The Key To Success

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again, my dear radio friend. How in the world are you? You doing alright? Well, I trust that if you’ve struck a rough day, you’ll look up and tell your blessed Lord that you’re trusting in Him, and somehow the aches and the pains don’t seem quite so bad, and the circumstances that have been contrary and frustrating don’t seem quite so burdensome when you commit things to your blessed Lord. Everything by prayer, said Paul in Philippians Chapter 4, and as a result the peace of God that passes all understand will keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. So pray your way through the day and trust Him, no matter what kind of a day it seems to be turning out to be, it’ll be a victorious one if you walk through it with him.

We’re in Ephesians Chapter 3, you and I, and we were looking at verse 12. “In Christ we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.” It says, “With confidence”. The writer to the Hebrew says something that reminds us, “Cast not away your confidence.” “Cast not away your confidence.” Why? Because it’s human to get discouraged and to get to be the victim of the “what-if?” syndrome. “Cast not away your confidence.” Why? Because God is faithful, because you’re the recipient of His plans. And that you still are able by faith to trust the almightiness of God. Cast not away your confidence. God is still able. He is still able. He is still on the throne. When I was on the air in 1935, I used to sing. Can you believe it? But I did. I used to sing to come on the air, and I used to sing “God is still on the throne. And He never forsaketh His own. Tho’ burdens oppress us and trials distress us, He never will leave us alone. God is still on the throne, His promise is true, He will not forget you, God is still on the throne.” Confidence, don’t cast away your confidence, don’t give up.

Now, it’s human to be discouraged, because if things don’t go the way we think they should, our spirits sag and we get a little sick at heart, and we think, “Oh well, what’s the use?” You have to remember that God doesn’t change with the weather, He’s still there. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever. And what He said to you yesterday is still true today. Dr. Edmund, I think it was who said, “Never doubt in the darkness what God said to you in the light.” The circumstances may change, but God, His will is still, still the same. You can go back and say, “Well God, did you really mean what you said?” He doesn’t change. His promise is the same. His will is the same. His commandments are the same. The eternal truth of God is the same. And the way into His presence through faith in the Lord Jesus is the same, so you can have confidence. You don’t have to wonder about it, you don’t have to be the victim of the “What if?” syndrome. What if I pray and nothing happens? What if this? And what if that? Don’t do it. Trust your blessed Lord. Faith is risking the situation on God, and to go through with His will no matter what.

I think the classic illustration is I’ve told you once or twice. The classic illustration of this is found in the book of Daniel, where those three Hebrew young men dragged before the king, he was irate because they dared to refuse to bow down to the golden image that he had set up, representing of course himself, and he wanted people to worship him and the image that he had set up. And so he said, “Well, I’ll give you one more chance, but if you don’t, when the orchestra begins to play again, if you don’t bow down and worship, I’m gonna throw you into the burning fiery furnace.” And they said, “O king, we are not worried.” The word there in your Bible is careful. “We’re not worried to answer you in this matter. Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us. But if not, be it known unto thee, O King, we will not bow down, nor serve the image which thou hast set up.” So the essence of real… The real commitment of faith is the “But if not”. If not. If I pray and things don’t turn out the way I wanted them, well, hallelujah anyway.

Evangelist Sam Jones, many years ago, this would be a century ago, I suppose, said that he knew of someone who was saved out of a life of considerable sin and incidentally a good deal of indebtedness. And so the man came home and said, “Wife, I’ve become a Christian and we’re gonna pay our debts.” And she said, “Well, we’ll starve if we do that.” And he said, “Well, if we starve we’ll just tell him we died of typhoid fever and praise the Lord anyway.” [chuckle] Hallelujah anyway. That is the essence of victorious faith, the confidence that we have. It says, “In the faith of Him.” You see, God doesn’t examine your track record, He wants to see whether you really trust Him. Our Lord Jesus said, “Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired thee that he might sift thee as wheat, but I have prayed for thee that thy… ” What? Did He say conduct? Did He say track record? No. He said, “I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. I don’t want you to stop trusting Me. You can’t trust yourself Simon Peter, three times you’re gonna deny that you even know Me before the rooster has a chance to crow tomorrow morning.”

But He said, “You can trust Me, and you can trust My plans for you, because you matter to Me and I got plans for you that involve not only the now, but the hereafter, because I want you, Simon Peter, with Me for all eternity.” That is how great God’s concern for you is. You can have confidence in Him this very day.

Now, how do you work that out in daily situations? Well, I’ve often told my students at the college, pray your way through the day, pray before you answer the phone, God will help you say the right thing when you answer the phone, you don’t know who’s there. Pray before you open a letter, you don’t know if it’s a bill or a check or whatever it may be, God will get you prepared. Pray before you answer somebody’s question. Pray before you enter into a casual conversation in the hallway. Pray before you make a business decision, before you hire or fire. Pray before you adjust that budget that the boss has sent back to you, and said you had to carve out $100,000. Pray before you make those decisions. Pray before you go on a date. Pray before you take a job or quit one, pray about the great decisions of life and pray about the little things. Where should I get the car serviced? Shall I buy this suit or that, or not at all? And so on. Pray about the small things so-called, because it’s the small decisions in life often times that make a difference.

Back in 1948, I was on my way back home from having been in China and Japan and India, and a brief stopover at Switzerland, and I came back a couple of days before the scheduled called for my departure from London. And so I decided that I would get home sooner because I was home sick, I missed my loved ones, and it had been 10 weeks, it was a long time. So I tried to get on an earlier flight. Well, in those days, the flights were hard to get and the people at the airlines were very polite, very British, and perfectly courteous, but perfectly firm as well. “You can’t do that, you know.”

And so I gave up and took a day went over to Switzerland to see Frau Wasserzug, that great lady of God who was running the Bible Institute at that time, and where we were going to have a conference later on that same year with 500 delegates from all over the world. And we had a chance to get acquainted with her, Merrill Dunlap and I. And had a great time of fellowship. Came back then a day or so later. And then to find to my horror, that the plane, the very plane that I had tried so hard to get on had crashed at Shannon. There was one survivor out of all of the people who were on that plane. Well, you know, I stopped on the street corner and bowed my head and thanked my heavenly Father for taking care of His boy.

But the interesting thing about it that I learned was, there was one person who was on the plane already who happened to have in his pocket a tiny little puppy. He wanted that puppy and he didn’t want to go through the rigmarole of having it in quarantine and all of that. And so I guess the little creature made some noise or other and was discovered, and they said, “You can’t bring that thing on here, you can’t fly, you can’t go on this flight with that dog.” “Well,” he said, “If I can’t, I won’t take the flight.” And he went off in some bit of anger about it, but that decision actually saved his life.

Small things about which we fail to pray may get us into a big pick of trouble. So pray about small decisions as well as the big ones in life so that God can give you the confidence of being led every moment by the Holy Spirit of God. “As many as are led by the Spirit of God,” Romans 8:14, “are the sons of God.” “He leadeth me, O blessed thought. O word with heav’nly comfort fraught. Whate’er I do, where’er I be, Still ’tis God’s hand that leadeth me.” Fanny Crosby sang about getting over on the other side, “And this my song through endless ages, Jesus led me all the way. All the way my Savior leads me, what have I to ask beside? Can I doubt His tender mercy? Jesus led me all the way.”

That is the testimony of people who learn to commit their life moment by moment, and detail by detail, and decision by decision to your blessed living Lord. Confidence by the faith, the faith of Him, see. The thing that makes your relationship with God real is your commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s the way, He Himself said that, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” So He’s the way to a living relationship with Almighty God, which gives you boldness, you don’t have to cringe and slink away, gives you access, the door is right open, you can go right on in to the throne room of Heaven. “Let us come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” And you can have confidence knowing the “hallelujah anyway” result of real praying in faith.

When you commit a situation to God in faith, nothing can go wrong from Heaven’s point of view. You believe that? When you commit a situation to God in faith, nothing can go wrong, because you’re in His hands. You say, “The doctor may make a mistake.” You say, “The judge may rule against me.” You say, “People won’t understand.” That may all be true, just as true as the pressure that was on the three Hebrew young men, when they stood before the angry King. But God is still on the throne and He can turn things around. Hallelujah. [chuckle] That’s great, isn’t it? Trust Him, trust Him.

Well, dear Lord Jesus, we love You and we worship You as our living Lord and savior, and we pray that our lives may be marked by that instant access to eternal power which comes through the commitment of faith in Jesus. I pray in His name, Amen.

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