, there’s no hope, Solomon says this several times in the Book of Proverbs. There just isn’t any hope in trying to correct a fool. “A foolish son is the heaviness or heavy heartedness of his mother. He that gathereth in summers is a wise son, but he doth sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame.” He said, “Answer a fool according to his folly but answer him not according to his folly unless he turn again and renn thee.”
All the way through the book of proverbs he talks about people who just refuse to learn from God, “He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly”, the folly of the foolish. The foolishness of fools are this, the foolishness of fools is folly. All you have to do that which is in the midst of fools is made known. You got in all the way through and of course in Psalms you have this statement, “the fool hath said in his heart there is no God”. Now in Hebrews, you don’t have the verb form there, there is. So actually if you were to translate it literally it would read like this, “The fool hath said in his heart, no God”, I think just to define it generally this whole idea of foolishness derives from the tendency of the human heart to say, “No to God and no to do the lessons that He wants to teach us”.
And so as a result what happens is there are two things that occur then in the life of one who says, “No to God” and they are described by the word, “transgression” which means step across the line and delivered disobedience and inequity, which means in a residential kind of evil that grows in the soul. Inequity is something that dwells inside of you, transgression is something that you do. The result then of disobeying or excluding, I think is the word, excluding God from my life is that not only as we saw in previous passages darkened but there now has these two kinds of evil in the life transgressions and iniquities.
Not only that, but over in Romans 1 it says, “Because they did not like to retain God in their knowledge” God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient being filled with all unrighteousness and so on. So that’s the picture, now what happens? Well what happens is you get sick of it, you get sick of, I never saw a chronic sinner who was really happy in his sin. You look around you now and see does sin really make one happy? No it doesn’t, it really doesn’t. Old people who get old and wicked are unhappy people. And so it says, “there soul abhorreth all manner of food, they draw nearer unto the gates of death”. Nothing really satisfying, nothing really makes you happy, you’re sick of all the whole business, that’s what happens when the heart says, No to God, what was the answer, cry to God, pray, they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, it said, and he saveth them, now how did He do it, He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them their destructions.
Strangely enough if you will pray and then turn to the Word of God, you’ll find that it has a healing effect in your mind and heart and emotions. Now I know some of you have gone through very deep sorrows in the last year or two, and I just like to suggest this, when sorrow and the bitterness that you feel at being deprived of that loved one, a husband or a wife, or a son or daughter whatever it is. When sorrow and the bitterness of it rolls over your heart you can’t control it, you didn’t seek it, you didn’t plan it but all of a sudden there it is. First of all cry out to God say, “Lord this is how I feel right now” and second open the Word of God and let His Word begin to heal your mind.
I know for a fact that that is so. Whatever I tell you I’ve been there and I know that this works. First pray, then listen to God’s Word in the stillness of your own soul and you’ll find that there’s a healing quality in it and instead of being sick of life and instead of being overwhelmed with the burden of your own sorrow and bereavement or disappointment or the bitterness of having been betrayed by wife or husband or child whatever it may be, or the bitterness of having been out-foxed in the business jungle, and someone else has taken your job away, and you’re bitter about it, oh instead of feeling all of that, first cry out to God, and then listen to Him and His Word, open your Bible and read it, and weep over it and let your tears fall on it’s pages and let the Holy Spirit of God speak to you, and I can guarantee you beloved, you’re going start to be healed in your mind and your heart and in your feelings.
He sent His Word and healed them from and delivered them from their destructions, isn’t that beautiful? Now, remember what Bob Cook has told you today, when the sorrows of life hit you and when the results of your own foolish rebellion against the will of God catch up with you, don’t give up on God and don’t give up on yourself, instead turn to God in prayer and then turn to His Word and let Him speak to you by His blessed Holy Spirit and let the healing power of God’s Word deal with your mind. Oh what a precious satisfying experience that is. Now let’s pray.
Dear Father today help us to say yes to Thy will, help us to cry out to Thee in prayer and help us to listen to Thy Word, I ask in Jesus name, Amen.
Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!
Thank you for supporting this ministry. While this transcription is presented to you free-of-charge, it does cost to prepare for distribution. We appreciate any financial donations to help keep Walk With The King broadcasts and materials free and available to all.
To help support this ministry's work, please click here to make a tax-deductible donation.
Thank you for listening to Walk With The King and have a blessed day.
All rights reserved, Walk With The King, Inc.