How To Hurt God

Transcript

Alright thank you very much, and hello again dear radio friends. How in the world are you? Doing all right? Well, we’re looking at Mark chapter 6 verse 5. Our Lord Jesus has come to Nazareth and He was rejected by His friends and relatives on the basis of the fact that because the new Him so well, He had no right to be any different from them. You’ll run up against this in the crowd that you’ve been moving with. If you give your life to the Lord Jesus you’ll be different. “If any man be in Christ he is a new creation”, you’ll be different. They’ll resent that fact because you are different. You have to just keep on shining and trust your blessed Lord to see you through. You are as Jesus said, “The light of the world”. Well, look at verse five it said, “He could there do no mighty work save that He laid His hands upon a few sick folk and healed them and He marveled because of their unbelief.” He went round about the villages teaching. Sad that when He came to the place where they knew Him the best, they responded to Him the least. No mighty work. I have, from time to time, in past years been in places where there were pockets of revival. The Holy Spirit of God sovereignly moving in hearts. The saddest thing I think that I’ve ever experienced in that connection, was to meet people who didn’t know what was going on. You’d ask them, “Well, have you been blessed by this time of revival?” They’d say, “What revival?” They didn’t believe that God could do anything or that He was doing anything, and so they missed entirely the moving of the Spirit of God in their area.

Now, this what happened to Nazareth. Jesus. who is He? He’s God in the flesh. The one who has flung the stars out in space. The one who said, “Let there be light”. The one who created our world. The one who created you and me and who keeps our breath in our bodies. “He is before all things and by Him,” says Paul, “all things hold together”. He’s the power that holds the atoms together. It would be a simple matter, now this is actually, factually true beloved. Listen, it would be a simple matter for Almighty God to destroy this entire universe or section of it, simply by releasing the power that is built up in the atom. We know a little bit about it with their atomic and nuclear bombs, and nuclear power. We just scratched the surface. Jesus, our blessed Lord, is the one who created this universe and who operates it by the word of His power, “Upholding all things”, it says, “by the word of His power.” That is the person who was walking the streets of Nazareth and He said, “He couldn’t do anything”. Now, why? Because God’s power, the way He’s created you and me, God’s power is directly related to whether or not we receive Him and believe Him. “He that cometh to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him”, says the writer to the Hebrews. Without faith, it is impossible, “Could there do no mighty work”. That’s the word impossible, without faith it is impossible to please Him. Without faith you’re not going to get anywhere. What is faith? It is the willingness to risk the situation on God. Now, that’s a little Cookism, I’ve never heard anybody else use it, not yet at least. Faith is the willingness to risk the situation on God and His Word, His will. They didn’t have it. They didn’t accept Him. They didn’t believe in Him. They didn’t think He had a right to be different from them, and so it resulted in tying the hands of the one who was walking their streets, God in the flesh. Says, “He marveled because of their unbelief”. He marveled. Has it ever occurred to you beloved that there are some things that God just doesn’t understand? He says, “I don’t know why they won’t believe Me”.

He looks at you and me and He says, “I loved you, I sought you, I paid the price for your sin on Calvary, and I’ve made everything ready for you to enter Heaven as your home. My heart is open to you.” He says, “I just can’t understand why you won’t receive Him.” The prophet was mourning and he said, “Why would you die”? He said, “I set before you the way of life in the way of death”, he said, “why do you choose to die”? The Lord Jesus looking at Jerusalem cried out loud. It says, “He wept aloud”. That means He wailed. A human wail is an awesome thing. Betokening a broken heart. It says, “Oh Jerusalem”, that’s what He cried out. “Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem. Thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered your children as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, but you would not. “Now,” He said, “your house is left unto you desolate.”

He wouldn’t come to me that you might have life. Why would he die? It’s God’s eternal question, that’s something God will never understand, is why when He loves so much, and gave so much, and offers so much, people still want to go their own way, and so John is found saying, ‘This is the condemnation. He came out into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved”. This is the condemnation that men loved darkness rather than light.

A missionary friend of mine went out full of high hopes. He was going to convert the world, you know. Young man, full of fire and zeal and dedication. He got out there and he began to preach around in the in the large village where he was assigned. They hadn’t heard the gospel before in any detail, and so they listened and then one day, the chief came to him and he said, “We wish you would go away”. The missionary was absolutely devastated he said, “Why? What have I done”? Oh he said, “It’s not anything you do,” said, “if we believe in the message you’re preaching, we’re going to have to change our ways”, and he said, “We like it here. We like it the way we’re doing it. We like our witchcraft. We like our practices. We like the things that you say are against the Word of God. So we just wish you’d go away”. That’s happened many a time. It’s happened to me as I’ve traveled the world. People refuse God’s offer of salvation for whatever reason. Talking with a Japanese student, you say, “Do you know that you need a Savior?” “Oh yes.” “Do you know that you’re a sinner?” “Yes.” “Do you know that Jesus loved you and died to save you?” “Yes.” “Are you willing to become a Christian?” “Oh no”, “Why?”, “Because if I become a Christian my family will disown me, I’ll lose my allowance that helps me go to university, I will not be able to finish my university education, and I just can’t afford that. I can’t become a Christian I can’t afford it”. So he goes away sadly. Beloved, don’t in the position of making God, in a manner of speaking, making God shake His head. Say, “I don’t understand”. Said, “He marveled because of their unbelief”. Will you today open your heart to your blessed Lord completely?

Now, I’m speaking to someone who’s never trusted Christ as Savior. The Bible points are clearly the fact of your sin, all of sin that come short of the glory of God. The penalty for sin, the wages of sin is death. The penalty must to be paid, by you that is, “It is appointed of the men once to die, but after this the judgment.” But the good news is that Jesus already paid that penalty for you. Romans 5:8 says, “God commended His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”, and so salvation is a free gift by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, but in order to have a gift, you have to receive it. And that gift turns out to be a wonderful, lovely person, the Lord Jesus Christ. “As many as received Him”, John says in his Gospel first chapter verse 12, “As many as received Him, to them gave ye power to become the sons of God even to them that believe on His name. Don’t make your Savior shake His head and marvel at your unbelief. Open your heart to Him today. Ask Him to come in and save you and make you a child of God and He will. The Bible says, “Whosoever”, that means you or me or anybody else, “whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved”, and it says, “He went round about the villages teaching”. You turn your back on the Lord Jesus, He’s going to minister to somebody else. God will get His will done, one way or another. My old seminary professor Dr. Champion used to say, “God’s will, will be done, either with you or without you young person”. Oh, how he would thunder that up, but God is going to have His will done. Yes, He is. When they didn’t receive Him in His own town, it says, “He went on to someplace else”. Oh, don’t let God pass you by. This is your day of opportunity to trust God. This is your day of a chance to open your whole life to the power of God. This is your day to begin to live a life that is shining for your Savior. Don’t pass it by and don’t forget to pray for people on the other side of the world.

Dear Father today, oh may we be in the position of welcoming the blessed Lord, Our Father, Son and Holy Spirit. May we welcome Thee into our lives for Thy power and Thy blessing, in Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!