Run To Him

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. Always nice to be put on the air with a friendly voice. I appreciate my friends at the radio stations and transmitters. Bless your heart. Hello radio friends, how in the world are you? You doing alright today? Well, I trust so; I trust so. Well, the fact is I guess God gives you grace for what He asks you to go through, doesn’t He? Whatever your condition is today, my heart goes out to you in love and concern, and I want, by God’s grace, to share with you something that will help you as you go through the days and nights that lie ahead. We were talking about the feeding of the 5,000 men as recorded in John chapter six. I told you that God, oftentimes, faces you with impossible questions, so that He can supply the miracle answer. Going on through that sixth chapter, just hitting the high spots. The fickleness of the crowd certainly ought to come home to us so that we would be aware of it. When you follow the crowd, you’re following the will of the wisp, a wind that may change at any time and blow in a different direction.

“They wanted to take Him by force and make Him a king,” verse 15. Verse 30, he said, “What miracle are you showing us, that we may see and believe?” How much do you have to see? Well, that’s the unbelieving human heart. Our Lord Jesus had opened the eyes of the blind, and raised the dead, and fed the people, and made the lame to walk, and unstopped the deaf ears, and cast out demonic powers from poor victimized people. But they said, “What are you doing, that we might… Show us and we’ll believe, that we might see and believe.” The unbelieving heart is never satisfied with any amount of demonstration. The unbelieving heart can only be cured by absolute surrender, without condition. Anybody to whom I’m speaking this moment who’s saying, “Well, if God would just do this and that, then I’d be a Christian.” Oh, no, He isn’t gonna work that way. The other way, it’s not show me and I’ll believe. God says, “You believe and I’ll show you. You commit yourself to Me. You open your heart to Me as Lord, and you’ll find out what it means to have a real Savior.”

Just remember that, will you? The unbelieving heart is never convinced by any amount of argument or demonstration, only changed by commitment. Yielding to the Lord Jesus as Lord. He gives them this discourse, then, about the bread of Heaven. “I am the bread of life. He that cometh to Me shall never hunger. He that believeth on Me, shall never thirst. This is the will of Him that sent Me, that everyone which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” I want to talk with you for a little while about this matter of feeding on the Lord Jesus. He said, “I’m the bread of life.” Now, of course we get our contact, in this age of grace, our contact with God’s truth from the written Word of God, the Bible. And our Lord Jesus said, in verse 63 of this sixth chapter, “It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak,” words that is, “that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” So how do I get to this experience of feeding on Christ?

Well, I come back to the advice that Stephen Olford gave me back in 1944. I believe on his first visit to the US, as we were booking him around in Youth for Christ meetings and campaigns. Great Bible expositor, many of you know him, and have heard him. And I said to him one day, “Stephen, you’re very busy preaching all the time. How do you feed your own soul?” “Oh,” he said, “There’s something that I’ve followed for years,” and he gave it to me. I put it, later, in my little book, “Now That I Believe”, so that I might share it with people. About a million of them now, that God has given that book to. He said, “I stay with one passage of Scripture, whether it’s a few verses or a chapter, whatever it is; stay with a passage of Scripture until it says something to you.” Stay with it until it says something to you, and then he added this caveat, he said “Not outlines, not sermon outlines, Bob. Anybody can make an outline.” But he says, “You stay with it prayerfully until God says something to your own heart from that passage.”

“Then,” said he in the second place, “write it down. Have a little notebook or something, and write down what God has said to you. Third,” said he, “Pray it back to God until your heart is warm and tender with the truth.” This I found to be very important in my own life. It’s not just hearing, it is applying that counts. And so when God speaks to you tenderly from His Word, you pray that back to Him, until your own heart is tender, and your eyes are wet, and your will has been submissive to God in that area. That’s the third thing, pray it back to God. First, stay with it till it says something to you. Second, write it down. Third, pray it back to God until your heart is warm and tender with the truth He gave you. And fourth, and this also is important because it has a repercussive effect, it has a kick to it for you. “Fourth,” said he, “share it with someone else that very day.” That’s excellent. I owe that to Stephen Olford. I’ve used it all my life since, and shared it with lots of people. Feeding on the Lord Jesus, in the figure of speech that he used here, “I am the bread of life,” is found in His Word, and in prayer, and in obedience.

Stay with the presence of the Lord in the Word until He speaks to your heart. And you can hear from God, did you know that? Now, I’m not advocating any extrabiblical revelation. “Whatever God has said,” according to Hebrews 1, “has spoken to us by His son.” He spoke by the prophets, and He’s spoken by His son. And we have the written Word of God. And Revelation warns us not to add to or take from. Alright, I’m not advocating, then, any extra biblical strange revelation. What I’m saying is, you can hear from God based on His Word, and the application of it by the blessed indwelling Holy Spirit. God can speak to your heart in applying the eternal Word of God, and you can hear from heaven. Oh yes, you can. I think most of us quit our praying too soon. I used to tell the fellas, in Youth For Christ, keep on praying for several minutes, or a half hour after your mind has said, “Hey, say amen. Let’s get out of here.” It’s the extra few moments of prayer that pay off. Just as the salesman knows that it’s the extra few calls that pay off at the end of the day. It’s the extra few minutes of prayer that pay off.

Most of us quit our praying too soon, and then after we’ve said amen, most of us leave too soon. Have you ever just been quiet before the Lord after you got done talking to God? To be quiet before the Lord in worship, not asking for anything, just enjoying His presence, and pouring out your love and worship, and listening for what He has to say to you, and then writing it down. Oh, that’s a wonderful source of inspiration for your own heart. “It is the spirit that quickeneth.” The Holy Spirit dwells within you if you’re a believer. He’s taken up residence within you to reveal Christ to you, and through you. And He says, “The words that I speak,” words that is, “that I speak unto you are spirit, and are life.” Feed on the Word of God, wait before your Saviour in prayer. Listen for what He says to you by the indwelling Holy Spirit. Write it down, pray it back, and share it with people. Good idea? Well. That sixth chapter ends with the plaintive comment of Simon Peter when our Lord said, “Will you also go away?” And Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe and are sure that Thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.” To whom shall we go?

Has it ever, momentarily, occurred to you just to give up the whole Christian business? I think many of us may have come, sometimes, to a point where we’re so discouraged, we thought, “Oh, I just feel like giving it all up. Who can you trust after all? Where can you turn?” Maybe I’m speaking to someone who’s that bitterly discouraged right now, and these words have a strangely familiar ring to you. “I feel like giving up the whole business.” Listen, there isn’t any other alternative to Jesus. Any place else you turn, you are gonna be disappointed, you are gonna be victimized, you are going to be exploited, and ultimately, you’ll have your heart broken and you’ll be embittered. Look around you, what has happened in the lives of people who were trusting anything, or anybody other than the Lord Jesus? Peter said it right, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” The only option open for me when my heart is aching, or when circumstances are in reverse, and everything is breaking wrong for me. And when I feel like giving up, the only option open is just turning to the Lord Jesus. “To whom shall we go?”

There’s no other place to flee. The psalmist knew that. He said, “The Lord is my refuge,” a place to be safe. Are you upset today? Some of you are. Listen, find a place where you can get on your knees and say, “Oh God, I’m upset. Give me Your peace.” And God already knows about you, and His plans are already laid for you. Exercise your one good option, will you? Get back to Jesus and trust Him to do what He wants to do in your life. No, you don’t have to understand it all. No, it doesn’t have to be what you would like, it just has to be what God wants. But in the process, as you yield to Him, beloved, something happens in your life, and Christ is made more precious and real. And you are able, then, to share Him with other people. Lord, to whom shall we go? There isn’t any other option open. Any place else you turn, even though you say, “Oh, I feel like giving it all up.” Well, if you do, there isn’t any hope, any place else anyway. So run to Jesus.

“I must tell Jesus all of my trials; I cannot bear these troubles alone. Jesus will help me, Jesus will help me.” You remember the old song? And the chorus goes, “I must tell Jesus… ” I haven’t heard that song for a long time, but it’s so true. Run to Jesus today with your problems. Yes, business problems: Household problems, child/parent or husband/wife problems, personal, inside life problems; run to Jesus, let Him handle it. Lord, to whom shall we go? He’s the answer, yes He is.

Father God today, may we run to Thee and find the refuge that Thou canst provide. In Jesus’ name, I pray this. Amen.

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