Ready To Deliver

Transcript

Alright thank you very much, and hello again radio friends, how in the world are you? Are you doing Alright? This your friend Dr. Cook, and I want to tell you, I am happy in the Lord and grateful, oh so thankful for the privilege of ministering to you by way of radio. What a joy it is just open the word of God and share it with you dear friends. Thanks for being there and thanks to all who’ve made this ministry possible.

You and I are on Psalm 116, and I spent the whole broadcast the last time we got together, sort of reviewing how far we’d gotten, up to verse seven I guess or so, in the in the text. Verse six, “The Lord preserveth the simple: I was brought low and He helped me”. God is able to help you when you get down low enough. Interesting thing, isn’t it? The way up is down when you’re dealing with God. “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you in due time.” The way up is down. He helped me. Then the secret of rest of soul, now this is a great lesson to learn we just touched on it the last time we got together, the secret of rest of soul is in knowing that regardless of circumstances God is dealing bountifully with you. Now when you have a bountiful harvest you have more than enough. When you have a bountiful welcome, you know that people’s hearts, as well as their doors, are open to you. When you have a bountiful opportunity, you know that there is no limit to what you can accomplish. The idea bountiful means full and running over, right? So, he says, “The Lord has dealt bountifully with me”, and he says, “return unto thy rest”, the secret of rest of soul is not in getting rid of your troubles, but in understanding that God is giving you the kind of treatment that is full and overflowing in terms of His plan, His purpose, and His ultimate glory. Can you take that in today? The Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.

Now, there’s sometimes and I’ve complained, I remember on one occasion, something was said to me, by way of a decision that, well I just burst into tears the minute I got out of the man’s office. I couldn’t help it, and I was so down because many of my plans seemed at that point to have gone into reverse, as it’s many years ago and it’s nobody’s business so I won’t give you the details, but I was is so discouraged and down and hurt and really angry. All that, you know the feeling, don’t you? When you’re hurt and disappointed and down and depressed and mad. There’s that combination, I’ll tell you it’s no fun. That’s where I was, and I went to my knees, and I said oh, God you said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. I said I need some, I need some reassurance. I need some help! I need to know God, that Your hand is still on me. There came a sense of peace at that point.

The following day I was to minister at a conference many miles distant, and so I took my journey and went to the conference, and got there in time to change clothes and get ready for the meeting. Then I went and preached, and God gave me, it was just as though He was standing at my shoulder and saying, “See boy, I didn’t forget you”. He gave me a very great liberty in preaching and then I gave an invitation and it seemed to me as though half the audience responded, and there were tears and prayer and confession, and setting things right. As I stood there, and the Spirit of God whispered and said, “See I’m, I’m with you. I didn’t forget you. It’s alright”. Thou the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee. Would you be willing this minute beloved, to look at some of the things you’ve been resenting and saying, “Lord, I believe that’s part of your bountiful treatment of me”, would you dare to do that by faith? You say, I don’t feel like it. Nobody said you had to.

Feelings and emotions are byproducts, and the way you feel is the result of your attitude so far. So, by faith beloved, take hold of this, will you, by faith you look at something you’ve been resenting and you’ve been hurt over it and you’ve been angry about it, you’ve been depressed. You’ve said why is God doing this to me. You look at that today, and by faith say, “Lord, in Jesus’ name I just want to thank you for dealing bountifully with me in this. I know it’s part of your plan and I receive it in Jesus’ name”, do that will you? Do it now. You don’t have to listen to me for a minute, go ahead and do it. Look at something about which you been resentful and angry and say, “Lord that’s part of your bountiful treatment and I take it in Jesus’ name”. I want to tell you there’ll be a difference. Yes there will. God doesn’t forget you, He doesn’t forsake you, for He hath said, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee”, that’s His promise and He does keep it. All the promises of God are yea and amen to us in Christ, the Bible says, God keeps His promise. He hasn’t forgotten you and He’s dealing bountifully with you. Full and overflowing are the promises and the blessings of God, circumstances to the contrary, great truth isn’t it?

Then another reason for the fact that we love God is that He delivers us. Thou hast delivered my soul from death, my eyes and tears, and my feet from falling. This is the Mount Everest of the list of thanksgivings there, I love the Lord because answered prayer listens to me as an individual, meets me in the crises of life, He’s gracious and righteous and merciful. He forgives my sins, He does the right thing by me, and when I stub my toe, He’s there to pick me up. He helps me if I get down low enough and He’s dealing bountifully with me even in the circumstances that may produce resentment or terror, or all of the rest of the things that we feel, God is doing the right thing and the bountiful thing and the blessed thing for me. And then finally, as He delivered me, I love him because He delivered me. The idea of deliverance is central to the experience of the believer. I have a sermon from Deuteronomy that deals with the essence of meaning, “what mean the statutes, and the laws that God has given? When your son asks you in time to come”, Moses was saying, “What mean the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments? Then Thou shalt say unto thy son, “We were Pharaoh’s bondman in Egypt and the Lord brought us out of Egypt, with a mighty hand.” He is the God of deliverance. Let me ask you something. Is your Christian experience meaningful to you in terms of having been delivered from anything? If you’re a worrywart did He cure your worry? If you’ve been congenitally proud and selfish, has He worked in your personality to make you humble and generous? If your unforgiving, hard and unforgiving, has He made it possible for you to forgive another in love? Oh, deliverance. You see, we think of deliverance in terms of the dreaded drug addict being miraculously delivered of his habit, and that indeed is part of the way God works, hallelujah.

I was talking to an official of a multibillion-dollar corporation, back in the days when I was calling on foundations trying to raise some money, and we got to talking about this whole matter of how you help people, and he went on to say that his experience, now this man was not a Christian so far as I knew at that time. He went on to say that in his experience, the people who got young folk in touch with God, had a higher degree of success and a lower percentage of recidivism, or failure in other words, than these people who are the what he called the do-gooders. Well, that may be a hasty generalization, and I don’t want you to write me some angry letters about it but, that was what the man said. Incidentally, I tend to believe him. I think when you put a person in touch with Almighty God, you get a faster and more permanent results then all of the other kinds of group therapy that you can, that you can add on. I believe that God has given us different kinds of therapy and different kinds of psychological approaches. They’re all valuable, of course they are. Yes, deliverance. Have you been delivered? I started out by saying we think of deliverance in terms of a person getting free of the drug habit for example, or changed from an alcoholic into a sober person. That kind of deliverance is dramatic, and we thank God for it but, there are other things from which people need to be delivered and I mentioned just a few of them a moment ago.

Worry and care of unforgiveness and pride, greed, selfishness, vindictiveness, materialism, oh so many different things that God wants to deliver you and me from, has He delivered you from anything? Good question isn’t it? And I want you to know that your loving Heavenly Father stands ready to do something special for you in the area where you need deliverance if you’ll just ask Him. Yes, He does! “Call upon Me in the day of trouble and I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorify Me” That’s what God says. Would you call up Heaven about that matter that bothers you and do it today? I hope you will, bless your heart.

Well, the deliverance that he mentions here is threefold by soul from death that is the fact that with which we approach the cross, we’re spiritually dead. “You hath be quickened”, made alive, “who were dead in trespasses and sins”, says Paul in Ephesians 2:1. Your condition, my friend, if you’ve never been born from above, if you’ve never made the Lord Jesus Christ Lord of your life and Savior of your soul, your condition is that you are spiritually dead and unresponsive to all of the blessed stimuli that could come your way from the presence of God. You need life from above, my soul from death. Then he says, “You delivered my eyes from tears”, not that you’ll never cry, but that the crying will be sweetened with the touch of the nail-pierced hand. I can remember somebody wiping my boyhood tears away when I would scrape my knee , or get hurt, or whatever it was, and someone, either my father or my sister or Aunt Molly or Aunt Mary Dell or somebody would be wiping away my tears. The comforting, comforting feeling when somebody loves you enough to wipe away your tears. God does that for you and then He says, “You delivered my feet from falling”, He takes the stumble factor out of your daily walk. Oh, that’s something wonderful I want to get at that the next time we get together.

Dear father today, wilt Thou be to us, the God of deliverance. Where we need delivering, meet us in our need. In Jesus’ name I ask it, Amen.

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