The tribe of Levi was to be the one to minister to the Lord. Why? The story is told in Exodus 32. When Moses came down the mountain the first time, seeing the children of Israel worshiping the golden calf, he said, “Who is on the Lord’s side? Who will deal with this situation?” Only one tribe stepped up: the tribe of Levi. From that point on, Levi would be the tribe of ministry because they took the sword in the fear of the Lord. The other tribes said, “We don’t want to get involved.” And that can all too often be our tendency as well. Yet, if we’re not willing to wield the sword of Scripture in love and say, “This cannot go on. This needs to be thought through and cut away,” we cannot be servants of the Lord.

Paul said, “If we seek to please men, we cannot be the servants of God” (see Galatians 1:10). We need to be those who are merciful and loving enough to say to the people we care about who are involved in sin, “I care about you and am committed to you. Therefore, I’m not going to hold back the truth from you.” This is not anger or hostility, judgment or condemnation. It’s love and compassion, kindness and mercy. Only Levi was willing to unsheathe the sword and deal with the cancer that would corrupt the whole congregation. Thus, only Levi would qualify for ministry.

The mention of “latter rain” also appears in Jeremiah 5, Hosea 6, Joel 2, and James 5 - where it speaks of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. “There’s coming a time,” the Lord says, “when I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh. Your sons and daughters shall prophesy. Your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams” (see Joel 2:28).

We are already seeing the beginning of a wonderful last day’s outpouring, where people are being filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit. But it’s only the beginning. The Lord wants to save souls and bring in a huge harvest in these last days. And He’s going to empower us to an even greater degree.

The latter rain is not something we pump up emotionally, but that which the Lord pours out upon those who simply love Him and give themselves in service to Him. “Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth,” Jesus said (Acts 1:8).

Power is given for the purpose of service. Therefore, on us who say, “Lord, I love You. That’s why I’m here. And I want to serve You. Use me,” the Lord will pour out His Spirit in order that we might be His witnesses.

Although the Lord pours out His Spirit to those who give themselves to serve Him, the outpouring will cease if we turn aside and serve the gods of our hobbies, our desires, or our flesh. Once I start serving these gods, the heavens are shut up and my soul gets dry.

Elijah - the one who called down fire from Heaven - stormed into wicked King Ahab’s court and said, “Be it known unto you, it shall not rain these years but according to my word.” And indeed it didn’t rain for over three years (see 1 Kings 17:1). James tells us that although Elijah was a man just like you and me, he knew how to pray (James 5:17). Therefore, he evidently knew this text, for Jesus said if His words abide in us, then our prayers will be answered (John 15:7).

That’s why we attend Bible studies year after year after year. That’s why I read the Word. I want to know what this book has to say that I might pray effectively. Elijah models this. The Word of the Lord was evidently in his heart, enabling him to pray effectively. The more Bible study you take in, the more Scripture you know, the more effectively you can pray. And the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails, or accomplishes, much (James 5:16).

In Joshua 8, we see half of the tribes of the children of Israel on Mount Gerizim, the other half on Mount Ebal with Joshua, and the priests and Levites in the valley between. Joshua will say a certain commandment to which was attached a blessing, and all the tribes on Mount Gerizim will say, “Amen!” Then he will give a command with a curse - something which they’re not to do - and those on Mount Ebal will also say, “Amen!” In so doing, the nation of Israel will acknowledge that if they obey God, they will be blessed. If not, they will be cursed. It was on Mount Ebal that sacrifice was to be made. I love this because where there are curses, an altar is available to make provision. I’m so glad about that because I’ve been on both sides of the valley. I’ve experienced the blessings of Gerizim. But I’ve also wandered over to Ebal. Thus, I am so grateful for the altar, the provision for my sin and stupidity.

Joshua is, of course, a picture of Jesus. Where is Jesus right now? He is between two mountains. He’s already been on the mountain of cursing, where He who knew no sin was made sin for us as He hung on the Cross of Calvary (2 Corinthians 5:21). But He’s coming back to another mountain - the Mount of Olives, which will split in two when He returns as the Prince of Peace (Zechariah 14:4).

“I’ve heard you talk about being blessed if we obey the commandments,” you might say. “I’ve done my best, tried my hardest. But I’m not being blessed like I thought I would be. You talk about taking territory, but it hasn’t happened for me.”

Wait. You’re in the valley. Wait until Jesus gets back. Oh, we’re blessed right now without question, but the Mount of Olives tells me the best is yet to come. When you read these blessings and promises, realize that, although they apply to you, to your marriage, to your family, and to your ministry, the best is yet to come. And I’m so looking forward to that. Obey the Lord. Keep His commandments. Bind His Word before your eyes. Keep it close at hand. Teach your children. And God will bless you, yes in this life; but especially, most importantly, most fully in the age of the Kingdom, throughout eternity, in Heaven.

“Tear down their altars. Cut down their groves. Destroy their high places,” God declares. “Instead, go to the place I tell and there you shall worship Me. There you shall bring your tithes and offerings to Me. There you shall make your vows to Me. There you shall seek Me.”

Where was “there”?

Jerusalem.

“Why do we have to tithe? Why must we go to church on Sunday? I’m going to do what I want to do,” some people say. But theirs is a wilderness mentality. They might be sincere, but God says once we have crossed into the Promised Land - which speaks of the Spirit-filled life, the deeper life, the productive life, the fruitful life - it’s not up to us what to do.

“Our fathers say we are to worship on Mount Gerizim, yet you Jews say we are to worship in Jerusalem,” the woman at the well said to Jesus.

“In reality,” Jesus answered, “the Father is seeking those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth” (see John 4:23).

Why do we get together and worship the Lord with uplifted hands, on our knees, at His Table? Because we’re worshiping the Lord in spirit. Why do we go through the Bible month after month, year after year, decade after decade? Because we’re worshiping Him in truth.

“It’s not that simple,” the cultist says to the believer. “You can’t come boldly before the throne of grace. You’ve got to prove your sincerity.”

In Moses’ day, the Canaanites proved they were sincere seekers of their gods by literally burning their sons and daughters. Five-foot-high iron idols dedicated to Molech were constructed with a hole in them in which a fire would burn, causing the idol to become incandescent. Sincere worshipers would place their firstborn child on the red-hot arms of these idols in the valley of Tophet, also known as the valley of Gehenna, which is another name for hell.

Every cult and false religion is based upon man working his way up the ladder of sincerity, good works, and obedience to a system. Christianity alone is not based upon man working up to God, but God reaching down to man. “For by grace are ye saved,” Paul declares. And what is grace? It is unmerited, undeserved, unearned favor. It is a gift of God, not of works (Ephesians 2:8–9).

What must a man do to be saved? Simply believe in the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 16:30–31). Period. “It is finished,” Jesus said (John 19:30). My standing with God is not about what I do to prove my sincerity, but about what He’s already done to prove His love and mercy. And all that’s left is for me to respond to His free gift of salvation.

In this section, Moses reiterates the dietary laws for the people of Israel - which meats were considered to be clean, which were unclean. These kosher laws served the people of Israel well not only in Moses’ generation, but for centuries to come . . .

In the Middle Ages, when plagues and disease devastated the continent of Europe, the Jewish people were singularly protected from many of them. Mistakenly thinking their protection came from magic or witchcraft, the Jews were persecuted. As time has passed, however, we now know that the reason the Jewish people in Europe were protected was because of their adherence to the sanitary and dietary regulations found throughout the book of Deuteronomy.

The wisdom of God’s Word becomes all the more clear in light of the contemporary writings of other cultures. For example, an Egyptian scroll, written at approximately the same time Moses wrote Deuteronomy, is said to have propagated the following: To prevent gray hair, take blood from a black cat, mix it with the fat of a rattlesnake and eat it twice daily. Or to reverse baldness, take fat from a cat, a horse, a crocodile, a hippo, a snake, and an ibex and mix it together and eat it. If you have a severe case of baldness, add to it a tooth of a donkey that has been cooked in honey.

When we read these things, we chuckle because of the absurdity. But when we study the Scriptures, written at the same time as this papyrus, we see them proving to be medically correct and healthy. They are not dated, not absurd - and should the Lord tarry, I have a sneaking suspicion that as we learn more, we’ll discover to a greater degree how God’s dietary regulations are the best possible plan for the human condition.

When Jesus came on the scene, He said, “The issue is not what you eat physically, but what goes on in your heart” (see Mark 7:15). With this in mind, we can understand that these laws are not only to be followed by the Jewish people of Moses’ day, but that they’re applicable for you and me spiritually - that we might be careful what we take in, what we put into our soul.

When the children of Israel brought their tithe, it was to be with rejoicing. “For God loveth a cheerful giver,” Paul would write to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 9:7). The Greek word translated “cheerful” is hilaros - from which we get the word “hilarious.” God loves a person who gives hilariously, cheerfully, or gladly. Therefore, I think it’s a mistake to feel obligated to give. It’s a privilege to be able to say, “Lord, I’m honoring You in the way You’ve asked me.”

If it’s not a privilege for you, don’t do it. You’ll find, however, that things don’t work for you in your budgeting and your own financial situation. Over and over I’ve watched people miss out on blessings all because of a failure to understand that they couldn’t possibly out-give God.

Every third year, a second tithe was taken to take care of people who were poor - the fatherless, the widow, and the stranger. And that money was to be used for their well-being and welfare. If you add together the tithes of Deuteronomy 14, Deuteronomy 16, and Numbers 18, they come to an average of 23 percent annually. While it may be that even in our godless society we are contributing a portion of this through taxes, this we do know for certain: God’s ways are right. His heart is for us. Therefore, when He asks us to give to Him, it’s not only for His glory, but also for our good.

Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart. - Psalm 40:6–8

The ear of Jesus Christ was opened, pierced not with an awl but by the wood of the Cross of Calvary. Jesus is the perfect bondslave who came not to be served, but to serve (Mark 10:45), who came not to do His own will, but His Father’s (Matthew 26:39). For the joy set before Him, He endured the Cross, despising the shame (Hebrews 12:2). He knew there would be suffering and bleeding, but He also knew that on the other side, there would be joy which would far outweigh and supersede even the pain.

And such can be the same for you and me . . .

Doulos, the Greek word for servant, refers to an under rower. Think of a ship sailing across the Mediterranean Sea. While the passengers on the deck enjoy the view, below them are men expending great energy, toiling at the oars. That’s what it means to be a servant. You slave away hour after hour, day after day in order to get the people above you to their destination. The true servant says, “I want to get you to where you’re supposed to be - out of the slough of despondency, out of the place where you’re discouraged, confused, or damned eternally. I want to do whatever I can to get you to your destination.”

“That sounds awful,” you say, “rowing day after day under the deck just to get someone else to his or her destination.”

But here’s what you must remember: If the people on deck are headed to Maui, guess where you will end up? It’s true. If I’m helping someone else to have a better day, I arrive at the same port. If I’m helping someone overcome discouragement, I myself end up overcoming my own discouragement. If I’m helping someone else with their marriage, my own marriage grows stronger, richer, and deeper. If I’m helping someone else who is confused about the nature of the Father, as I row for them, my own understanding of the Father becomes so much clearer.

This should not be surprising. After all, Jesus said, “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again” (Luke 6:38).

Next time you have a week where you feel physically, emotionally, spiritually, or mentally fatigued, here’s the key: Serve others. Talk to others. Pray with others. Maybe people will notice your labor of love on their behalf. But it may be that your work will take place under the deck where, out of sight, unnoticed by others, as a bondslave, you row faithfully to get them to their destination.

The first act the king was to perform upon taking the throne was not to go to an inaugural ball, throw a party for his donors, or watch a parade in his honor. God declared the first thing a king was to do was to make a copy of the Law. Why? Because in writing down every line and every word, the Law would be embedded in the king’s mind.

I have found that if I have pencil and paper in hand when I have devotions or go to a Bible study, I never come away empty-handed. And even if I never refer to those notes again, taking notes forces me to be engaged in the process of listening.

Not only are we to write the Word down, but we’re to pack it around. I have several pocket Bibles I carry not because I’m trying to be a holy Joe or some kind of Pharisee, but because I’ve found I can redeem a bunch of time - whether waiting for a stoplight, waiting for an appointment, or standing in line at the grocery store. You will be amazed at how much Scripture you can absorb in a single year simply by keeping the Word close at hand.

In addition to writing it down and packing it around, the king was not only to read the Word consistently, but to take it seriously. When I read the Bible, I fear the Lord. Why? Not because I’m condemned, but because I’m convicted. I realize the Word is right and I’m not, that it is good and I’m not, that it is true and I’m not. In other words, when I read the Word, I realize that I need Jesus every single day.

When do I find fault with others? When do I come down on others? When is my heart lifted up above others? When I’m not in the Word. When I’m in the Word, however, I realize how far I have yet to go. In reading the Word, the king would be reminded of his own need for mercy and forgiveness and would thereby be merciful and forgiving toward those he ruled.

If, like Israel’s kings were instructed to do, I read the Word consistently and take it seriously, not only will I walk in the ways of the Lord, but also my children will follow. What a simple premise. What a glorious promise.

To the children of Israel, Moses didn’t say, “If you see the enemy . . .” He said, “When you see the enemy . . .” In other words, battles were inevitable.

So too, if you are facing a battle today, you are neither unique nor alone. Every one of us will have encounters when we feel outgunned and outmaneuvered, when we feel under-prepared and overwhelmed. At such times, we are not to be afraid. Why? Because these challenges provide invaluable opportunities for us to see how God will come through for us.

There is no way to know how great God is until you are in a situation you can’t handle, until you don’t know what to do, until it is seemingly impossible to solve the problem. We will only know how great and loving our God is when we are in over our heads, completely at a loss. I’ve been there. So have you. Maybe you’re there right now. The priest is to say, “Don’t be afraid. The Lord is with you. He brought you out of Egypt, out of the world, out of hell. He’s not going to let you go now.”

Three groups of men were exempt from battle: those who hadn’t finished building their houses, those who hadn’t yet eaten of their vineyards, and those who were engaged, but not yet married. In this, we see God’s desire that people delight in His blessings before they devote themselves to battle.

For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. - 2 Corinthians 8:9

Jesus left the blessings of Heaven in order to bless us. And, while there is definitely a time for battle, there is also a time to delight in the blessings that are ours through the grace of the One who became poor that we might be rich.

A fourth group deferred from battle was comprised of those who were afraid. When people lack faith, they often begin to speak negatively to justify their own fears. Cynicism and criticism are often a cowardly covering for fear. And they’re contagious. That’s why those who were afraid were to go home.

If you want to be used by the Lord, ask yourself if your household is stable, if the work of your hands is thriving, if your marriage is healthy, if your heart is full of faith. If a man doesn’t have a home for his family, he ought to tend to that first. If a man doesn’t have a job and wants to be supported by others, he should get a job and succeed at that. If a man has a lousy marriage, he shouldn’t be taking on further ministry. If a man is full of fear, he shouldn’t try to hide behind ministry or missions. This passage is an important checklist for anyone who wants to be used by the Lord, to be engaged in His work.

When the Israelites went to battle, their axes were not to fly indiscriminately. That is, they were not to cut down any fruit-bearing tree. This is a good word for us because in our battle against principalities and powers, against the Devil, our adversary, if we’re not careful, we can cut down trees that bear fruit - other believers, denominations, or churches who might have an entirely different flavor than ours, but from which we can be nourished. Wise is the believer who says, “Lord, help me to see what I can glean from that group, what I can learn from those people.”

So much of what I’ve learned has been from trees that, in my own fleshly tendency, I would have chopped down. Wouldn’t it be something if all the energy we expended analyzing ministries and criticizing Christians was harnessed against the real Enemy? Yes, there’s a war to wage, a battle to fight. And some trees are apostate indeed. But others have fruit that we can glean, through which we can grow, from which we can gain strength for the battle against the Enemy of our souls.

All the men of the city were to stone the rebellious son. Why? I suggest three reasons . . .

Motivation. With communities being small in Bible times, the men of the city would know the son in question. They would know his family. Therefore, it would be so difficult to stone him, and they would go home resolved to do whatever it took to make sure their own sons didn’t follow the same path of rebellion.

Evaluation. Participating in the stoning would cause the men in the community to ask themselves if there was something they could have done to turn him from his rebellious ways.

Proclamation. The stoning proclaimed to the community that rebellion was neither a “stage” nor an inevitable part of growing up. It was simply not to be tolerated.

If you’ve either been, or raised, a rebellious child, I call your attention to another rebellious son - the Prodigal Son of Luke 15. When this rebellious son returned, his father ran out to meet him not with rocks in his hand, but with a robe for his son. Why? Did God change His mind somewhere between Deuteronomy and Luke about the severity of rebellion?

No. The punishment for rebellion is always death (Romans 6:23). But because a third Son - not the rebellious son, not the Prodigal Son, but the perfect Son - became sin and took my place on the Cross, I am forgiven completely.

For centuries, this was a controversial passage in the life and history of Israel. In fact, when Jesus came on the scene, there was a red-hot debate taking place in the culture concerning the definition of “uncleanness.” One opinion was voiced by a famous scholar named Hillel. Liberal in his perspective, Hillel said a woman was to be considered unclean - and, therefore, a candidate for divorce - if she caused uncleanness in her home. For example, if she over-salted her husband’s eggs, thereby causing him to be angry, the resulting “unclean” atmosphere of the home would be her fault. Hillel went on to say that if a man saw a woman who was “cleaner” than his wife, his wife would become “unclean” by comparison. The other opinion was voiced by a scholar named Shammai, who insisted that uncleanness applied exclusively to immorality.

When asked His opinion on the matter, Jesus answered, “What God has joined together, let not man put asunder.”

“Why, then, did Moses give permission to divorce?” the Pharisees asked Him.

“Because of the hardness of your hearts,” Jesus explained (see Matthew 19:3–9). As evidenced by Jesus’ answer, the answer to the question of divorce doesn’t lie in loopholes.

“I want a divorce because I’m being abused,” says a wife.

“How are you being abused?” I ask.

“Verbally,” she answers.

“I want a divorce because my wife is hindering my spiritual growth,” a husband says.

“No,” Jesus says. “Go back to the garden of Eden and see that God’s plan is that one woman and one man stay together until death separates them.”

Does this mean the divorced person has committed the unpardonable sin? Not at all. It means they’ve committed a sin - just like we all have. But because God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16), it must be an absolute last resort, not a first option. And there must be the admission that it is only the hardness of one’s own heart that makes it even a possibility.

It has been said that the primary task of teaching is not so much to reveal as it is to remind. And evidently Moses would agree, for as we have seen, the entire book of Deuteronomy is a reminder to the children of Israel of what God had done for them, of what He had taught them, and of what He expected of them.

The passage before us is no exception, beginning as it does with the word, “Remember” (verse 17), and ending with the words, “Thou shalt not forget” (verse 19).

What were the children of Israel not to forget? They were not to forget how during their wilderness wanderings the Amalekites attacked them not man-to-man, not face-to-face, but from the back. The Israelites were to remember how the Amalekites would wait in hiding until they passed by, how they would attack those who were weary and feeble.

We, too, have an Enemy who attacks us constantly. “Be sober,” Peter said. “Be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). It is said that in the jungle, the lion wakes up each day knowing that he simply must outrun the slowest prey. And the same is true spiritually, for like the lion, Satan attacks the weariest or feeblest among us. And, like Amalek, he finds them at the back of the pack.

This is a word we need to remember, a word of which we need to be reminded constantly because we can say, “I’ve been walking with the Lord for a number of years. I’ve been involved in a lot of battles. I need to kick back a bit, to cruise awhile,” not realizing that those who think they deserve a break are the very ones most vulnerable to an attack . . .

He was a great man, a godly man. Year after year he had led his troops into battle. He was their commander, their king. But at the age of fifty, he said, “I’ve fought long enough. I’m going to kick back awhile.” So he sent another to lead the troops while he stayed behind. On the roof of his palace one night, enjoying the view of the golden city of Jerusalem, his eye came across a woman taking a bath. Intrigued by her, he had an affair with her and tried to cover it up by murdering her husband. He should have been fully engaged. He should have been front and center in the battle. Instead, he thought he deserved a break. And as a result, life was never the same for David, for his family, or for his Kingdom.

The same thing can happen to you and me. “I’ve been walking with the Lord for forty years,” we say. “Who says I have to have devotions and go to Bible study? Why not let someone else teach Sunday school? Why not let someone else work in the nursery? Why not let someone else go to the prayer meeting? I’m tired.”

We are currently seeing a rash of middle-aged men in our own community falling into immorality. The number of people who have been sucked into sin at this point in life is astonishing to me. And the common thread among them seems to be a misconception that they were justified in pulling away from fellowship, in drifting away from worship because they thought they had paid their dues, because they thought that spending time with the Lord or with His people no longer needed to be a priority.

Precious people, be oh, so careful that you don’t grow weary somewhere in middle life, saying, “I’ve fought the fight. Now it’s time to cruise.” Amalek attacks the back of the pack. He’ll be waiting for you.

At only thirty years of age, he wasn’t weary. But he was feeble. He hadn’t always been that way. “Smite the Shepherd and the sheep will scatter,” the Lord had said.

“Not me,” he had boldly answered. “My name is Peter. I’m solid as a rock. You can count on me” (see Matthew 26:31–35).

But hours later, when Jesus was led away to the trial that would ultimately lead to His crucifixion, Peter did what he said he would never do: he ran. And then, feeling feeble, he followed Jesus afar off. He still followed Jesus, but no longer at His side. Now there was a distance between them (Matthew 26:58).

The enemies of Jesus lit fires that night to take the chill away. And Peter was chilled indeed - not only outwardly, but inwardly - to his very soul. He knew he was not where he was supposed to be, where he said he would be, where he used to be. Instead, he stood by the fires of the enemy.

“We know you,” one of those who stood by said to him. “You’re one of His followers.”

“No, I’m not,” Peter answered.

“Weren’t you with Jesus?” asked a young girl.

“No,” Peter insisted.

“I’m sure you’re a Galilean,” said another.

And at this point Peter swore, the original text indicating that he took an oath as if to say, “My soul be damned if I know that Man” (see Matthew 26:74).

Be careful when you feel feeble that you don’t say, “I’m not what I should be or not what I used to be so I’m going to follow Jesus afar off.” When you follow Jesus from afar, there’s a chill in your soul that will drive you to the fires of the Enemy in search of warmth. You’ll visit web sites you know you ought not to look at. You’ll turn to movies or to alcohol, to drugs or to fantasies, hoping they’ll warm your soul. You’ll fall prey to the attack of the Enemy when you allow former sins or tendencies to needlessly drive you to the back of the pack.

What are you supposed to do when you’re weary or feeble?

Don’t go to the back. Go to the front. Become more engaged than ever, more involved than you ever were before in your spiritual work and devotional life, more committed to service and ministry, to worship and Bible study.

But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. - Isaiah 40:31

Why should we remain front and center in the things of the Lord even when we’re tired, even if we’re feeble? Because in so doing, our strength is not diminished. It’s renewed, replenished, and restored.

We’re involved in a battle, to be sure. But there’s coming a day when even the memory of Amalek will be blotted out - when Satan is cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10). And Isaiah tells us we’re going to “narrowly look” on Satan (14:16–17). That is, with furrowed brow, we’ll scratch our heads and say, “Is this the one who held people captive, who shook kingdoms, who brought destruction? We were tricked by him?” And then we’ll see how greatly the lion, seeking whom he may devour, pales in comparison to the Lion of the tribe of Judah (1 Peter 5:8; Revelation 5:5).

Until then, remain fully engaged in your devotional life, in your personal walk, in your service for the King. In so doing, not only will you please Him greatly, not only will your strength be renewed daily, but the arrows of Amalek will never reach you way up there at the front.

Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal are each about two thousand feet high. Between them is a valley that served as a natural amphitheater. With six tribes on each mountain and the priests and leaders in between, the stage was set for an illustrated sermon the children of Israel would not soon forget.

As the Law was read, the tribes on Mount Ebal would say “Amen” to the curses, while those on Mount Gerizim would affirm the blessings. And lest you think you would rather be on Mount Gerizim affirming the blessings, don’t forget that the altar - the place where blood is shed, where forgiveness is made - was on Mount Ebal.

You might be aware of failings and shortcomings in your life, of times you’ve dropped the ball and cursed yourself or others because of stupidity and sin. But where sin abounds, grace abounds more (Romans 5:20). Therefore, the greater awareness I have of my sin, the more thankful I am for the grace of God. It is not surprising that the one who is forgiven much loves much (Luke 7:47), making Mount Ebal - the place where blood is shed - the place where there is, ultimately, peace and joy.

When I see the blessings in Deuteronomy 28, I can’t help but say, “That’s exactly what I want. I want to see my family blessed. I want my location to be satisfying to me. I want to see my cupboards full. I want to experience stability and spiritual intimacy. I want to see the work of my hands blessed, to have a daily routine that’s fulfilling, to know my future is secure.” But this is hardly surprising, for who of us doesn’t want these blessings?

So when I hear Moses saying, “If you hearken diligently to the Lord, if you obey all of His commandments, these blessings will be yours,” I say, “Wonderful!” - until I try, but inevitably and consistently fail.

You see, the key to success and blessing lies in obeying all of the commandments. It can’t be 90 percent or even 99 percent. To get the victory that brings the blessings, one must do it all (James 2:10) because the Ten Commandments are interwoven in such a way that to break one is ultimately to break all ten. Think of it this way . . .

You’re out at sea, two miles from shore, when you notice that, although nine of the floorboards in your boat are shipshape, one is rotting away in the salt water. Therefore, even though only one in ten is faulty, even though nine are in perfect order, you’re sunk.

So too, Moses said if you want these blessings, you’ve got to obey all the commandments. And therein lies the problem. I want to. I try. But I can’t.

There is One, however, who did indeed keep all the commandments. In fact, so perfectly did He keep them that even His enemies could find no fault in Him (Luke 23:4). And because Jesus kept all the commandments, because He fulfilled every expectation and requirement of the Law, He gets all of the blessings. In other words, every Old Testament blessing, every glorious promise made to those who would walk in God’s ways, who would obey God’s Word, who would seek God’s heart is His because He did all of those things (2 Corinthians 1:19–20).

And here’s the amazing news: When you became a Christian, not only did Christ come in you, but you were placed in Him (2 Corinthians 5:17). Therefore, all the promises are yours as well.

“Why don’t I see blessings in my life?” you ask.

Maybe God has blessed you more than you realize. Maybe you haven’t taken the time to think through the way He’s blessed you in the city and in the country, blessed the fruit of your body, blessed you in the storehouse, blessed you in your basket, blessed you with victory over the Enemy who threatened to crush and destroy you. Maybe He’s blessed you more than you think. And maybe part of the issue is to stop and review what He’s done for you and to rejoice in that.

But more importantly, maybe you don’t see God’s blessings in your life because you’re working too hard to even notice them . . .

After wasting his father’s money in the far country, the Prodigal Son returned, not to punishment, but to a party. “Unfair!” said his older brother to their father. “I’ve been with you every day, working faithfully. But you never threw a party on my behalf.”

“Son,” the father answered. “All that I have is yours” (see Luke 15:31), as if to say, “Any time you wanted, you could have had anything and everything you desired. But you were too busy being self-righteous, working in the field trying to impress me, trying to earn something from me to come out of the field and into the party.”

So too, many of us have said, “I’m going to pray more. I’m going to work harder. I’m going to worship with greater intensity. I’m going to give more money. I’m going to teach Sunday school or work in the nursery so that I will be blessed,” only to find that it never works.

We’re blessed, gang, no matter what we do or don’t do simply because we’re His. But now God wants to use us. Isn’t it amazing that God would want to use us?

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. - Galatians 2:20

The more we allow Christ to work in and through us, the more He taps us on the shoulder, saying, “I’ve already blessed you. Now I want to use you. Go out there and serve for My glory.”

As we come to chapter 30, nearing the end of Moses’ farewell sermon to the children of Israel, I can almost hear Moses pause, sigh, and look the congregation in the eye as he begins to share with them from his soul.

He’s been going on and on, repeating the commandments of the Lord. And now he says God’s commandment is not secret, mystical, abstract, or hard to reach. It’s not in the heavens, but is very near to them. How near? As close as it can be. It’s embedded in their hearts and on the tips of their tongues.

After twenty-nine chapters of preaching, Moses pauses and essentially says, “You know what to do. And you know that it’s true.” People do know. They might not want to admit it, but deep within, they know that the best way to live is to love God and keep His commandments. After all, who does even the unsaved person want to move into the vacant house next to him or her - a person who loves God and honors the Ten Commandments, or one who hates God and believes that murder, adultery, stealing, lying, and killing are acceptable?

Or think of it this way . . .

You run out of gas in the middle of a big city just before midnight. You leave your car by the side of a poorly lit street and begin walking to the nearest gas station. After a block or two, sensing you’re not alone, you look over your shoulder and see four big guys following you. Would it make a difference if you knew they were coming out of an evening Bible study and prayer meeting rather than out of a bar?

In our hearts, we know the right way to live is to love God and obey the commands He’s given us. “So choose life,” Moses says. “Don’t violate what you know is true, what you know you ought to do, what you know is best for you.”

Jesus said all of the commandments are summed up in a single word: love. “Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,” He said. “And . . . love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:37, 39). We’re to love God passionately and love our neighbor compassionately. It’s just that simple.

“I know what to do,” you might be saying, “I know God’s ways are true, that they’re best for me and you. But here’s the problem: I don’t come through. There are times when I don’t do what I know is the right thing to do. And there are times when I do things I ought not to do. I understand what is right and good and true. But I fail in so many ways, on so many days.”

Wait. There’s hope because this very passage pops up again in the New Testament. Paul reaches back to Deuteronomy 30 and look what he says concerning these very things . . .

But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into Heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above) or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) . . . - Romans 10:6–7

Inspired by the Spirit, Paul says, “There’s another way. Not the word of the law, but the word of faith . . .”

But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. - Romans 10:8–10

There’s no need to try to attain a spiritual high or dig into the depths of your soul, for salvation is in none of those places. Where is it? It’s on the tip of your tongue, if you’ll simply confess that you want Jesus to be your Lord.

Fear is to the Devil what faith is to the Lord. That is, Satan responds to, takes advantage of, and delights in fear the same way our Lord responds to, works through, and delights in faith. When I don’t know how the bills will get paid or if the relationship will be restored, the Devil will try to get me to become full of anxiety and fear. God, however, “hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7).

The disciples were on the Sea of Galilee, toiling at the oars. The wind was howling, the waves were rolling, and the disciples, many of whom were seasoned fishermen, were afraid of the ferocity of the storm. Suddenly they saw Someone walking on the waves, headed in their direction. “It’s a ghost!” they shouted, perhaps alluding to the legend that said when a boat was about to go down, a ghost would come to deliver the message that the lives of the men on board were over.

But then they heard the words, “Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid” (Matthew 14:27).

Faith is like a muscle. It doesn’t grow unless it’s exercised. And we need to exercise faith in a most practical way. In the midst of the storm, when it seems as though our boat is sinking, we need to choose to be of good cheer. I have discovered over and over that when I make the decision to be strong, to be of good cheer, to not give into tears and fears, that the Lord is truly near.

Romans 10:17 says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. We take faith in as we hear the promises of God’s Word and the preaching of the Scriptures. Faith is worked in by the hearing of the Word - but it’s worked out by the speaking of the Word. That’s why Romans 10 also says we must confess with our mouths (verses 9–10). Faith comes in through the ear, but is worked out through the mouth.

A lot of times we take in a Scripture, but then have a tendency to complain or murmur - and wonder why faith isn’t impacting our situation. Jesus said, “Say to the mountain, be removed . . .” (see Matthew 21:21). This is such a key, but is forgotten so easily. Faith that works is not only a matter of having devotions in the morning or going to Bible study in the evening, but it’s a matter of speaking out that which we have taken in.

If I hear the Word in a Bible study and go my way, saying, “I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know how things are going to work,” my faith is short-circuited by my words of fear and frustration. Proverbs 18:21 tells us that the power of life and death is in the tongue. How often we kill our faith either by the words we say or fail to say.

For he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. - Hebrews 13:5–6

“He hath said . . . that we may boldly say . . .” Next time you are fearful about the future, boldly speak out what He has already said, and watch your faith grow.

Eagles can be found on every continent of the world except Antarctica. And the eagle is not only the symbol of America, but was, in czarist days, the symbol of Russia. In Bible times, it was the symbol of the Roman Empire.

The African eagle, with which the children of Israel would have been familiar, makes its home in the Middle East and has a wingspan of up to ten feet.

Once a year, the female eagle lays an egg in a nest high over a bluff or ravine, inaccessible to predators. For the six weeks following its hatching, the eaglet has it made in the shade. He can see lots of things from his vantage point. He’s fed hourly by his mother. And he grows fat and plump.

By week five, he has grown quite large. And then something begins to happen. Unbeknownst to him, his mother designed the nest in such a way that sticks point inward. So as he gets fatter, the sticks begin to poke him. And no doubt Ernie Eaglet wonders why his parents didn’t make a more comfortable nest - never realizing that its design was all part of the plan to get him to do something he never would have done otherwise: to fly.

The same thing can happen to you and me. We’re comfy. We’re cozy. We’re chubby. But all of a sudden, something begins to happen that agitates us, that pokes at us. “My boss shouldn’t treat me this way,” we squawk. “My friend shouldn’t ignore me that way,” we screech.

Wait a minute. It’s all part of a divine design, a grand plan. Therefore, wise is the man or woman who doesn’t blame the sticks, but realizes they’re part of the Father’s plan.

At about this time, Mom returns to the nest one day and, with her five-foot wings, stirs it and bumps it. And Ernie is thrown out, causing him to fall hundreds of feet toward the ravine below. Feathers fly. Ernie squawks. The ground gets closer, the rocks bigger - when Mama swoops underneath Ernie and carries him on her back to the nest once again.

"Whew!" Ernie thinks, "That was close! I hope Mom learned a lesson about being clumsy." But a few days later, Mama stirs the nest once again, sending Ernie screeching and tumbling once more. And once again, she swoops underneath him at seemingly the last minute, returning him to the nest at last.

The same process is repeated over and over again. But somewhere after the sixth or seventh time, Ernie catches air. No longer sore at his mother, he soars with her. And he can’t believe it. He didn’t have any idea that he could fly - until he was dumped out of the nest.

“What are You doing, God?” we cry. “If I’m Your inheritance, if You keep me as the apple of Your eye, then why am I headed for the rocks?” But right before we crash - maybe only a moment or so before we’re crushed - He swoops in, bears us on His back, and returns us to the nest. Then, days later, He stirs the nest and begins the process all over again.

You see, God loves you and me too much to allow us to settle into the comfort of mediocrity. So He makes our nest uncomfortable as He gets us ready to do something new. He’s not going to let us settle for a perch on a cliff when He knows we could soar in the Heavenlies.

In Israel, bees make their honeycombs, and olive trees take root in crevasses, or fissures, in the rocks. Therefore, what would seem to be an unproductive place actually produces sweetness and sustenance.

“I’m on the rocks,” we cry. “This is it. I’m through.”

And yet God would say, “There’s honey and oil in those rocks, for in them you will discover sweetness you never knew about, empowering and anointing you never would have experienced.”

If you’re between a rock and a hard place, take hope, dear saint, for it is there you will find honey and oil, sweetness and sustenance for your journey.

We like to think of God as One who heals. And He does. But, as seen in verse 39, He also wounds. When I read about God and study His Word, I realize that He is much bigger than my ability to package Him neatly. He is, after all, God.

“Are you not thirsty?” said the Lion.

“I’m dying of thirst,” said Jill.

“Then drink,” said the Lion.

“May I - could I - would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill.

The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.

“Will you promise not to - do anything to me, if I do come?” said Jill.

“I make no promise,” said the Lion.

“Do you eat girls?” she said.

“I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,” said the Lion.

“I daren’t come and drink,” said Jill.

“Then you will die of thirst,” said the Lion.

In his classic series, The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis drove home a very real point. That is, God doesn’t make deals with me or you. He’s God. And He can wound, heal, kill, and resurrect whenever He wants. Our God is indeed an awesome God, a fearful and terrible God. He loves us. He proved it by sending His Son to die for us. But never forget this passage in Deuteronomy 32. The people who forget this do so to their own destruction.

Deuteronomy 32 ended with a reiteration of God’s refusal to allow Moses to enter the Promised Land with the children of Israel. Chapter 33 begins with Moses blessing the people. And this, among other things, is what qualifies Moses to be called a “man of God,” a phrase seen here in Scripture for the first time. When God denied Moses’ requests to accompany the people into the Promised Land, Moses could have said, “If after forty years, this is the thanks I get; if after I’ve given my life for these people and led them through the wilderness to the best of my ability, I’m disqualified because of one mistake, I’m outta here.” But he didn’t. Rather than running away and licking his wounds, Moses blessed the people.

Greatness is found in what a man does within the boundaries placed around him. Many people say, “If I can’t do this, if I can’t be that, I won’t do anything.” Not Moses. He shows us that the way to greatness, to being a man of God, is not to pull back, but to be a blessing.

“Lord,” Moses said, “cause Judah to prosper. May his tribe increase. Help him when he encounters the enemy.” As the people of Israel marched through the wilderness and, again, as they will march into the Land of Promise, which tribe leads the way? Judah. Judah means “Praise.” We enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise (Psalm 100:4). Praise is always the key.

Christian scholar and author Francis Schaeffer reportedly once said that if he had one hour to present the Gospel to someone, he would use the first fifty-five minutes to tell him what God is like, and he would use the last five minutes to communicate how he could know Him. The same holds true for the believer. If you want to be victorious and fruitful in your walk with the Lord, praise is absolutely foundational and essential. As we praise the Lord, our focus shifts from what we need to do to what He has already done; from our insufficiency to His all-sufficiency; from our weakness to His all-encompassing strength.

“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know which way to go,” we are prone to say. Even in these New Testament times, the Urim and the Thummim give us real understanding about finding God’s will and getting His direction, for in whose care were the Urim and the Thummim? They were in the charge of the high priest (Numbers 27:21).

“I am the way,” said Jesus, our great High Priest. He didn’t say, “I’ll tell you the way,” or “I’ll point you to the way.” He said, “I am the way” (John 14:6).

One of my tasks as a pastor and teacher is to remind people of this constantly. People come seeking an answer, asking for direction. But what they need to do is simply cling to Jesus every hour, every minute. And then, because He is the way, they’ll end up in the right place.

At six months old, my granddaughter Bailey doesn’t say, “Mommy, how do I get to the mall?” She just stays close to Amanda, and believe me, she’ll get there! So too, like Bailey, we can say to the Lord, “I’m not going to be anxious about what I should do tomorrow. I’m just going to abide in You, cling to You today, close to Your heart, right by Your side. And I know I’ll end up exactly where I’m supposed to be.”

Having finished the pronunciation of blessing upon the congregation of Israel, this great man of God reminds them again who their God is. If the sun, moon, and stars are the work of God’s fingers (Psalm 8:3), what must be the power of His everlasting arms?

When I was three years old, I remember my dad pulling up into our driveway after his day at work at the bank. I would scramble to the top of the wood box on the side of our house each day, and after parking the car, he would walk to the wood box and with outstretched arms say, “Okay, Jon. Jump.” And although I was scared, I’d jump. He always caught me. Every time.

Moses is hoping the children of Israel will come to understand the same thing - that their Father has strong arms and that He will never let them fall.

Stuck in prison, John the Baptist sent messengers to ask Jesus if He was indeed the Messiah. If not, he would look for another. Jesus’ answer to the messengers was for them to tell John how He had healed the blind, made the lame to walk, and cleansed the leper, raised the dead. Then Jesus added, “And blessed is he who is not offended in Me” (see Matthew 11:2–6). When John received this message, I wonder if he beat himself for his lack of faith. He had been so bold up to that point; I wonder if he felt his ministry was, after all, a failure.

Certainly Moses would be able to understand. Having been faithful for forty years, his obedience had faltered at a moment of frustration. Yet, because God had shown him the Promised Land, Moses knew the end of his story. John didn’t. You see, right after his messengers left, Jesus called John the greatest man ever born (Matthew 11:11).

So too, if you feel like a failure, like you’ve let the Lord down once too often, like He will never again be able to use you, remember that He sees you as perfect, robed in the righteousness of His Son (Isaiah 61:10). That makes us who are “least in the Kingdom” greater even than John the Baptist (Matthew 11:11). Messengers may not tell you this, your prison walls may not confirm it, failure at Meribah may say otherwise - but you, dear saint, are God’s prize and His inheritance. And, as seen in the lives of Moses and John the Baptist, those God uses to the greatest degree are often the very ones who question their own effectiveness.

Press on, precious brother; be strong, dear sister. The Promised Land of the Spirit-filled life is yours for the taking. And the Promised Land of Heaven is just around the bend.

The word genesis means “beginning.” Therefore, Genesis is a fitting title for the book before us, for its pages record the beginning of everything - the beginning of creation, man, sin, family, culture, and industry. It deals with the beginning of everything one could possibly imagine - except it does not deal with the beginning of God.

Why?

First, because God has no beginning.

Second, the Bible being, in a sense, the autobiography of God, He needs no introduction. Think about it. If you were to write your life story, you would not spend chapters trying to prove that you exist because the very fact that you were writing the book would verify your existence.

The more I study the Bible, the more I realize it was composed supernaturally. Comprised of sixty-six different books written by forty different authors over a span of sixteen hundred years in three different languages, yet, there isn’t one contradiction. Instead, there is a unified theme that begins here in Genesis, the book of beginning, and extends through the book of Revelation. That theme is the story of God’s gracious, glorious work of redemption.

A number of years ago, due to a previous commitment, I wasn’t able to see one of my son Benjamin’s Little League games.

“How did it go, Ben?” I asked eagerly upon my return.

“Well,” he answered, “before I got up to bat the first time, I went to the end of the dugout, got on my knees, and prayed.”

“Atta boy!” I said. “You probably parked it over the fence, huh?”

“No, I struck out,” he said, as a huge grin spread across his face. “But I got to pitch the next inning!”

How often we pray, “Lord, change my husband,” or “Lord, help my boss see my talent,” or “Lord, let me hit a homer” - only to strike out. But there’s a next inning, folks - a big inning, a new, big inning - a new beginning. That’s always the way it is. For, although our God has no beginning, He gives us new, big innings, and new beginnings every time we call on Him.

Throughout Scripture, water is a symbol of the Word. How does the Spirit of God move?

Upon the face of the water - upon the Word.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. But when Lucifer launched his rebellion and was cast out of Heaven, the earth became dark. Then the Spirit moved on the face of the water, and God said “Let there be light.”That’s your story. You were created in God’s image, but sin wiped you out and your world was dark. The Spirit of God moved in through the Word. You attended a Bible study, listened to a radio program, watched Billy Graham on TV, or heard from a friend - and the Spirit of God moved. You saw the light, and you were born again. Then God separated the darkness in your life and good things began to happen - not only in creation physically, but in your life personally because of God’s sovereign grace and mercy.

If you feel tongue-tied when sharing your testimony, try using this short passage to tell others how God brought light to your life and how He can do the same for them.

Jesus is the Light of the World (John 8:12). He said we are also to be lights (Matthew 5:14). He is the greater light - the sun. We are the lesser light - the moon - reflecting His light to our dark world.

As I recently watched the moon appear smaller and smaller due to an eclipse, I was reminded that to whatever extent the world gets between the sun and the moon is the extent to which the light of the sun upon the moon is diminished. The same thing is true with you and me. Jesus is the sun; we’re the moon. And to whatever degree we allow the world to come between us, His light in our lives will fade proportionately.

If you were to chart your own life tonight, would you be a full moon, a three-quarter moon, a half moon, a quarter moon, or an eclipsed moon? It all depends on how much of the world you allow to creep in between you and the Son.

Before things went haywire after the fall, God assigned Adam and Eve the job of subduing the earth. From whom were they to subdue it? Satan.

You see, from the very beginning, it was as if God said, “This little rock called earth is the place where there is to be a cosmic showdown between Me and Satan. So I’m going to use you, mankind, to partner with Me as part of the process to drive out the Enemy.”

How? By being fruitful and multiplying.

How are you to subdue your earth, your world, or your family which seems to be in the grasp and grip of the Enemy? By being fruitful.

Because the fruit of the Spirit is love (Galatians 5:22), and because love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8), you’ll be fruitful if you don’t criticize, gossip, or find fault with things, people, or situations. You’ll be fruitful if you speak words of love and peace, patience and gentleness, for such is the fruit of the Spirit.

James talks about the tongue being an instrument of fire (James 3:6). If you find fault with your neighbor, your job, your school, your church, or your family, you will hand your world over to the hellish flames of the Enemy. But if you speak words of affirmation and encouragement, of faith and joy, you will replace the fires of hell with the fruit of Heaven.

How do we multiply?

Acts 6:7 tells us the Word of God increased and the number of disciples multiplied when the Word was shared.

If you talk to your kids, your classmates, or your co-workers about the Word, you will see multiplication of life and love. And eventually the world in which you live will be subdued - won back from the Enemy.

Our God is awesome. He could have said, “For nourishment, take a pill.” Instead He said, “For food, here’s a thrill. The colors and textures and tastes of bananas, mangoes, guavas, avocados, tomatoes, and celery are all yours to enjoy.”

“He satisfies our mouth with good things,” David declares (see Psalm 103:5).

“Every good and perfect gift is from above,” James echoes (1:17).

“He has given us richly all things to enjoy,” Paul affirms (see 1 Timothy 6:17).

“If you being evil know how to give good gifts to your kids, how much more will the Heavenly Father give good things to them that ask Him?” Jesus says (see Matthew 7:11).

“Then why haven’t I received what I’ve been asking for?” you ask.

The answer is, because it’s not a good gift. If it were good, God would give it to you, for He withholds no good thing from them that walk uprightly (Psalm 84:11).

Why would God place in the garden a tree from which Adam and Eve were not to eat?

Because God desires a loving relationship with man, and true love is built on choice. Therefore, in placing the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden, it was as if God said to mankind, “If you want to kill our relationship, if you want to turn your back on Me, I must provide this opportunity. All you have to do, Adam, to end our relationship is to eat from that tree.”

The Lord is so good because He made it as scary as possible. He said, “If you eat from that tree, it’s going to kill you.” What else could the Father have done? He provided a choice, but He also made the right choice obvious.

Notice God did not say, “If you eat of that tree, I’m going to kill you.” He said, “If you eat of the tree, it will kill you.” Perhaps there was something carcinogenic in the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, something that would cause men to begin to die. For many years, I thought that if I did something wrong, God would track me down. No, the Bible says, “Be sure your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23). It is sin that tracks us down; it is our sin that wipes us out. Wise is the man and of utmost intelligence is the woman who stays as far away from sin as possible, and instead draws ever nearer to the side of the One who gives life.

When Adam was in a deep sleep, a bride came forth from his side. Down the tunnel of time, another Bride would come forth from the side of another Adam, the last Adam, Jesus Christ. When a Roman soldier stuck a spear in His side and the birthing fluids of blood and water poured forth, a Bride was born: the Church - you and me.

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave himself for it,” Paul instructed the Ephesians (5:25). Husband, you are to love your wife as Christ loved the Church. In other words, you’re to die - to your needs, your desires, your dreams - because that’s what Christ did for us.

Wife, you came from the side of man, and you will find fulfillment at the side of your man - neither leading him nor lagging behind him, but standing by him, standing with him, submitting to him. But know this, wives: Your husbands will never be all you want or need them to be. A rib was taken from Adam, and men have been missing something ever since! There is only One who has it all together. He’s not called the second Adam, which would mean that there might be a third one. He is called the last Adam because there is no other. And He’s not missing a thing. Therefore, He will be the One who will listen to you by the hour and walk with you in the garden in the cool of the day. He will be the One who will hear not only the words of your lips, but the cry of your heart. He will be the One who will truly understand you.

Gang, as we spend time with the last Adam, with the Altogether One, with Jesus Christ, we take pressure off our mates and are then able to enjoy them without expecting something from them that they cannot give to us.

“Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh” is a Hebrew idiom meaning, “exact counterpart.” I believe it was a matching of body, soul, and spirit that caused Adam to realize Eve was truly bone of his bones.

“Marriage and misery go hand in hand,” wails the world. Not God. He says, “I want marriage to be a taste of Heaven for you. If you’ll go My way, it can be just that.”

“It’s a little late for me to hear this,” you might be thinking. “I married the wrong person.”

That’s what Jacob could have said . . .

After seven years of working and waiting, he woke up to find he had wed Leah instead of Rachel - the older sister instead of the girl of his dreams. But at the end of his life, when deciding where he would be buried, Jacob again had to choose between the two women. And this time, with eyes wide open, he chose Leah. Why? Because Leah produced a son whose name was Judah, from whom would come Yeshua, Messiah, Jesus.

So too, I have known people who have difficult marriages. However, they have developed, out of necessity, a deep walk with the Lord which never would have been developed if they had had an easier, simpler marriage. I know people who have hung in there and now say, “If I could do it all over again, I would willingly choose my husband or wife because our marriage has brought me to a richness with Jesus I never would have known had it been easier.”

If you have gone through a divorce, if you have dropped the ball, if you have missed the mark, know this: We all have. Every one of us has totally blown it (Romans 3:23). But the good news is that the work of the Cross completely takes care of my failure, my shortcoming, my sin. And it takes care of yours as well. All we have to do is say, “Lord, I’ve failed. I determine by Your grace and with Your help to walk rightly to the greatest possible degree. And if my hurts or mistakes can help others, use my wounds.” If we confess our sins rather than cover them up, excuse them, or justify them, our points of failure can be our points of greatest ministry.

After questioning the Word of God, Satan questions the way of God, intimating that God is withholding something good from Eve. This is the same strategy Satan uses today. He slithers up to our friends, our children, and our neighbors and hisses in their ears, saying, “You know why you’re not ssssupposed to do that? Because it’s really fun. And God doesn’t want that for you. He wants you to be ressstricted and missserable.”

Not true. As I tell my kids, “If you think sin is fun, if you want to eat from the tree of forbidden fruit, look first at another tree - the tree of Calvary - and you’ll see what sin ultimately does: it crucifies. And if you think God is holding something back from you or doesn’t want the best for you, look at that tree again, and you’ll see Him with outstretched arms and nail-pierced palms, unequivocally proving that He loves you passionately.”

“In the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened,” said Satan to Eve, “and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Unfortunately, Satan was right. You see, before man ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he had to ask the Father about every matter and about every situation in order to discern good from evil. God and Adam walked together in the cool of the day in constant communion because Adam had to depend solely upon God for his knowledge. After the fall, Adam grew independent from God, and knowledge apart from God is always deadly.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is as deadly for us as it was for Adam. It can squeeze the life out of our relationship with the Lord if we’re not oh, so careful. Even Bible knowledge can be deadly to anyone who says, “I’ve been to Bible school; I’ve been to seminary; I’ve been reading the Word for years. I know good from evil.”

“But aren’t we supposed to know the Bible?” you may ask.

Yes. But as we study the Word, we are to fellowship with the Lord intimately, talk to Him personally, worship, praise, commune, and listen to Him constantly.

You see, as parents, our job is to help our kids to become independent. When they take their first steps, we say, “Way to go!” When they learn to tie their shoes, ride a bike, drive a car, or move out, we say, “Hooray!” But our Heavenly Father wants just the opposite for you and me. He wants us to be totally dependent upon Him. He wants us to be constantly talking to Him just as Adam did before he ate of the forbidden fruit.

The desire of the woman would be for her husband. The man, on the other hand, would work by the sweat of his brow. And therein lies a foundational dilemma in marriage to this day.

“Why won’t my husband slow down? I want him to take a walk with me, talk to me, listen to me,” she cries.

“I show my love most clearly by providing for my family,” answers the weary husband. “That’s why I work three jobs.”

She wants to talk. He needs to work. She wants to enjoy. He can’t wait to get going. It’s all part of the curse. When husbands and wives realize what the curse has done and how it works, no longer will they try to change each other. Lowered expectations will replace futile ideas of transformation. Don’t raise the bar for your marriage. Lower it. And as you lower your expectations on earth, raise your sights toward Heaven.

This is what Paul meant when he said, “Let those who are married be as though they’re not” (see 1 Corinthians 7:29). In other words, “Life is short. Keep your focus on the Kingdom, your eyes on eternity.” What will setting your sights on the Lord do? It will make you a better husband or a better wife because as His love flows from you, time with your husband or wife will be sweet and rich.

It’s amazing what happens when we do what the Lord tells us to do. When we seek first the Kingdom, everything else will be added to us (Matthew 6:33). When a woman and man both deeply love Jesus Christ, they each find their ultimate satisfaction in their walk with Him. The pressure is removed. The bickering stops. They are a joy to be around.

To replace Adam and Eve’s itchy fig leaves, a sacrifice was made - illustrating the fact that mankind’s sin and nakedness would never be covered by his own efforts, but by the sacrifice of an innocent One, the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.

There is nothing you can do to make God love you more. Nothing. There’s nothing I can do to make God love me one ounce more than He already loves me right now. If I pray all day today; if I fast for a week or a month; if I worship constantly, He will not love me anymore than He loves me right now. Likewise, there is not one thing you could do to make Him love you less.

This amazes me because, like you, I am under the impression that I have to do something to earn God’s favor.

“No,” says God. “Your efforts will be like fig leaves. They will be scratchy. They will crumble. They won’t work. Let Me give you that which you could never provide for yourself: matchless grace and infinite mercy to cover you completely and eternally.”

A sacrifice had been made to cover Adam and Eve’s nakedness. Cherubim and a flame followed. This same picture will be painted again in the Tabernacle, for over the mercy seat, sprinkled with sacrificial blood, were cherubim and the bright shekinah glory of God.

But the place we see this picture painted most powerfully is not in the Garden, nor in the Tabernacle, but in an empty tomb where two angels clothed in light sat at either end of a slab stained with the sacrificial blood of the Lamb of God.

Genesis 3 keeps man away from the Tree of Life. Jesus Christ, however, invites mankind to eat of the Bread of Life (John 6:35). And as we do, we begin to experience power over the curse as well as a sneak preview of coming attractions, when the curse will be obliterated in Heaven. Oh, glorious day!

Although I feel like a prophet crying in the wilderness as I go against the flow of what our culture says about depression, I remain biblically persuaded that many people today are seeking medical help for depression when in reality it is often a spiritual issue. You see, the psychiatrist and the pastor differ not in the diagnosis of depression, but in the cure.

The psychiatrist says, “Take a pill.” The pastor says, “Make a choice.”

That is, we can choose to put on the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness (Isaiah 61:3). We can choose to rejoice in the Lord (1 Thessalonians 5:16). We can choose to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17). We can choose to give thanks in everything (1 Thessalonians 5:18). We can choose to think on whatever is pure and lovely and praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8).

“Why art thou cast down, O my soul?” David asked when he faced depression like ours. What was his prescription? “Hope thou in God” (Psalm 42:11).

“My bones ache. My eyes weep. I feel as though there’s gravel in my teeth,” cried Jeremiah in his own deep, dark depression. His cure? “I will lift up my heart with my hands unto the heavens” (see Lamentations 3:41).

Although I am increasingly convinced that there are people who, because of difficulties in life, can benefit from wise and prudent medical help in this arena, such is not the norm, because as you read the Bible from cover to cover, it becomes clear that the issue regarding depression is primarily an issue of choice.

God didn’t say, “I know you’re sad, Cain. Here, drink this; swallow that; and you’ll be better in the morning.” No, He said, “Your bitterness is causing your countenance to fall. If you don’t choose well, you’ll be eaten up. But if you choose to do well - to obey My Word - you’ll be lifted up.”

Unforgiveness, hatred, and bitterness have repercussions far greater than I might think. That is why in the book of Jude, God specifically says to watch out for the way of Cain, which is bitterness, unforgiveness, and hatred (verse 11). Make sure there’s no one you’re mad at, upset with, or angry about because it only takes one person to affect many. Ask Cain.

“The blood of your brother cries out to Me.” The writer of Hebrews picks up this metaphor when he declares, “Jesus’ blood speaks better things than the blood of Abel” (see 12:24). What does Abel’s blood cry? It’s a message of condemnation, judgment, and accusation. What does Jesus’ blood cry? It cries, “Forgiven.”

If there is an old boyfriend, ex-spouse, parent, or boss you’re mad at, whose name still comes up when you talk to people, God would say, “My Son was slaughtered on the Cross for the very sin that person committed against you. Let it go. Give it up. Put it under the blood that speaks better things. Lay it at the Cross.”

In calling Adam and Eve “Adam,” God called them one. You see, knowing our propensity to think the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, and knowing our tendency to want to trade this year’s car for next year’s model, God made it really simple for us. He ordained marriage for life. Those who understand this find glorious peace and freedom when they look at their spouse, because they know there’s no one down the line or around the corner who will give them a greater thrill. There’s not another person on earth who will make them happier, more content, or more fulfilled. Such is the amazing mystery of matrimony.

I have known couples who weren’t perfectly matched body, soul, and spirit - but they stayed together because they understood the way of the Lord. And as I’ve watched them over the years, as I’ve seen their hair turn gray and their backs bow a bit, as I’ve seen them blessed with children and grandchildren, I’ve heard them say, “Wow. It’s worth it to go God’s way.”

There is no greater joy than watching your kids grow and walk in the way of the Lord. But all that is thrown away by the one who says, “If I have an affair, I’ll be forgiven.” But there is no thing and there is no one worth losing your family for. God talks more about the sin of adultery than about any other single sin because adultery uniquely brings long-term, irreversible repercussions.

If you have been one of the fortunate few who have experienced a miraculous resurrection of your marriage following the deathblow of adultery, rejoice. You have been graced. Go your way and sin no more.

Dear people, determine that no matter what you’ve been through, no matter where you’ve been, you will do whatever it takes to guard the sanctity of your family.

So begin the “begats” - the genealogy from Adam to Noah. Often, people come to sections of Scripture like this and become frustrated and wonder why the Lord made some Scriptures so seemingly tedious and mysterious. Why didn’t He simply write a section on marriage, a section on finances, and a section on parenting? Why all the stories and rules and ordinances and parables and pictures and types and illustrations?

Solomon shed light on this question when he wrote, “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter” (Proverbs 25:2). God purposely conceals some things because even though initially a certain story, passage, or section of Scripture might not make sense to you, as you meditate on it, pray about it, and wrestle with it, a week, or a month, or a year later, when a light goes on and you finally understand it, you’ll never forget it.

I have often found that the passages I wrestle with the most are the ones I learn the best. How many wonderful truths I would have missed had I not read the Word consistently - even when I didn’t necessarily understand it. Jesus promised the Holy Spirit will “bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:26). In other words, the Holy Spirit will bring to our minds and make application of that which the Lord has said to us in His Word. He cannot, however, bring to mind that which we haven’t read.

Wondering why God was doing certain things and why He wasn’t doing other things, Habakkuk said, “I will go up into a high tower and I will wait and see what the Lord will say unto me” (see Habakkuk 2:1).

The Lord did indeed speak to Habakkuk, saying, “Write the vision” (Habakkuk 2:2), and Habakkuk didn’t have to borrow a pencil.

What does it mean to read with expectancy? I believe it means you come to your devotions, to Bible studies, or to church with pencil and paper in hand, ready to take note of what the Lord would speak to you.

I wonder if, in our morning devotions and study times, we’re not speaking volumes through our casual, lethargic approach. “Ho hum, Lord,” our actions say, “I don’t expect You to say anything to me today. You never do. So let’s see, where should I read today . . .” No wonder the Lord doesn’t speak to us. No wonder the Word isn’t real to us.

I want you to do well, gang. Approach the Word with anticipation and expectation. “For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).

“Who shall I say sent me?” asked Moses of God.

“Say I AM THAT I AM hath sent you” (see Exodus 3:14).

And with this, Moses must have come to realize that if God is “I AM,” like Enoch, he “was not.”

John the Baptist must have come to the same conclusion, because when he was asked if he was the Messiah, he emphatically declared, “I am not” (John 1:20). Oh, how we as a culture, as a body, and as individuals need to grasp what Enoch, Moses, and John the Baptist understood so clearly: that God is, and we are not. You see, I believe the problem for most of us is that we are constantly trying to figure out who we are, what we should do, how we should minister, where we should go. Yet the more we think about how we’re doing, where we’re going, or what we’re thinking, and the more we talk about ourselves, make reference to ourselves, or draw attention to ourselves, the more misery we heap upon ourselves.

Do you ever get tired of hearing your own voice, of dealing with your own stuff, of taking your own pulse? I do. That’s because we were created not for self-indulgence or introspection, but solely to give pleasure to God (Revelation 4:11). It is only logical, then, to join Enoch, Moses, and John the Baptist in losing our lives in the wonder of His glory, and in decreasing so that He might increase (John 3:30).

Because Adam sinned, and because the wages of sin is death, everyone in Adam’s family tree ends up the same way: dead. There is, however, one exception. There is one guy who never dies. After walking with God three hundred years, one day the Lord simply snatches, grabs, raptures Enoch.

The wages of sin is still death. But, like Enoch, there will be a people who will not die. Paul put it this way: “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17). I believe we are the generation who will see the rapture of the Church. But even before that glorious day, you and I can experience rapture in our hearts presently. You see, the Latin word raptus speaks of the physical event that will take place when Jesus comes to call His Church home. But it also speaks of an emotional event that can take place right now.

“I was enraptured by that music,” we say. Or, “The poem she sent me enraptured me.” Is your heart enraptured? Maybe you’ve walked with the Lord for ten years; maybe you’ve been a believer for twenty years; but maybe you haven’t found the Lord to be all that enthralling lately. Instead, maybe you’re discouraged, defeated, or depressed. Maybe you’ve read that happy are the people whose God is the Lord (Psalm 144:15), and the joy of the Lord is my strength (Nehemiah 8:10), but you’re feeling anything but happy and joyful.

Why is this?

It is because you’re not doing what Enoch did. Look at our text: Enoch pleased God. That is, as he walked with God, Enoch brought pleasure to God. The closer you walk to God today, the more you’ll be enraptured, taken, caught up with Him. The godliest people I know don’t talk about themselves. The happiest people I know are not focused on themselves. The folks I truly admire are not those who live to please themselves. The people who are the most godly and happy, the people who are just a joy to be around are those who live for one reason: to simply walk with and please God. May we be such people.

That Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord does not mean that God showed grace to Noah exclusively. Yes, a flood eventually wiped out everyone else, but not before God gave them one hundred years to repent of their wickedness and receive salvation. Yes, the planet was deluged, but every man had opportunity to hear His message as they observed Noah building the huge barge. But the world refused to grab hold of the good news of salvation, and they drowned in their sin. It wasn’t that God looked at Noah with grace and everyone else with condemnation. God looked at everyone with eyes of grace and mercy. It’s just that Noah found the grace.

The question I want to ask you today is this: What have you found in the eyes of the Lord?

The story is told of the time a London traffic jam prevented C. S. Lewis from arriving at a certain religious symposium on time. The panel, comprised of the world’s most highly esteemed religious thinkers, began without him, their first question being: What is unique about Christianity? Although the Buddhist, Muslim, Jew, and Taoist discussed the question, they could arrive at no conclusive answer. In the midst of their debate, C. S. Lewis burst into the room.

“Dr. Lewis,” said the moderator, “tell us what is unique to Christianity.”

“That’s easy,” Lewis is said to have replied. “It’s grace.”

C. S. Lewis was right. No other religion or philosophy provides unmerited, undeserved, unearned favor. Every other religion, every other philosophy says there are things we must do - devotional exercises, good deeds, or righteous acts - to earn blessings from Allah or to gain favor from Buddha. Only biblical Christianity says, “It’s all grace, nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.”

Noah walked with God because he found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Peter was another who, like Noah, looked into the eyes of the Lord. And what he saw therein caused him to weep. What did Peter see in the Lord’s eyes? I believe your answer is a good indication of where you are in your relationship with God. You see, Peter fell asleep when he should have prayed, denied the Lord when questioned by a young maid, and forsook the Lord because he was afraid. Thus, it would be natural to think that it was the look of disappointment in the eyes of the Lord that caused Peter to weep. But such was not the case, for Jesus had already told Peter that Satan sought to sift him like wheat, but that he would eventually make it through, regardless of his failure (Luke 22:31–32). No, Peter didn’t find disappointment or discouragement in the Lord’s eyes. He found the same thing Noah found. He found grace.

The writer to the Hebrews says, “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). If you want to experience the blessings of God in a world that’s falling apart, if you want to experience the blessings of God no matter your situation, you have the privilege of gazing constantly in the eyes of the Lord. You have an invitation to find grace.

Not coincidentally, I believe, due to its density and strength, gopher wood was used to make coffins. “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross,” Jesus declared (Matthew 16:24). Salvation begins with death. It begins when we say, “I’m dying to self, Lord. I no longer demand my own way, but rather give myself completely to You.”

The Hebrew word translated “rooms” is literally “nests.” On the good ship salvation, there is an abundance of rooms, where Episcopalians and Presbyterians, Baptists and Lutherans, Catholics and Methodists alike can nest. How careful we must be to allow room, to give our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ space to “work out their own salvation” (see Philippians 2:12). Each of us thinks we see clearly. But Paul reminds us that on this side of eternity, each of us only sees “through a glass, darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12). Therefore, we need each other. The ark had plenty of room. So does the Kingdom.

This is the only time in the Old Testament where the Hebrew word kapher is translated “pitch.” In many other passages this word is translated “atonement” - a wonderful word that essentially means “at-one-ment.” Just as the salvation God provided Noah was surrounded by the pitch of atonement, so God provided us “at-one-ment” with Him by sending His Son to die for our sins.

In whatever storm faces you today, be assured, fellow sailor, that there is no safer place to be than in the ark of God’s election and provision, in the hold of His astounding mercy and amazing grace.

Because it was God who shut him in (Genesis 7:16), Noah had no control over the door of the ark. But he did have control over the window. So too, I control how much illumination and understanding I have in life by how much I allow the Word of God to be in my thinking (Psalm 119:105). I can either remain in the dark, or I can gain light and insight by opening up the window of the Word. Sure, sometimes it would be easier to just watch Jeopardy. Sometimes it would be easier to sleep in and skip morning devotions. Sometimes it would be easier not to take the time to study Scripture, but I will walk in light only to the extent that I choose to open the window and allow the light of the Word to flood my soul and renew my thoughts.

There was only one door in the ark. There was no back door, no emergency exit. “Why can’t you just be broad-minded? Why can’t you just say there are many ways to enter into a relationship with God?” people ask us. The reason is because Jesus said, “No man comes to the Father but by Me” (see John 14:6). And I’m real glad about that. You see, if God had five ways to enter into salvation, five ways to be able to make it to Heaven, five ways to cultivate a relationship with Him, Satan would come back with twenty-five counterfeit ways. If God had ten ways, Satan would come back with ten thousand. God says, “I don’t want anyone to choose the wrong door. I’m going to keep it real simple. There’s only one right door.”

Eight souls were to enter the ark. Yes, there would be some bobbing up and down, some noise and confusion, some questions and concerns, but guess what? They would be headed to a fresh start, a new beginning, a new world. And that’s what’s happening with you and me. The reason we have morning devotions, the reason we keep plugging away in Bible study is because we’re saved. And when all is said and done, that’s all that matters. Let’s never lose sight of that. Let’s never get so caught up in the esoteric understanding of Scripture that we miss the underlying base of all things - that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

Three-storied, the ark contained 97,000 square feet of space. How big is that? It’s equivalent to 520 boxcars. Would this be enough space to hold all of the animals? Taxonomists tell us that on the earth today there are 3,500 species of mammals; 8,600 species of birds; 5,500 reptiles and amphibians. (Fish obviously weren’t on the ark; and the 25,500 species of worms could fit in the cracks.) Added together, there were 17,600 species of animals. Double that to include male and female, and the figure becomes 35,200. The average size of the 17,600 species of animals on the ark is equivalent to a full-grown sheep. Thirty-five thousand, two hundred sheep would easily fit within only 120 boxcars. Even doubling the number to include species which may have become extinct since Noah’s day would only require 240 boxcars - leaving 280 boxcars worth of space for Noah’s family and food.

“But what about dinosaurs?” you ask. Due to the biblical account in Job 40 and 41, as well as the discovery of fossilized footprints of dinosaurs adjacent to footprints of men, I believe dinosaurs and men lived simultaneously. If that is true, dinosaurs would have to have been on the ark.

Wouldn’t they take up the whole ark? Not if they were babies!

What if Noah hadn’t done all that God commanded him to do? What if he had completed the sides of the ark, but hadn’t put the roof on? If Noah had given it a pretty good shot, but then said, “Oh well, close enough,” then we wouldn’t be here. Noah did all that God commanded him. He finished the ark. As great as Noah’s accomplishment was, however, God’s Word speaks of a far greater accomplishment by another carpenter - the Carpenter from Galilee, Jesus Christ.

Noah held a hammer in his hand.
Jesus absorbed the blows of a hammer upon His hand.

Noah built with wood.
Jesus was pinned to wood.

Noah constructed a door.
Jesus said, “I am the door” (John 10:9).

Noah covered the ark with pitch.
Jesus covers us with His blood.

May God give us the ability to understand and remember that we are of all people most blessed. No matter what’s happening in our lives today, we’re most blessed because we’re saved.

Based on Genesis 5:32, Genesis 6:3, and Genesis 7:6, we know that Noah was 480 years old when he began building the ark, 500 years old when his first son was born, and 600 years old when the flood began. This means that when God instructed Noah to make a place for his sons in the ark, He did so twenty years before Noah’s first son was even born!

Twenty years before his sons were born, God said to Noah, “As the leader of the family, as the patriarch of the clan, as the father, Noah, you are to expect your sons and their wives to be in the ark - the place of salvation - with you and your wife.”

Could this be why blood on the doorposts during Passover spared not only the one who applied it but the entire house (see Exodus 12:13)?

Could this be why the Holy Spirit fell on Cornelius and his house (see Acts 10)?

Could this be what Paul meant when he said to the Philippian jailer, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (see Acts 16:31)?

Could this be what the writer of Hebrews referred to when he wrote: “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house” (Hebrews 11:7)?

I believe so. Am I suggesting a new doctrine: Dad, get saved and everyone else is included? No, I’m not talking about a doctrine - but about a dynamic. By faith, Noah prepared a place for his family on the ark even before his kids were conceived. So too, open your heart, Dad, to the Lord Jesus Christ, and by faith say, “I am believing my sons and daughters and their spouses and our grandchildren will be on board the good ship salvation.”

Certainly, each man, woman, and child must make his or her own decision regarding salvation - but they do so more easily when they see the reality of faith lived out before them, just as Noah’s family observed him pounding away on the ark day after day.

“There went in two and two unto Noah.” In other words, Noah didn’t have to round up the animals. As He did in the Garden of Eden when He brought the animals to be named by Adam (Genesis 2:19), God brought the animals to Noah. How could the wolf and the pig, the fox and the rabbit come together into the ark? Second Corinthians 5:17 declares that if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. So too, somehow in preparation for the new creation which would take place after the flood, the Lord caused the animals to enter the ark by twos and sevens without antagonizing each other. This shouldn’t be that hard to understand, however, since similar miracles occur daily in the animal world . . .

Sitting on ice floes, dressed in identical tuxedoes, millions of emperor penguins are mirror images of each other. And yet, after she lays her egg and dives into the Arctic waters for a three-month eating binge while the father incubates the egg, Mama Penguin is able to pick her husband out of the look-alike crowd upon her return.

From the North Pole, terns fly to Hawaii for the winter. But they leave their young behind because the young aren’t ready to fly. Several months later, having gained enough strength to make the journey, the young terns fly in formation on their own - without a single travel agent or map - straight to their parents in Hawaii.

I can’t explain terns or penguins, but I do know this: God can do whatever He chooses to do with the animal kingdom, just as He can do whatever He chooses to do with you and me if we simply give Him permission to change our beastly behavior.

When it was time for Noah and his family to enter into the ark, Noah went first. He didn’t say, “There’s the ark, kids. Go ahead. I’ll catch up.” No, Noah led the way. He was an example, and that’s the key. Mom and Dad, what you are personally will be communicated to your kids individually, and it will impact them very powerfully.

Think with me. When David was a young man, he killed a giant. The list of David’s “mighty men” in 2 Samuel 23 includes those who also killed giants. This means that, even though most of David’s men didn’t see him kill Goliath, they became giant-killers simply because of their link to David.

Dad, you be a prayer warrior and watch how your kids will be prayer warriors too. You be a witness at work, and watch your kids follow your example at school.

Who we are very definitely affects what our kids become. Therefore, if I am a man who loves the Word, who is devoted to prayer, and who is committed to the Kingdom, my kids will be impacted deeply. Your kids will either be spiritual wimps who get wiped out and are intimidated by the Enemy, or they will be giant-killers who overcome and are successful in the things of God.

Mom and Dad, lead the way in the things of God, and your family will follow.

Now the door is shut, and Noah and his family are sealed in the ark. There’s no way for them to open the door to escape or to change their minds. This speaks to me because the One who said, “I am the door” (John 10:9) lets us know we are likewise secure in our salvation. “You are in My hand,” Jesus declares, “and no man can pluck you out” (see John 10:28).

Do I believe in eternal security? Yes, I do. I am absolutely secure, because the Lord has “shut me in.” You see, it wasn’t Noah who shut the door of the ark, hoping he latched it right and that it would stay shut. God shut the door of the ark - just as He seals our salvation on our journey to Heaven.

“Wait a minute,” you say. “I thought there will be some who won’t make it into Heaven even though they once made a profession of faith.”

That’s also true. And I believe the story that most clearly explains this dichotomy deals with a ship like the ark and a storm like the flood . . .

On a ship bound for Rome, Paul advised the captain to winter in a port due to bad weather. Ignoring Paul’s advice, they sailed on, right into a storm that grew so fierce that the sailors feared for their lives. “Be of good cheer,” Paul said. “There stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, saying, Fear not, Paul, thou must be brought before Caesar: and lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee” (Acts 27:22–24).

When the storm continued, some of the sailors decided to bail out. But just as they were about to leave, Paul said, “Except these abide in the ship, you cannot be saved” (Acts 27:31). In other words, “If you choose to go overboard, you’ll be wiped out. You are secure, safe, and sealed only as long as you stay on board.”

Gang, no one can pluck us out of God’s hand - but that doesn’t mean we can’t leave on our own. I’m shut in the good ship salvation because I have no intention of going overboard, of sailing off in another direction. Yes, I sin. But I am determined, and have decided that I will love the Lord all the days of my life. I pray you have too.

Although Noah had heard the voice of the Lord telling him to go into the ark, there is no record of God speaking to Noah while he was on the ark. In fact, he would not hear the voice of God again for a total of 377 days.

Maybe that’s your situation presently. Maybe 377 days ago, the Lord made Himself known to you through a very real revelation of some sort and you said, “Okay, Lord. This is awesome!” And you did what you knew you should do. But now, as you are cooped up and bouncing around on rough seas, you wonder why God isn’t speaking.

Folks, all of us wish God would speak more frequently than He does. But unlike some people, God isn’t a chatterbox. Why doesn’t He speak with greater regularity on specific issues? It’s not because He is callous. It’s not because He doesn’t care. It’s because there’s a bigger issue at stake: “But we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed” (Romans 5:3–5).

Bobbing around on the ark, sometimes there’s nothing to do but learn patience. Then, when I finally settle down, when I finally quit squawking, God says, “Good. Now you’re getting it.” And it is then when I begin to gain some experience.

Looking back over the years, I have discovered that the things I’ve done, the words I’ve said, and the attitudes I’ve held of which I’m ashamed are all directly linked to a loss of hope. I suggest the same is true for you. What you are ashamed of today happened during the times you thought, “What’s the use? Why even bother? Why try so hard to follow the Lord?” That’s precisely why hard times - times when we feel shut up in an ark with no word from God - are vital to our development. They make us patient, which gives us experience, which leads to hope.

What else took place on the seventeenth day of the seventh month? The Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Just as the ark rested on the Resurrection Day, so too, our faith rests on the fact of the Resurrection. If Christ is not risen, then we are, as Paul said, most miserable (1 Corinthians 15:19). We don’t know what to say to the Taoist, to the Mormon, or to the Buddhist. If Christ did not rise from the dead, we do not know if we’re headed in the right direction. If, on the other hand, He did rise from the dead, He did something no one else in history has every done. The Resurrection is conclusive proof that we are on the right track. Our ship of faith rests on the mountain of the Resurrection.

I visit Israel almost every year. Every time I go, I check the tomb. And guess what? It’s empty.

“That sounds good,” says the scoffer, “but maybe it’s the wrong tomb.”

Believe me, when the word started spreading that Christ had risen, the enemies of Jesus would have searched frantically to make sure that the empty tomb was not a case of mistaken identity. You see, the leaders of Judaism desperately desired to see Christianity wiped out. All they would have had to do would be to say to the Christians, “Here’s the body of this One who claimed to be the exclusive way to Heaven. Here’s proof He couldn’t validate His claim.” But they didn’t.

“Well, maybe the disciples stole His body to perpetuate the myth of a resurrected Jesus,” claims the cynic.

Peter was crucified upside down. Thomas was speared in the back. James was sawn in half. Matthew’s brains were beaten out with a club. With the exception of John - who was banished to the isle of Patmos after an unsuccessful attempt to boil him in oil - each of the disciples died a torturous death. To believe that eleven men would have allowed their wives and children to be martyred, and their own bodies slaughtered to propagate what they knew to be a lie requires an incredible leap of faith.

“It was the Romans who took the body,” declares the doubter.

Christianity was such a threat to the Roman Empire that they launched ten waves of persecution in which sixty million Christians were killed. Indeed, Christianity would eventually cause the Empire to split in two - East and West - and ultimately fall. Certainly the Romans didn’t have the body, for producing it would have saved their Empire.

“No one stole the body because Jesus didn’t really die,” muses the mocker. “One of the disciples put some drugs in the vinegar that was lifted up to Jesus as He hung on the Cross, which caused Him to go into a coma. After the cool air of the tomb revived Him, it appeared as though He had resurrected.”

The scourging Jesus suffered before His crucifixion was in itself enough to kill a man. Jesus went on, however, to endure spikes through His hands and feet and a spear thrust into His side. Then He was put in a tomb for three days without food, water, or medical attention. To suggest He then stood up, single-handedly rolled away a two-ton stone, and took on the Roman soldiers guarding His tomb requires infinitely more faith than I could possibly muster.

He who studies the Resurrection honestly and intellectually must finally rest on the mountain of evidence that says, “He is risen. He is risen, indeed!”

The act of the Resurrection impacts my entire understanding of spirituality and Christianity. Paul put it this way: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

The Resurrection means that Christ lives in you. It’s not imitation - trying to be a “good little Christian boy or girl.” It’s impartation . . .

As a high school discus thrower, I constantly watched a film loop of the world record throw of four-time Olympian Al Oerter. Over and over, I’d watch him drive his hip, thrust his shoulder, cock his arm, steady his grip, and make the toss. Then I’d go out to the rink and I’d try to do it all, just like Al. But although I knew exactly what to do, did I ever do it like he did? I didn’t even come close.

And that’s the problem with religion and philosophy. They tell you what to do, but fail to give you the power to do it. Not so with Christianity. If Al Oerter could have squeezed into my body and thrown the discus through me, I could have set world records just like he did. So too, because Jesus is risen, His Spirit lives in me. It’s not a matter of me trying to figure out what to do, reading certain books, going to certain seminars, or listening to certain tapes. It’s a matter of Him living in me, giving me the power to do what the Word tells me to do.

In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on a mountain named Ararat, the ark came to rest. The seventh month would become the first month in the Hebrew religious calendar to mark when the Jews were delivered from their Egyptian bondage (Exodus 12:1–5). And it was on the fourteenth day of the first month - Passover - that Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, was nailed to a Cross.

The ark rested on the seventeenth day - three days after Passover. What took place three days after Jesus was crucified? He rose again. “Because I live, you shall live also,” declared Jesus. “It’s a pact I’m making with you.” If Christ had not risen, we would have no hope of eternal life ourselves. But because He lives, we shall rise as well.

Jesus is risen, and He is returning. And while that gives me great peace, it also stirs me. You see, Peter tells us that when the Chief Shepherd shall appear, we will receive a crown of glory (1 Peter 5:4). The events in the Middle East indicate to me that Jesus’ coming is very near. And even if it’s not as soon as I think it’s going to be, life goes by oh, so rapidly. Very soon I’m going to face Jesus personally. I will stand before the Chief Shepherd to give an account for what I did with all that He so graciously gave me. So will you.

God has given you money, talent, time, ability, freedom, health, opportunity, and calling. He’s given you vision, direction, and instruction. And, because He lives within you, He’s given you power. One day, you will give an account of what you did with the graces and gifts He has given you.

“I hear what you’re saying,” you might be thinking, “but I’m still young. As soon as I get married, I’ll serve Jesus.”

So you get married, and then not too much later, you hear yourself saying, “We’re really serious about serving Jesus. But right now, we’ve got a home to build and diapers to change. When our kids are in elementary school, then we’ll get busy and serve the Lord.”

But with elementary school comes Cub Scouts, piano lessons, and Little League. And church gets shoved down further because, after all, who’s going to cheer junior on if you’re not there? So he misses Sunday school because he’s learning to hit a curve ball!

Then you say, “As soon as our kids are out of the house, we’re really going to get serious about serving God.”

But then a funny thing happens. I have discovered that right about the time the kids leave is the time people start to remodel their houses.

Gang, there will never be a day easier than this one for you to say, “I will seek first the Kingdom.”

Most of us need pictures and stories to understand theology. I know I do. The text before us provides just such a picture, for it pointedly and powerfully portrays what it means to be empowered by the Spirit . . .

The first animal to leave the ark was a raven - a black bird that goes “to and fro” eating the carcasses of dead animals.

When Satan came before the Lord one day in Heaven, the Lord said, “Where have you been?”

“I’ve been going to and fro,” said Satan, cruising around just like the raven (see Job 1:6–7).

Peter tells us Satan is always on the lookout for those whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). But the good news is that, as the raven circled, Noah released a dove, which throughout Scripture, speaks of the Holy Spirit.

Why?

The dove is the purest of all birds, for not only is it white in color, but it secretes more dirt-repelling oil on its feathers than any other flying bird. The dove is also sensitive because it is one of the few animals that mates for life. Finally, the dove is a symbol of peace because, unlike vultures or buzzards, doves vacate places of frenzy or fighting.

As Noah saw the dove circling overhead, he could have said, “If the dove wants to land on me, he can. I’m open.” But that’s not what he did. Noah extended his hand, grabbed the dove, and brought it in.

So often, with regard to the power and presence of the Spirit, people say, “If the Holy Spirit wants to bless me and empower me, I’m open.” But that kind of passivity will never bring the potency of the Spirit in the greatest possible degree. If you want to be empowered by the Spirit, you cannot be passive about the work of the Spirit any more than you were passive about the work of salvation.

This is where so many people err. You see, God is looking for those who will partner with Him, and not just be passive about Him. Noah didn’t simply fold his arms and watch. He stretched forth his hand and reached.

“Noah, what are you doing?” the world would say. “There’s a whole planet to repopulate, and you’re burning up limited, valuable resources. It’s a waste, Noah. Be practical.”

Whenever I find myself thinking this, I realize I’m in very bad company.

A woman poured an alabaster box full of perfume upon Jesus. “Wait a minute,” said Judas. “That’s a waste of resources. The poor could be helped with that money.”

“What she has done, she has done unto Me,” said Jesus (see Matthew 26:12).

And in this I begin to understand that God values worship more than work.

“Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve,” declared Jesus (Matthew 4:10). Did you notice the order? Worship comes first, service second. You might not be a missionary to Africa, an evangelist in a big stadium, or a singer on the radio, but every person can do that which most blesses God, for the highest priority of ministry is not work, but worship.

Worship is the highest, most precious ministry you will ever perform.

Worship will bless you the most, and honor God in the greatest way.

Worship will “altar” your life - it will change who you are.

Even though the external flood couldn’t deal with the internal depravity of man, the fragrance of Noah’s sacrifice - a sweet-smelling savor unto the Lord - overpowered the stench of sin. A burnt offering was made, and that made all the difference.

Every Old Testament sacrifice points to Jesus Christ - the ultimate sacrifice, the Lamb of God slaughtered on the Cross for the sin of the world. It’s the fragrance of the work of Christ that overrides the stench of my depravity. The flood didn’t clean up the culture. The flood didn’t solve the problem. No, it was the sacrifice that caused God to say, “Neither will I again smite every living thing” (Genesis 8:21).

You might feel terrible. You might feel like you’ve blown it badly. But even now you can worship God, and He will smell a sweet savor. He knows our imaginations are evil continually, yet He still finds sacrifice sweet. God doesn’t command you to worship Him today, but some of you will. He won’t command you to worship Him tomorrow, but some of you will. And in so doing, you’ll bless Him.

God blessed Noah, for in building an altar, Noah had blessed God. So too, if you choose to bless the Lord by sacrificing to Him, like Noah, you will be blessed, for God will be a debtor to no man. You will always get back more than you give.

Noah, here, is essentially told to start over. Even as God had initially told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, Noah and his sons and their wives are hearing the same command. This time, however, earth is not paradise, but neither is it perdition. Due to man’s perpetual propensity toward sin, our planet is not what it was in Adam’s day, but neither is it as bad as it could have been.

I say this to remind you that although you may not think your life is going great, it’s going a whole lot better than you deserve. We deserve to be frying in hell. God is so good to us. Anything we have, everything we enjoy is due to His mercy and kindness. We’re headed for Heaven, where all things are right and perfect. Yet even in the meantime, we have so much today for which to be thankful.

How could this be? After all, Noah was the one who preached for one hundred years to the whole world. Noah was the one who built the ark, and who didn’t complain when he was sealed for 377 days within a floating zoo. Noah was the one who built an altar, who blessed God, who found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

When he was going through challenging times, difficult days, and thundering storms, Noah walked with God. But when things became normal, he became vulnerable. And the same is true with us. It’s when everything is going well, when our vines are growing, when our jobs are going fine, when life is on “automatic pilot” that we are in danger. No longer are we on guard, no longer are we dependent upon the Lord or desperately crying out to Him.

It’s when things are going well that we must be especially careful. When the storms are brewing and when trials are coming, we have a tendency to pray and seek the Lord. But when things are on “automatic pilot,” we, like Noah, often fall into trouble.

Ham saw his father’s nakedness. That’s always the way it is, for whether it’s regarding our birth family or our church family, those closest to us are those who will see our weaknesses. Why Ham talked about his father’s nakedness, I do not know, just as I don’t know why we are so eager to talk about one another’s weaknesses. But this I do know: Shem and Japheth wouldn’t look at their father’s nakedness themselves. Why did they stretch a garment between them? Because they didn’t want anyone outside the tent to look in and see their dad’s nakedness. They didn’t want those outside of the tent to be distracted by their father’s condition.

Folks, people are looking for reasons not to believe our message of hope and salvation. And hearing us talk about each other’s weaknesses gives them reason not to come in and join us.

But not only did Shem and Japheth keep others from viewing their father’s nakedness, they did not look upon it themselves.

Why?

Because even though I know someone may be forgiven, and even though I know sin is common to everyone, looking at someone’s sin or listening to reports of someone’s iniquity taints the way I view him in the future. You see, if you come home from work upset with your boss and you start complaining and exposing his mistakes and weaknesses to your wife, although you end up feeling much better, your wife stores that information away. And the next time she sees your boss, there are daggers in her eyes, and you wonder why she no longer wants to go to the company picnic. So too, if I listen to reports of the sin or iniquity of another, it will taint the way I view that person. Malicious exposure is damaging, destructive, and divisive.

Shouldn’t we talk about problems? If it’s your problem, yes. But if it’s someone else’s problem, someone else’s sin, someone else’s weakness, nakedness, or vulnerability, follow Shem and Japheth’s example: walk in backwards and conceal it from others. Not only will this protect the one who sins, but it will protect you as well, for the person who talks to you about someone else will invariably also talk to someone else about you.

How do I know this?

Because Paul warns, “Take heed that you do not bite and devour one another because you will be consumed one of another." Paul summarizes this by saying, “the entire law is fulfilled in the one word: love” (see Galatians 5:14–15).

When Noah awoke from his drunken state, he knew what Ham had done and cursed Ham’s son. No doubt Ham thought, “I’ve got big shoulders. I can handle the repercussions of my sin.” Unbeknownst to him, however, was the fact that the repercussions didn’t fall on him. They fell upon his son. How bad were the repercussions? The Canaanites were the worst culture in the history of the world. Totally immoral and completely perverted, they were eventually annihilated.

Dad and Mom, if we sin, we must not think we alone will pay the price. Sin doesn’t work that way. The consequences will often come in ways that will break your heart as they relate to your family. The children of parents who expose the weaknesses of bosses and neighbors, of sisters and brothers; the children of parents who are dour and sour and critical grow up unmotivated to go to church, bitter about the things of God, and uninterested in the Bible.

So what are we to do?

We are to say, “I’ve been forgiven of so much that I will not talk about the weakness of my boss, my neighbor, my pastor, the person sitting next to me, my friends, or my enemies. I will not speak or listen to negativity.” Every one of us will fail at some point or another. But if you choose today to be like Shem and Japheth - to cover the nakedness of others - you will likewise be covered when you fail.

Man builds with brick. But because brick is man-made, it cracks and chips easily. That’s why God uses stone.

The massive stones used for the Temple were cut to size in a rock quarry a mile away from the Temple site so that when the stones arrived at the building site, the Bible says the sound of neither hammer nor chisel was heard (1 Kings 6:7). How close did the stones fit? So close that not even a knife could fit between them. There was no need for cement or mortar, for the stones fit perfectly.

God still uses stones to build His Temple. We are living stones being fit together for a spiritual house (1 Peter 2:5). This means the world is the rock quarry wherein the chipping takes place so that when we get to the true Temple in Heaven, there will not be the sound of a hammer or chisel heard.

Therefore, we should not be surprised when the living stone we’re sitting next to or married to rubs us the wrong way. It’s all part of God’s plan to knock off our rough edges so that when we get to Heaven, we’ll fit together perfectly.

No matter how hard they tried, no matter how sincere their attempts might have been, people could no longer communicate. So they separated into language groups and began to form their own cultures. The good news, however, is that the necessary curse of Genesis 11 was reversed in Acts 2 when one hundred twenty believers in an upper room began to praise God in languages they had never learned, causing the people from Mesopotamia, Cappadocia, Egypt, Arabia, Galatia, and from all parts of the world on the streets below to hear the Gospel in their own language.

And now I begin to understand that the only way for people to truly communicate cross-culturally is to be focused on the Cross of Christ and to be empowered by His Spirit, for apart from Christ, all of our efforts at unity are nothing more than slime and chipped brick. Without Christ, we can try to build a foundation of unity; we can have all kinds of rallies and seminars and marches, but there will be no unity apart from the power and person of the Holy Spirit coming upon us. It is only in Christ that there is neither male nor female, bond nor free, Jew nor Gentile (Galatians 3:28). It is only in Jesus that division is obliterated.

God said to Abram, “I’m going to give you a name, make you a nation, and protect you. Those who bless you will be blessed; those who curse you will be cursed.” In other words, you’re going to have primacy, identity, and security.

I find this intriguing because those were the three things man had wanted so desperately at Babel (Genesis 11:4). “Let us build a tower,” said man, “whose top may reach unto heaven (primacy); and let us make us a name (identity), lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth” (security).

The same is still true. We want something meaningful to do in life - primacy. Or we want to discover who we are - identity. Or we need security relationally or financially. Jesus said, “If you seek first the Kingdom, all these things will be added to you” (see Matthew 6:33).

Abram was fifty years old when he initially heard God’s call. But he didn’t leave Haran until he was seventy-five. Obviously, Abram faltered in his obedience. But guess what? God didn’t give up on Abram. Rather He waited for Abram.

“Lord, why aren’t You directing me?” we cry.

“I already did,” He answers. “Twenty-five years ago, I told you what to do. And I won’t give you more to do until you do what I’ve already told you.”

Many people are confused about God’s will because, like Abram, they’ve delayed doing what He has already asked of them. It might concern intercessory prayer, witnessing, or Bible study. I encourage people to keep journals - to write down things God lays upon their hearts because so often we ask, “What’s going on?” when, if we would just look back at what God had told us previously, we could see the problem.

God wasn’t mad at Abram - and He’s not mad at you. When your kids take their first steps, you don’t yell at them when they fall down. You celebrate their steps rather than berate their stumbling. God is the same way. He knows this is how we learn to walk by faith. Take hope, stumbling saint, Abram was in a twenty-five-year slump, and God didn’t give up on him. God gives us a second chance, and a third, and a ninety-ninth. His mercy is new every morning. His grace is limitless.

When the astronauts went to the moon, they planted a flag. So too, upon entering the Promised Land, Abram leaves a mark. As we will see, wherever Abram goes he leaves two marks: he builds an altar, which shows he’s a worshiper; and he pitches a tent, which shows he’s a pilgrim. Abram never builds a house. Why? Because “he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Hebrews 11:10). He realized that what he really craved was Heaven.

Abram - the father of faith, the friend of God - shows us the real way to live. Wherever you go, build the altar of worship. It will alter who you are, how you feel, and the way you think. Wherever you go, go with a “tent” mentality. We may think we’re looking for a ranch in the country or a house on the lake, a ski boat or a ski cabin, a dream car or a dream date. But what we’re really craving is Heaven. No other city has foundations. Everything else is shaky and wobbly.

Abram pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Hai on the east. Bethel means “house of God.” Hai means “heap” or “dump.” Therefore, Abram had the house of God ahead of him and a dump behind him. That’s basically where you and I live. With Heaven before us, and the world behind us, we’re camped out in the middle, waiting for the culmination.

Throughout Scripture, whenever people go to Egypt, they always go “down to Egypt” because Egypt is a type or symbol of the world. Abram was doing well, but now he falls again because he didn’t remain in the land God showed him. A famine made him think he had to take matters into his own hands - always a dangerous thing to do.

Here’s the father of faith faltering in the arena of faith because man always struggles and stumbles in his area of strength . . .

Righteous Noah fell when he got drunk in his tent (Genesis 9:21).

Moses, the meekest man on the face of the earth, struck his rod against a rock and said, “You rebels, must we fetch water for you?” (see Numbers 20:10).

Unsheathing his sword, Peter was ready to take on a whole army in order to defend Jesus in Gethsemane. Yet, only hours later, he faltered when a young girl asked him, “Aren’t you one of His?” (see Mark 14:67).

The area in which you think you’re strongest is the area you’ll be most vulnerable because you’ll depend on your own strength. At the point you say, “That’s not a problem for me; I’ll never fall there,” watch out because that’s the very area in which you’ll experience difficulty. Where you know you’re weak, you rely on God. So consider yourself weak in all areas, and instead, rely solely on His strength.

There is no record of Abram pitching a tent or building an altar in Egypt. Here, however, we see him return to the place where he had pitched his tent; we see him going to the altar once more.

When you find yourself in Egypt, when you know things aren’t the way they’re supposed to be, what do you do? To the Church of Ephesus - a group of believers who had strayed from their passion for Him - Jesus said, “Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works . . .” (Revelation 2:5).

Maybe your relationship with the Lord was great five years ago. Maybe things were really happening spiritually four months ago. Jesus’ word to you is the same as it was to the Church of Ephesus. Remember, repent, and repeat: go back and do what you used to do. Perhaps you were enjoying a season of morning devotions. Maybe you were attending mid-week worship services. Maybe you were memorizing Scripture or aggressively sharing your faith. What were you doing when you were on fire, when things were really cooking? Do it again.

Notice how Abram emerged from Egypt a wiser man, for here he shows directness. That is, he goes to Lot and deals with the issue directly. “There’s strife between our herdsmen,” he says, “and the heathen are watching us fighting. It ought not be.” Such is often the case today. Christians fight and bicker while the world watches and wonders. It ought not be.

Notice also Abram’s deference. He doesn’t place blame on Lot. He says, “Let there be no strife between me and thee, between my herdsmen and thy herdsmen.” While he will assume the secondary position when it comes to choosing the land, Abram assumes the primary position when it comes to shouldering responsibility for the problem.

Notice finally Abram’s discernment when he says, “We be brethren.” In other words, “There is more that unites us than divides us. Sure, there are some complications with the cattle and some hassles with the herdsmen, but we’re brothers.”

How we need to realize the truth of this within the Christian community, in our country, and around the world. Because we all embrace the person and work of our Lord Jesus, there is more that unites us than could possibly divide us. If there’s a “Lot” in your life who is causing a lot of problems, follow Abram’s example, and see how peace will follow you.

Contrast the wisdom of Abram with the worldliness of Lot. First, Lot was weak in devotion, for we never read of him building an altar. Like Lot, you may possess a “tent mentality,” knowing you’re headed for Heaven. You may even have a ministry, with herds to tend. But if you’re not an altar builder, you’ll be weak in devotion, which will lead to real problems.

Second, Lot was worldly in desires. He lifted up his eyes, but not high enough. He didn’t lift his eyes to Heaven and say, “Lord, show me the best place for me and my family.” Instead, he lifted up his eyes only high enough to check out the financial possibilities and the greenest pastures. Lot saw a good place to raise cattle, but failed to see that it would be a lousy place to raise kids because he fixed his gaze short of Heaven.

Third, Lot was wrong in decision, as seen in the series of wrong decisions he made based on his own reasoning . . .

In verse 10, he looked toward Sodom.

In verse 12, he pitched his tent toward Sodom.

In chapter 19, he became a leader in Sodom.

Lot left Ur, but he became entrenched in Sodom. A lot of people are like that. They say yes to Heaven, but they never say no to the world. And, like Lot, they end up in a terrible predicament.

From cover to cover, the Bible calls us to set our hearts on things above and not on things of this world (Colossians 3:2). Jesus put it this way: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33).

How do we practically seek first the Kingdom and set our hearts on Heaven? Jesus told us when He said, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:21). If your treasure is on earth, that’s where your heart will be. So God in His wisdom, kindness, and love for you and me says, “Lay up your treasure in Heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys, where thieves don’t break in and steal. Put your treasure in Heaven because, in so doing, your heart will follow” (see Matthew 6:19–21).

If your treasure is in your house, your retirement account, or your Mercedes, that’s where your heart will be. Knowing this, the Lord demands that the first tenth of whatever we make on any given day or in any given week be given to Him in order that our hearts will be set on our Heavenly destination.

Jesus talked more about money than He did about Heaven. He talked more about money than He did about hell. In fact, He talked more about money than He did about Heaven and hell combined. Why? Because He knows it’s a huge issue for you and me, and that it speaks of larger principles. One of the things Jesus said about money was this: “And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon [money] of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations” (Luke 16:9).

In other words, the money you have “made friends of,” that you have used rightly, will greet you when you die. Now, the old adage is true: You can’t take it with you. But you can send it ahead. And what you send ahead - through the tithe that God demands, and through the offering which He deserves - will meet you there.

“But I don’t make much money, so there won’t be much to greet me,” you say. Consider this: When Jesus saw a widow giving two mites - less than a penny - He told His disciples that she had given more than they who, out of their abundance, had given much, because she gave all that she had (Mark 12:41–44). Jesus acknowledged just two mites, given by a woman who will receive a “mite-y” big welcome in Heaven!

In Malachi, we see three promises God makes to those who tithe . . .

Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of Heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. - Malachi 3:10

“I will reward your faith.” Immediately after lending Jesus his fishing boat for use as a floating podium to teach the multitude on the shore, Peter caught so many fish that his net broke (Luke 5:2–7). The little boy who gave his lunch to Jesus was himself filled, along with the rest of the five thousand (John 6:9–12). So too, if you’ve ever given anything to God, you know from experience that it’s impossible to out-give Him.

And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the LORD of hosts. - Malachi 3:11

“I will rebuke your foe.” Some people are perpetually plagued with problems. The money they make goes through their pockets; the labor of their hands never comes to fruition. It is especially to them that God says, “If you tithe, I will rebuke the world’s hold on you, which devours your happiness and eats away at your possessions.”

And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the LORD of hosts. - Malachi 3:12

“I will renew your fruit. Put your trust in Me, and I will make you a fruitful land,” declares the Lord. He who tithes will experience renewal and revival.

I would rather teach on any other subject. But the Bible has much to say about tithing because it shows where a person’s heart is. Therefore, I would be shirking my responsibility to declare to you “all the counsel of God” (Acts 20:27) if I were to ignore it. The tithe is the Lord’s. It’s not yours. Whether it’s ten cents or ten thousand dollars, the first tenth is the Lord’s and is to be brought into the storehouse - the place where the Word is proclaimed and worship ascends.

Heaven is right around the bend, gang. And I don’t want a single one of us to regret the stuff we’ve accumulated with God’s tithe or the ways we’ve indulged ourselves with His offerings.

Maybe you have been robbing God (Malachi 3:8). Maybe you have been wasting your time and treasure and talents. The good news is: It’s not too late! Today you can say, “As I race toward Heaven, I understand the wisdom of God’s way, the rightness of His Word. Therefore, I am going to give Him the tithe. And I am going to see, even as He asked me, what He will do in blessing, in rebuking, and in renewing.”

Precious people, you’ll be blessed all of your days if you go God’s way. Begin today, then watch and see what He will do.

That God said, “Fear not” to Abram indicates Abram was fearful. This is not surprising. After his spiritual victory in resisting the material temptation of the riches offered him by the king of Sodom, as well as his military victory in rescuing Lot, Abram hit an emotional slump. This happens. Challenge often follows victory. Think of Jesus. When He was baptized in the Jordan, He heard a voice from Heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Then, the Holy Spirit came upon Him and empowered Him for ministry (Matthew 3:16–17). It was a great day. But immediately following this, He was driven into the wilderness to be tempted of Satan, to wrestle against the Enemy for forty days (Matthew 4). Therefore, don’t be surprised if after you experience victory spiritually, like Abram you face a time of discouragement emotionally.

“Fear not.” This is the first time this glorious command appears in Scripture. But it is certainly not the last . . .

“Fear not,” the angel said to a bunch of frightened shepherds (Luke 2:10).

“Fear not,” Jesus said to a crew of seasick disciples (see Mark 4:40).

“Fear not,” the angel said to a disheartened Paul (Acts 27:24).

“Fear not, little flock,” Jesus says to us (Luke 12:32).

Perhaps it suddenly hit Abram that he and his rag-tag army of servants had made enemies of four powerful kings with four huge armies. “I am your shield,” God told him. “Yes, you came home empty-handed materially, but I am your reward.”

In this, I am reminded that what every person ultimately desires is not something from the Lord, but simply more of the Lord.

“I’m not going to show you the way,” Jesus declared, “I am the Way” (see John 14:6).

“I’m not going to give you bread; I am the Bread” (see John 6:35).

“I’m not going to share with you truth; I am the truth” (see John 14:6).

Those who come to the Lord not looking for something from Him, but simply to cling to Him, find all kinds of blessings in all sorts of areas they never expected. Are you disappointed with God because you asked Him for something you have yet to receive? Maybe it’s because you’re looking for some thing. God loves you too much to toss a boxed little package your way. The issue is bigger; and He wants you to discover today that He will satisfy your need, He will be your reward.

With his naked eye, Abram would have been able to see at most twelve hundred stars. “I’m going to have a family of twelve hundred?” Abram must have thought. But wait. God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think (Ephesians 3:20). Abram could see approximately twelve hundred stars. But how many stars are there? Far beyond anything Abram could even begin to ask for or imagine in his wildest dreams.

How many stars are there? Scientists tell us that there are as many stars in the sky as there are grains of sand on the seashores of the world. This should not surprise the student of Scripture, for God made the same correlation when He told Abram that his family would number as the stars and as the sand on the shores (Genesis 22:17).

According to the psalmist, the only other thing as innumerable as the grains of sand are the thoughts of God toward us (Psalm 139:17–18). This fascinates me because the Pentium computer chips made of silicon (sand) perform one trillion calculations per second. Clear back in antiquity, God measured His thoughts with the substance that would come to epitomize our own computer age.

Like the one who said, “Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief” (Mark 9:24), Abram says, “I believe, but how will I know the land is mine?”

I would think that at this point, the Lord would tire of Abram. I mean, God had told him He would be his reward, only to have Abram ask what He would give him. The Lord promised Abram a grand family and a glorious land, only to have Abram ask for proof.

In answer to Abram’s request for proof that God would give him an inheritance, God instructs Abram to draw up the equivalent of a modern-day contract. You see, in Abram’s day, when two people entered into a legal agreement, they did so by splitting an animal in two, standing in the midst of the carcass, and clasping each other’s wrist to show that they were deadly serious about keeping their end of the bargain.

If I were God, I’d say, “So long, Abram.” But that’s not what our Father does, and I’m oh, so glad. If God continues to be patient with the struggles and doubts of Abram, one of the giants of the faith who should know better, I know He’ll be patient with me.

Throughout Scripture, birds almost always symbolize evil. The picture here is that while Abram waited for God to meet him, he did his best to keep evil at bay, shooing away the birds of doubt and unbelief. Exhausted by his own efforts, Abram fell asleep. As he slept, God told Abram that, although He would indeed give Abram’s descendants a grand and glorious land, they would first spend four hundred years as slaves in a foreign land, which, of course, was Egypt.

“The Amorites” - a generic term for all of the people living in the land of Canaan - refers to a culture so diseased, defiled, and depraved that it was doomed. Nonetheless, God gave them four hundred years - the period in which the Jews were held captive in Egypt - to repent.

While it may be popular to construct the false image of an angry Old Testament God who needed Jesus to come and calm Him down, nothing could be further from the truth. God waited four hundred years for the Amorites to turn to Him. It would take four centuries before their iniquity demanded that He order their extermination at the hand of Joshua.

The patience of God is incomprehensible. Because God is love, no wonder that the first attribute in Paul’s classic definition of love is patience (1 Corinthians 13:4). God was patient with Abram. He was patient with the Canaanites. And He will be patient with you. If you really grasp this, rather than taking advantage of it, His patience will make you long to please Him all the more.

When Abram awoke, he saw that the meat on either side of him was barbecued. God had been there, not meeting Abram halfway as was the custom, but walking the entire length alone.

This is still the way of God. Oh, we try and chase away the birds of evil which threaten our families and our country. We hold rallies and sign pledges; we make vows and make promises. But, because “in our flesh dwells no good thing” (Romans 7:18), like Abram, we eventually become exhausted in trying.

Although numbering over one million in attendance, a Promise Keepers rally in Washington, D.C., was not the biggest Promise Keepers convention in history. One three times as big took place at the foot of Mount Sinai, when three million people heard the voice of God and witnessed a divine pyrotechnic display that so impressed them, they said, “All the words which the LORD hath said, we will do” (Exodus 24:3). Those in attendance at that first Promise Keepers convention weren’t playing a game. They were sincere. They truly meant to keep the Ten Commandments. After all, they had heard God speak and had seen a mountain quake. But when Moses came down the mountain forty days later, he found them worshiping a golden calf.

Times don’t change. People with sincere hearts say, “We will keep our promises.” The problem with signing contracts, making vows, and keeping promises, however, is that people fail to factor into the equation a huge component: the flesh.

God’s aware of this, gang. That’s why He says, “I will wait until you’re as tired as Abram was. Then I’ll come through on My own. I don’t want you to sign a contract or make a promise. I know what you’re made of. I know your frailty. So I’m not going to meet you halfway. I’m going to do the whole thing.”

The promise had been given. God said to Abram, “You’re going to have a family as numerous as the stars in the heavens.” But time passes, and guess what? Abram starts wondering. Abram is now eighty-six, Sarai seventy-six, and they think, “This is not working.”

Always remember this, saint: When God gives a promise, there is often a gap of time between the giving of the promise and the fulfillment of the promise. In Abram’s case, there was a thirteen-year gap.

Maybe you’ve been waiting on God for the fulfillment of a certain promise. Is His delay due to procrastination on His part? No. Is it due to preoccupation? Is He just too busy? No. God’s delay is due to preparation; He is preparing you in the arena of faith. You see, the gaps between God’s promise and its fulfillment provide opportunities for our muscle of faith to be exercised. Like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, if there is no struggle, faith never soars.

This is the first time the phrase, “the angel of the LORD,” appears in Scripture. The word translated as “angel” means “messenger.” Throughout Scripture, angels adamantly refuse to be worshiped. Thus, because this angel of the Lord receives worship, we know He is no ordinary angel. Here, the “angel of the LORD” refers to the second person of the Trinity - Jesus Christ.

How like Jesus to appear not to a man, but to a woman; not to one who sought faith, but to one who was running from the family of faith. After all, Jesus is the Good Shepherd who left the ninety-nine to find the single sheep who had gone astray.

So too, the person who is in the greatest need, the person who feels he’s blown it the worst is the very one in whom the Lord is most interested. It would seem more logical to stay with the ninety-nine. But that’s not the heart of our Shepherd. He goes after the one. He goes after Hagar. He goes after you.

Keep in mind that there are great gaps and spans of time between these appearances of the Lord to Abram. This intrigues me. Abraham is called the friend of God (James 2:23). Why then would God wait fifteen years between conversations? Perhaps you’re wondering the same thing with regard to your own situation. “Why don’t I hear more frequently from the Lord? Why do I go through weeks or months or years when I don’t seem to hear direct words from Him in my spiritual ears?” Keep in mind that Abraham was not only called the friend of God, but he is also referred to as the father of faith (Romans 4:11). Here, God is making a man of faith out of Abram - and he’s making a man or woman of faith out of you. Faith means we walk not by what we see physically, hear audibly, or know intellectually. Faith means we hang on to what God had said previously. We just hang on.

Think back for a moment to a time in the not too distant past when you thought, “This will never work. Everything’s going wrong. I’ll never make it.” Yet, here you are today. Why did God allow those things to happen in that way? To teach you to be a man or woman of faith, to teach you to quietly and confidently believe that God is on the throne, that He is in control, and that all things work together for good.

The heat of the day in Scripture is often a picture of the hard times that come our way. So often in my walk, I’ve seen the Lord in a fresh way in the heat of the day, in fiery trials. You have too. This is not surprising. After all, it was when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego were cast into a fiery furnace that they saw the Lord (Daniel 3:25). Consequently, when I hear about believers who are going through fiery trials and hot times, on one hand my heart goes out to them. But on the other hand, in a sense, I’m envious of them because I know the Lord will make Himself known to them in a special way in the heat of the day.

Is anything too hard for the Lord? We have a tendency to think of God’s ability in relation to degrees of difficulty.

If someone comes to me and says, “I’m struggling with a headache. Would you pray for me?” I say, “Sure.” “Bless Bob, Lord. Take away the tension and allow him to experience a healing touch from Your hand.”

But if someone comes to me saying, “I just came back from the doctor’s office and he told me I have a malignant tumor. Would you pray for me?” I act as if it’s a whole different deal! “Pastors, brothers, gather round,” I say. And I fervently plead with the Lord as though cancer is harder for Him to heal than a headache.

Oh, there’s nothing wrong with praying passionately, but not because there are degrees of difficulty or because we need to get God’s attention emotionally. The prophets of Baal slashed their bodies and cried loudly to get his attention, all to no avail. Elijah, on the other hand, simply prayed two sentences, and through them moved the hand of God (1 Kings 18).

The Lord would give Abraham information and revelation not based upon the accumulation of his knowledge, but upon the communication to his family. “I will give Abraham understanding of what I’m about to do,” said the Lord, “because I know he is a man who will teach his children.”

The same is true today. The revelation God wants to give us concerning what He’s doing, how He’s moving, or where He’s going is not based upon our journal entries or our Bible study notes. It’s based upon whether or not we will share what He tells us with our children.

People often say to me, “If I could go back and do it all over again, I would not go into the profession I’m in presently. I would go into the ministry.” While I have found the ministry to be absolutely delightful and a wonderful calling, the fact is if you have children or grandchildren, you are in the ministry. No clerical collar or pulpit compares to gathering your family around you, giving a simple Bible lesson, singing songs, sharing with each other, and praying together. That is the ministry. And anyone who takes seriously this call will, like Abraham, receive fresh revelation. I know this to be so, for the most wonderful insights and sweetest revelations of God to my heart have not come as I have prepared sermons, but as I have simply shared in worship with my family.

Although three men had appeared to Abraham in chapter 18, only two go to Sodom because the Lord Himself does not enter into the city. Why? Psalm 66 tells us that if we regard iniquity in our hearts, the Lord will not hear us. That is, if I am purposely, rebelliously, intentionally, and arrogantly holding on to sin, when I pray, the Lord won’t hear my prayer; He’ll not come into my city; He’ll not enter into my situation.

You see, even though the sin to which I so stubbornly cling was paid for completely on the Cross of Calvary, the Lord loves me so much, He says, “I love you too much to let you go on your merry way, day after day, as though there’s nothing wrong. If I did that, you would continue in that sin, and that sin would destroy you. Consequently, you won’t feel My hand. You won’t sense My presence, not because I’m not with you - for I will never leave you nor forsake you - but because your spirit senses something is not quite right.”

When I feel as though my prayers bounce off the ceiling, it’s not because the Lord is angry with me or mad at me, disappointed in me or turning away from me. Rather, it’s an indication He’s lovingly given, to show me that something’s not right.

The angels went into Sodom, but the Lord did not.

“Wilt Thou destroy the righteous with the wicked?” Abraham asked the Lord (18:23). The answer, as illustrated here, is “No.” Before judgment could be poured out upon Sodom, before fire and brimstone would come down to destroy Gomorrah, God rescued Lot and those of his house. He rescued the righteous.

Lot righteous? A guy who calls perverted people his brothers? A guy who offers his daughters to a homosexual mob? A guy who lingers when angels tell him to leave? Lot righteous?

Yes. That is what Peter calls him (2 Peter 2:7). How can Lot possibly be considered righteous? It is because righteousness is imputed solely on the basis of simple faith. I am righteous and so are you if you have confessed with your mouth that Jesus is who He claimed to be, and have believed in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead (Romans 10:9–10).

I love this chapter because there are a lot of people I care about deeply who, like Lot, made a profession of faith but ended up in Sodom, not living the way they know they should. If you’re worried about a friend or a family member, take hope. While we don’t want anyone to follow Lot’s example because sin brings all kinds of pain and problems presently, as well as empty-handedness eternally, know this: If that son of yours confesses with his mouth that Jesus is who He claimed to be, and believes in his heart that God has raised Him from the dead, he will be saved.

The Lord communicated through this powerful picture, “I’m going to rescue people you may have thought were hopelessly lost.”

In telling Lot to escape to the mountain, the Lord wanted to turn a city boy into a mountain man. Throughout Scripture, the Lord continually calls His people to the mountains . . .

Through Abraham, who was ready to sacrifice his son in obedience to the Lord’s command, He calls us to Mount Moriah, the mount of devotion.

Through the Israelites, who gathered to receive His commandments, the Lord calls us to Mount Sinai, the mount of instruction.

Through Moses, who viewed the Promised Land, He calls us to Mount Pisgah, the mount of vision.

Through Elijah, whose prayer brought down fire from Heaven, He calls us to Mount Carmel, the mount of passion.

Through Peter, James, and John, who beheld the glory of the Lord, He calls us to Mount Hermon, the mount of transfiguration.

But the most important mountain God calls us to is Mount Calvary, the mount of crucifixion, where He calls us to die to self.

Here is the first time in the Bible where the word “prophet” appears. Now, if there was ever a time God wouldn’t want to introduce Abraham as a prophet, I would think it would be right here. I would think God would be embarrassed by, upset with, and ashamed of Abraham for claiming his wife was his sister. But such is not the case, for God says to Abimelech, “That man who told a lie, who misled you, who jeopardized his wife and your nation - he’s My man; he’s My spokesman; he’s My prophet.”

Romans 11:29 tells us that “the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” That means when God gives a spiritual gift, a calling, a ministry to a man, woman, or church, He doesn’t change His mind. He doesn’t take it back. If God has given you a gift, be it ministry, music, prophecy, teaching, or evangelism; or if He’s given you a skill, be it carpentry, mechanics, or athletics, it’s yours to keep.

Perhaps you’ve seen people stumble, fall, or drop the ball, and you wonder how God could still use him, her, or them. The answer is that the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. Sin will always bring about its own sadness, depression, defeat, and despair, for the way of the transgressor is hard (Proverbs 13:15). The fact remains, however, that because the gifts and calling of God are without repentance, God will still use sinners.

I say this because I have found that the thing which hobbles so many people in their service for the Lord is thinking, “God can’t use me. God wouldn’t use me. God won’t use me because I’ve failed so miserably. I’ve botched it so badly.” That’s the voice of the Enemy. The voice of the Lord says, “Because you didn’t earn the gifts I gave you or the calling I sovereignly placed upon you, there’s no way you can lose them.”

If you’ve been on the sidelines because you think you’ve messed up once too often, remember this story and the mercy of our Master, the grace of our God, and the kindness of our King. Truly, there’s no one like Him.

Although Abraham would be used in other arenas and would go on to live a life of blessing before Abimelech, at this point Abraham couldn’t preach to Abimelech because in his eyes he was a liar and a coward. Yet even though Abraham couldn’t preach to or share with Abimelech, he could still pray for him.

So too, because you have fallen short in their eyes or hurt them badly, there are people to whom you may not be able to preach or with whom you may not be able to share. But this story tells me that although I may not be able to preach to them or share with them, I get to effectively bless them through prayer.

When I pray for my enemies, not only does it release blessing upon them, but it keeps me from getting involved in a cycle of bitterness which will only destroy me. You cannot pray a blessing on a person and remain angry with him. It’s impossible. That’s why Jesus said, “Pray for your enemies” (see Matthew 5:44).

I challenge you to pray for the people toward whom you feel bitterness or hostility, for the people you just don’t like. Pray that they’ll be healed, that they’ll prosper, that they’ll do well. God will answer your prayer, and you’ll be blessed in the process.

God made the promise to Abraham, and reiterated it several times, that Ishmael would become a mighty nation. Here Abraham wisely decided not to give God a hand in fulfilling what He had promised. After all, that’s how Ishmael was conceived in the first place.

Consequently, Abraham shows incredible peace. He gives Ishmael and Hagar a bit of water and a bit of bread, in effect saying, “I trust the Lord is going to do what He said, not because of my provision, but because of His promise.”

Mom and Dad, let this be a comfort to you today. The promises of God toward my children are the same as toward yours . . .

“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). No matter what desert your child is in, no matter in what dry region he finds himself, even when he is old he won’t depart from the way he’s been trained.

“For I know whom I have believed,” said Paul, “and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him” (2 Timothy 1:12). Have you committed your kids to the Lord? God is able to keep them. This doesn’t mean He’s merely capable. It means He’s committed to keeping that which has been entrusted to Him.

I hate it when I panic. I get worried, I get uptight, and I run around like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to make something happen. Faith is the opposite of panic. I love it when I’m not panicking, when I’m walking in faith. When I walk in faith, I’m not irritated, anxious, or upset. There’s a peace deep within me and a serenity that overflows from me. I like it when I walk in faith like Abraham.

Abraham said, “Ishmael, Hagar, here’s some water and some bread. God be with you.” He is maturing, this mighty man of God. He is growing, this giant of faith. He’ll miss Ishmael, but he trusts God completely, knowing God will do exactly what He said He would.

And He’ll do the same for you.

Paul calls the story of Ishmael and Hagar an allegory (Galatians 4:24) in which Ishmael is a type of the flesh and Isaac a type of the Spirit. As the story continues, we see Ishmael mocking Isaac - something that happens in each of our hearts constantly.

For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. Galatians 5:17

There’s a constant battle going on, and here’s the question: Who are we going to allow to win? The Bible says the solution is to cast out Ishmael, the flesh.

How do we cast Ishmael out?

By doing what Abraham did: by giving him no provision.

Abraham didn’t give Ishmael a Visa card and a Ford Explorer. He gave him nothing more than prisoner’s rations - a little bread and water. That is why Paul emphatically tells us to “make no provision for the flesh” (see Romans 13:14).

Every fleshly thing I see or hear is a seed planted in the soil of my soul that will come up eventually. Likewise, every godly thing I take in will also come to fruition. Perhaps the best illustration of this is one I shared recently with a group of junior highers . . .

It’s as if there are two dogs inside of you: one black, one white. The white dog is life, the black dog is death. At any given point, you’re feeding one of the dogs - through the type of people with whom you associate, through what you choose to listen to, watch, and take in. If you feed the black dog, he gets bigger and stronger. He bares his fangs and starts ripping on the white dog while the white dog gets smaller and smaller. Once the black dog decimates the white dog, he turns on you and begins to sink his jaws into your innermost being, leaving you wondering why you’re so down, defeated, depressed, and discontent. On the other hand, if you feed the white dog, the spirit, by doing what’s right in God’s sight, the white dog grows bigger and stronger as the black dog grows punier and weaker, until he’s no bigger than a Chihuahua. At any given moment, you’ll feed one of the two dogs. Which will it be?