Take A Moment

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again, radio friends. How in the world are you? Doing alright today? Oh, I trust so, bless your heart. I’m fine, thank you. Thanks for asking. [chuckle] I feel great. No complaints today, no complaints to lay at the complaint desk of Heaven. “Everything outside of the lake of fire is pure grace,” as Wendell Loveless used to say. You and I are grateful for God’s grace and mercy, aren’t we? Glad to be alive and look into the Word of God with you.

John 17 is the chapter. And our Lord Jesus was praying for the disciples, He said, “I don’t want You to take them out of the world, but keep them from the evil one.” How are you kept from Satan’s attacks? Number one, by the shining of Christ’s Presence in your life, the glory of Christ. Number two, by the Word of God. Our Lord Jesus used God’s Word when He met the temptation leveled at Him by Satan in the beginning of His earthly ministry. He said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” in answer to the temptation that appealed to the desires of His human flesh.

And he quoted Scripture each time He was tested. The Word of God. “The sword of the Spirit,” says Paul, “which is the Word of God.” “God’s word is alive and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit, and joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” The Word of God is your protection in times of testing. That’s why it’s so important to memorize portions of Scripture and plough them into the computer of your mind, the subconscious or unconscious portion of your mind, so that the Holy Spirit can crank them out when you need them.

“He shall bring all things to your remembrance,” Jesus said of the Holy Spirit. “Whatsoever I have said unto you.” You can’t remember it unless He first said it to you in His Word. So, you have to put it into your mind. Memorize a verse, a verse a week. That ought to be easy enough for any of us. Write it down on half of a 3 x 5 card, little card that would be 3 inches x 2 1⁄2 inches, fit easily into your purse or your wallet and look at it until it is in your mind permanently. And the Holy Spirit of God will use His Word to help protect you in times of testing and temptation.

“Keep them from the Evil One.” Go through the agenda of your day before you start it in the morning. Get up a few minutes earlier, and just on your knees, go through the day in prayer. I spoke to Frau Doctor Wasserzug over in Switzerland there at Beatenberg, Switzerland, 3000 feet up in the air looking down on that blue jewel of a lake, Lake Thun across from us the, Jungfrau, and the Matterhorn, and the other majestic Swiss peaks, jutting up into the sky, beautiful situation. But you get a few hundred hungry Americans and then delegates from all over the world, various countries of Europe, and South America, and the Orient, put them all together in a small space for a week, and you do have some automatic sources of tension, let us say. And Mrs. Wasserzug was in charge of all of this, she was running the Bible institute at Beatenberg. That was our place and she was our hostess.

In the middle of the week I said, “You know Frau Doctor, you amaze me.” I said, “You’re so calm and cool and collected. If I were in your place, I think I would be climbing the walls.” She looked at me and smiled and walked away. And Mrs. Neighbor was there, standing nearby and she walked up to me and she said, “Bob, I can answer your comment.” She said, “I’m rooming with the Frau Doctor this week because I gave up my room so some of you Americans could have a place to sleep.” And she said, “I have to tell you that the Frau Doctor had prayed clear through the day before 5:00 o’clock this morning. So she was ready.”

Ahh, there was the secret. She had prayed clear through the day before 5:00 o’clock that morning. No wonder then, that she was calm at 10:30 in the morning. You wanna think about that in your own life? Try going through the agenda of your day before you start it. Doesn’t take long, don’t make a slavery of it and say, “Oh, I have to get up at 4:00 in the morning, who wants to get up in the middle of the night?” Come on. Just a few moments with your Lord. Honestly, discussing with Him the whole day, so that He can put it in perspective and so that you can be girded with strength for the things that are going to come your way. His Presence shining, His Word reminding, His answer to prayer, miraculously guarding you.

And you know something? He never fails you. He never fails you. I’ve been so angry that the smoke literally seemed to be coming out of my ears, and then I prayed, “Lord, handle my anger.” And I felt it diffusing like the steam going out of a pressure cooker. Prayer that trusts God in circumstances where you can’t do much about it. Faith, “You, who are kept.” he said, “By the power of God through faith.” James said, “Count it all joy when ye fall into different kinds of temptations, knowing that the trial of your faith.” Not your will power or your performance. God knows that both of them are faulty. It’s a trial of your faith. “Worketh patience, but let patience have her perfect work that she may be grown up and entire, lacking nothing,” says James.

It’s the trial of my faith, God wants me really to trust him. “Without faith it is impossible to please Him for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently” (Diligently that is, that means 100%.) “Seek Him.” “You, who are kept by the power of God through faith.” Simon Peter is a pretty good illustration of that-he said to the Savior one day just before Calvary, “I’m willing to die for you, I’m your buddy, I’ll go anywhere, do anything, I’ll die for you.”

And the Lord Jesus looked at him and must have heaved a sigh and said “Ah, Peter. I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not.” What’s He talking about? God looks for absolute trust. He doesn’t look for 100% performance because you and I are human beings and we’re never gonna make that standard. He doesn’t look for the smartness and the ability, He looks for the surrender of faith.

Oh, I have to learn that everyday, God knows I do. And so indeed must you. Faith in Jesus, your living Lord, gives you the victory. Thanks be unto God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. In the long run, through simple faith, in the One who gained the victory for you at Calvary. It’s a good truth, isn’t it?

Now, He’s still praying, and He says, verse 17, “Sanctify them through Thy Truth, Thy Word is Truth.” The word ‘sanctify’ actually means set apart for God’s special use. Set apart for God’s special use, sanctify them. Hagiazo is the verb,’ to make holy’. “Sanctify them through Thy Truth.” Set them aside for your use by the effect of your truth on them.

Interesting concept there- when you know something about a given item, it builds a fence around that concept. Now, gasoline, you’re familiar with that, aren’t you? You are filling the tank of your car at one of these self-service gas stations, and as you stand there the gasoline is going in your tank, and a few bits of gasoline vapor are coming out into the atmosphere, and someone who is smoking a cigarette comes around the corner and approaches you, coming close to the car, and what do you say? “Put that cigarette out.”

Now, you don’t mean to be rude, and it certainly is not yours to tell the person whether he may or may not smoke. There’s probably pretty good reasons for not smoking now, even the world has joined the Christians in being against smoking. [chuckle] But you don’t think of it in those terms, you know that if you get too close to the gas tank with a lighted cigarette, there’s gonna be an explosion. That is the way things work. The personnel person calls it the law of the situation, how things work. And He said, “Sanctify them through that Truth.” The more you know of God’s Truth, the more you’ll know of how things work in God’s Will, and you’ll be set aside for His use. We’ll get at that the next time we get together.

Precious Father, protect us by Thy Presence, and Thy Truth, and Thy Spirit today, In Jesus’ name, I ask this. Amen.

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