This morning I'm going to be speaking on the subject, "God wants you to know." There are some things that God definitely desires that we know. Many of the things that we learn we can well do without. There are things that people are clamoring for to hear and to learn but in the long run it's not going to make much of a difference whether you know them or not. Did you know that there are even Bible truths that could make little difference whether you know them or not. In fact you'd be better off not knowing them if it kept you from knowing some of the important things.
So often we substitute the important for the unimportant. I think of some things that are quite important but the apostle Paul in showing what the real important things were had to minimize some of the less important and it was quite a surprise in the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians when he took prophecy from the top shelf and put it down a little ways. He said if there be prophecies they shall cease, then he took the thing that so many people today who have felt that the training of the intellect was the most important thing in the whole world.
A few years ago I saw a cartoon that was drawn depicting a characterature of the desire and the hunger for knowledge and people wanting to learn, learn, learn. And it said, "At the rate that things were going, by the year 2000 this is what people will look like." And I looked and boy I hope they don't look like that in the year 2000. It was a great big head with a forehead that stuck way out and a little tiny face and little arms and a very tiny body. But this great big head. And I thought to myself when I saw that, this is the way people are going to look in the year 2000 at the rate they're going, I wondered what they would be able to do with all of that knowledge. They wouldn't have enough muscle to get out there and put it to work. And they wouldn't have enough stomach to enjoy the things they had created in the way of food. They would just have a big brain. The Lord needs more than just big brains however He created big brains so they're alright if they're used for Him.
There are some things that are optional in the way of knowledge. And the Word tells us, it speaks of certain individuals who are ever learning, learning, learning, learning and still never able to find the truth. He spoke of some who have such a desire to learn that their ears are actually itching. And the only thing that would stop the itch is to put a little brasive knowledge in through them and keep pouring it in and that takes care of the itch for a little while. It's alright for you to know prophecy. But do you know that you can get into trouble studying prophecy because about the time you figure you've got it all mapped out and you know exactly what's going to happen and what the Bible actually means by this and this and this. Someone else will come along with a better idea and another opinion and all that you've learned is kind of obsolete so here you've had many hours that you kind of have to brush that aside and if you're going to stay up to date you've got to put in a bunch more stuff in your head and in a little while that will be obsolete.
I remember so well when the president of the school I attended who was a great prophetic teacher. And this is not speaking derogatorily of the man because we've all done it, everybody that's taught the Bible has gotten off on a limb somewhere or another. But he was teaching so definitely back in those days that Mussolini was the anti-Christ. He was so concerned about who that anti-Christ was. And his sermons would pack the building with people who wanted to know all about the antichrist and what was happening. One day he came to school, his face was crest fallen, he looked so unhappy. One of the teachers approached him in the hall and asked him why he was so unhappy. And he said, "They just shot my anti-Christ to death. Mussolini had died. But some of the people who were really interested in making sure all these niches were filled created another one and they had quite a few. One of the last ones that came across the horizon that reams of paper were printed about and people were held spell bound as they heard about Kissinger, how his name was just exactly right, and the fact that his background, his birth, his nationality and his ability to move people, he was the one. I had a man who came to speak here at our church, in fact he came and I let him preach but I didn't let him preach on what he wanted to preach on. He wanted to tell you all about Kissinger being the anti-Christ. I said, "Do you have another message?" He searched around and said, "Well I've got one around here somewhere but it's not as interesting." So I had him dig that one out and it wasn't really good either. I won't tell you who he was.
When you become involved in something that God didn't intend for you to become involved in you can trade the better for the lesser. There are some things that God definitely wants you to know. He doesn't care whether you know what Babylon means in Bible prophecy. In fact He could care less. It's not important. He's not really concerned whether you even understand who the lost tribes of Israel are. These are little things that you could waste your time on. One man asked me the other day, and he was very serious about it and so I was kind and I didn't make light of what he said but I gave him something better to think about. He asked me, pastor can you tell me really where Cain got his wife? There are people who feel that somehow if they can find these evasive answers that would open the doors of heaven and bring revival. But there are some things that God does want you to know. They aren't just the study of words, understanding what words are, they're not the study of opinions. Do you know they're not even the study of cults? I've had many people say, "pastor why don't you teach us a course on what the cults believe." It's not going to do you one lick of good to know what the cults believe. God wants you to know what His Word says. He wants you to know the truth. While people who are cluttering their mind with a bunch of junk they're missing the point of the things that God really wants you to know.
This morning I want to give you some very important things that He does want you to have, things that are important to your abundant living right here and to your effective ministry right here. One of the first things is the fact that God has included you in His plans. God loved the world, the whole world, everybody in the world. 1 John 2:2, gives you a little hint of this and it's repeated in other places. That He has become the propitiation not only for our sins but also for the sins of the whole world. There's enough salvation, there's enough love, there's enough room in God's heart for every person in the world. Not every person is going to accept. We know that there are many, many who are not going to turn to God but God wants the world to know that He has room for them. That He loves them, that He wants them. Praise God. He wants us to know this. He wants us to know that He cares for us. That every need of life is God's care. Philippians 4:19 is a beautiful expression from Paul's heart as he thought about God. He said my God shall supply all of your needs according to His riches in glory. God is concerned about your material needs. He will supply he said. I wonder if there's anybody here who when they had some real material needs did you ever wonder, God how are you ever going to supply this need? A few honest people. Some of you are thinking, I don't have to say its past tense, I'm wondering right now how in the world God is going to do it. You have some needs there. But as you look back at God's great plan and purpose, He doesn't always supply that need in the package that we may expect. He doesn't supply it in just exactly the way, but today you can look back a year ago to pressures that you had and some way, you're here. You got through them, you thought you couldn't live another week. You thought that things were so bad that you were going to wind up in Blackfoot or some other place, but you're here instead. His provision includes not only for material things and actually from this congregation we have enough to fill a book of examples of how God has supplied your need. Praise God.
I want every person to bow their heads. We're not only going to talk about the thing that God wants you to know that He can supply your needs, the reason He wants you to know it and be sure of it is so that you can reach out and take what He has and have faith to believe Him. I want you to join hands and believe God for those needs, the fact that you lifted your hands there was something very important here, these were material needs. And God knows the answer, He knows and understands. Father you saw these hands and you care. Oh God in Jesus name we don't know what they are God but they're spelled out to you. And right now they're held there in remembrance before you. You know the pressure, you know the hurt and I ask the Spirit of the Lord right now would come into this place in power, that you'd move dear Lord to those who are feeling the hurt and the pressure. God there's some that employment is so necessary. The needs of their home may be piling up for lack of income. But God you have told us to ask of You that there's nothing that we could give you because of what you already own. The cattle on a thousand hills are yours. The gems, the material wealth of a million worlds belongs to you. God in Jesus name as hearts are reaching out to You, may the supply come in the name of the Lord. God you want us to know this. It's important to us in our life to know that you care for us and that You will supply and we believe you. Our trust is in You. You are a God who is a God of action. And by the recognition of this need, the placing of this hand in yours today, the great forces of heaven have been activated. Glory to God.
I remember reading the same incident several times but others like it, where a family had nothing really to put on the table. This man was a pastor in a very struggling work. They were depending much just through the people for the people there to become God's channel for their help. There was nothing, it was Thanksgiving Day. This woman gathered her family and they joined hands and they thanked God for His goodness. And while they were praying they said God we don't know where it's coming from but we know that you care and we thank you for the food we are about to receive, there wasn't anything on there yet. But the night before, God knew this was going to happen because God knows things a long time in advance. He put it in the heart of one of the families in the town; they didn't come to the church. They said, "We've never done anything really to show our thanks to God for what He's done. And why don't we surprise these people and set a complete food basket on their porch. So there was food that was prepared and ready to eat. And they set it on the porch and left, and the plates were there and everything else was there but the food and so they went out and got the food and set it down. They had already given God thanks so there they were. This was an unusual circumstance but God is the God of the unusual and if every person here would write something about some way that God's provided we would certainly have a variety of things here. Has God ever provided something for you in a unique way? Would you write out this incident? I'd like to get about a 1000 of these. Because people are coming in and their faith is way down, and you might have your faith way down and I'll thumb through them and pull out the one that you've written and show it to you and remind you, "hey look what God did before you, He's still God." He wants you to know that He's concerned about your material needs. He wants you to know that He's concerned about your physical needs, that God has divine health. People oftentimes point to what looks like failure, it isn't failure at all. God's great picture is complete. God wants us not to focus on one little spot but his promises are complete and fulfilled in His picture, he has health for us. He cares for and provides for our emotional needs bringing us peace. He provides security for us. He's able to keep us from falling and present us faultless before His throne. He's provided freedom from the fears.
This world today is bound by fear. In my trip to the Philippines God made me so aware of it, but this whole world since I've been back, I've found people in this country are filled with fear also. Spiritual fear, emotional fear, physical fear, there's so many things that press in upon them. But God wants you to know that He cares about your emotions. He doesn't want you to write out and say your emotions have nothing to do with God; you must be totally unmoved constantly all the time about spiritual things because you're going to get into trouble if you're emotional. That's as much as saying you're going to get in trouble if you're alive. Well I suppose if you weren't alive you wouldn't get into trouble but that's not what we're referring to.
God wants us to be emotionally alive, to be able to feel Him, to be able to know and get excited about Him. God has made provision for our emotional strength and health. He's provided for our spiritual freedom. I heard a man speaking last week talking about a Russian bear that had been held in captivity. And this bear while he was in the cage would walk nine steps, which was all the cage would allow him. And he would go back and forth nine steps. Some people some way got a petition up and the bear was released. They said he'd been in captivity long enough so they gave him a little bit of freedom. They took the bear out of the cage and set him in a wide open space. The bear looked around, took nine steps and then he came back nine steps, then nine steps again. There were no bars and no cage but the cage was in his mind, he had been bound so long. Jesus came to set the captives free. He tore down the bars and the prisons that bind us but still many, many believers are still taking nine paces to the right, nine back to the left. God wants them to know that the bars are down and they can move out into the full open pastures that God has made for them.
Another freedom God wants to bring addresses the fear of whether God has accepted you. While I was in the Philippine islands I spoke to the students at the Far East advanced school of theology. And I gave them a message that God gave to me and confirmed to my heart through an angel. The Lord placed it upon my heart this morning and I talked about it in my class. And when people lifted their hands and said that this really spoke and ministered to their hearts I knew that God had so directed me. And I feel that this morning this is also something that God wants you to know. Not just to hear, He wants you to know it so that you'll be able to apply it to your own hearts and to have the freedom that God has given to you. The president of the school and his wife were there and I'm sure they wouldn't mind me mentioning this. Following this service she said pastor I've jotted down this little diagram that you've given us and she said I feel it's the greatest truth that I've ever heard. She said I have an eight year old boy. She said my eight year old boy goes to bed at night after I tuck him in and kiss him good night. She said he doesn't want me to know about it but I've come in and heard him sobbing. And he cries himself to sleep nearly every night because he's so afraid of God. She said I'm going to take this to him and I'm going to help him with it. She said my son has told my husband and when I've asked him about why he's crying he said, "I'm afraid I've committed the unpardonable sin, I'm afraid I've haven't been quite good enough to please God. And because I haven't pleased Him if Jesus were to come if I would die I would be lost forever and I just can't stand it, and so he would cry himself to sleep." She took this message that I had given and she said if for no other reason that I'm glad you came to the Philippines, it was for this. And she said I told my boy how God really feels. And I drew the picture out in simple form so he could see it. And he said mom I don't have to be afraid anymore. He laid back and slept no more crying and no more fear. She said she saw him return to the normal life of an eight year old boy with confidence and faith.
God never intended for anyone to be strapped with fear all the time, let alone a small child because somebody tried to keep somebody in subjection. It wasn't necessarily anyone's particular fault. But the fact that people in wanting to do the right thing have not weighed the impact in wanting in some way help people to walk in a narrow path that was hewn out for them. They've brought fear and damage to others. God wants us to know what the real truth is. This was the message. I told these students to take a piece of paper. And up at the top write a circle representing the eye of God. Down at the bottom of the page to write man, and to draw man representing man's viewpoint. This message that God had made so real was this that under the eye of Almighty God man cannot be accepted because there are three barriers or hurdles that keep him from coming and being accepted by God. The first one that keeps him from being accepted is called sin. God wants you to know this. Don't let it go in one ear and out the other. God wants you to know it. If you have any paper jot it down or pick up the tape and listen to it over and over again. Sin separates. You cannot be accepted because of sin, if there's even one little tiny sin, if you've gotten rid of everything and you had some sin of thought or of omission it keeps you from being accepted of God. The second line is fault. God cannot stand fault in a life. The priest, when God chose him said if there was even a mole on this priest or a limp or anything that would be some fault in his physical being. God cannot accept something that isn't without spot or wrinkle, flawless. There are a lot of people who feel if somehow if they could find the answer to stop sinning and if they can make themselves good enough then surely they could be accepted of God but they have not been able to do but should they be able to do it God would still say I cannot accept you because you have no way of removing those faults. I wonder if anybody here has ever known a person that was absolutely free of all fault. Are any of you husbands here whose wives have not even one fault? Can I see your hands? I could put mine just a little ways up but it has to come back down because she has some that I don't know about it. Have you ever known of anyone without fault? There was one more line that if somehow or another you were able to sterilize a person completely so that there was no sin and you were able to bleach them completely so that there was no fault of any kind. Then the worse fault then they would have would be that they're worthless I guess. But they still couldn't come because there's one more. And that 3rd line is failure, failure to keep His Word, failure to meet His standards that He's laid out. So in God's eyes none can measure up, none can be accepted. But in Ephesians 1:4 and I'd like you to write this down. "Before God ever made the world, He chose us to be holy, faultless. He chose us to be holy and faultless and to have no failure." This was God's plan for us before He ever made the world. He wanted us this way. Well how in the world are we ever going to do it? We can't make it. But God planned that way, his plan was to send someone that was totally faultless, totally sinless without failure to take our place and to wrap us up in this person's character and so then He could say you are accepted in the Beloved. So the angel had me draw a big wide line over the top of these three separating barriers, a big wide one. I even filled it in. And on cross that was the love of God, Jesus' blood. So when this man down here puts his faith in the blood, then as God looks down through the blood and sees you because your faith is in the blood He sees you looking just exactly like Jesus. It's the only way He can accept us. In place of sin the word holiness comes through because that's what Jesus was. In place of fault, blamelessness comes through because Jesus was blameless. In place of failure the word unreprovable comes through, nothing to which God could ever call you to task for, nothing with which He could ever charge you with. Unreprovable. So here you have it. God's eye. And in His sight now because of this covering you are holy, unblameable and unreprovable in His sight.
Colossians 1:22, He has wrapped it all up in one little verse here because of the body of Jesus' death that we have accepted. We have been made holy and unblameable and unreprovable in His sight. Hallelujah. Now underneath this covering that you have, draw another eye down here, and write man's eye. Man can't see you the way God sees you. So man looks at you and you look at yourself and you say Oh, Oh God I don't know, I've failed you and I've failed so miserably. You see yourself, your friends look at you and they say fine Christian that person is. In the eyes of man you are not holy, you are not blameless, you're not faultless, they see them. But God in His great plan and His desire is that people would see Jesus in us. He has given us the Spirit, He's given us the Word, he's given us His message and he said, "Now with the help that I give you let your light, not to be accepted by Me because you're already accepted but so that you can help people and let them see Jesus. I want the world to see you just like I already see you. I want the world to see Jesus in you. Isn't that a beautiful picture? If man sees the faults and the failings even though you are in fellowship with God man might come to God and say hey God I know something about that person. God says beat it. Well come down here God and look underneath you're covering here and take a look, you could see them. God says, "I'm not going to listen to anything that satan tells me, I'm not going to listen to anything that man tells me. Nobody can lay anything to the charge of the one that I have covered, that's put their faith in Me." He's going to listen to nothing from satan and nothing from man. Praise God.
You read that over there in Numbers 23 and 24 where God showed how effective that covering was. He wants us to be holy; He wants us to know that He wants us clean in His eyes and the eyes of the world. But we are covered and He wants you to know this. God wants you to know it, it's important enough for you to know that in the daily routine of life there may be things that trouble you and trouble others but because your faith is in the blood they cannot be seen by the eye of God. That's the reason why He cannot mark down failure when your faith is in the blood because it can't get through. He sees nothing with which He can charge you. If an eight year old boy can understand that God wants every one of you adult Christians to understand it too. Does this have meaning to you this morning? God wants you to know this because it's important to your friends and your loved ones and to those you are ministering to that they know what you're standing is before God. I'd like to see the hands of those that this has had special meaning to. Oh, praise God. Lord I thank you that You've given me this opportunity to share with these people today. May they know it, may they leave with that assurance that as you look down on them they're covered.
There are only two things that will take you out from under that covering. One of them is rebellion; don't want God to be my God. The other is idolatry. Don't allow those things to creep into your life. Don't say I don't want to go God's way, I rebel, I know what God wants on my life but I rebel against his plan. Don't allow rebellion of spirit to pull you out from under God's plan, God's love. Some of you may say well what does this really mean to me? So many believers have been troubled every day because they never knew just where on the scale of their living that they reached a point of being accepted by God. And as a result some have felt the only time they were really ready or accepted was when they were praying. And even then they questioned it. But now you can know and you can go your way with confidence.
God wants you to know that you're accepted. That He's looking down at you and He sees you looking just exactly like Jesus. And He wants you to praise Him for it. He wants you to go out and live for Him and feed on His Word so that the fruit of the Spirit grows in your life so that the world will see the characteristics the love, the joy, the peace, gentleness, longsuffering. And tie this chapter 3 verse 7 and 8, he tells us that these things as we let the fruit of the Spirit grow it will not justify us, we're already justified. But he said this is good and acceptable to men, those that you're wanting to work with and help, when they see Jesus in your life. Praise God. Can you see why that little boy started feeling better. Have you ever been afraid of the same thing? Are there some that came this morning not knowing just for sure where your standing was with God? I want to know and I want you to know and I want God to know that you've learned this truth today. God wants you to know it. Can I see your hands? Oh, praise God.
God wants you to know that you have eternal life right now. Jesus said, "I give you eternal life." I had somebody ask me when eternal life actually started because we have to die now so this can't be eternal life, so when does eternal life start? Do you know that you have eternal life now, did you know that? And when you pass from this life the life support systems for just the physical body that's made for this world might be unplugged but when you accept Jesus you're plugged into a big life support system that can never be pulled out. Jesus said, "I give you eternal life and you'll never perish neither will anybody pluck you out of my hand. And in case you think that I'm not strong enough, God said I'm going to make real sure that nobody gets you, I'm going to put my big hand right over the top." And he said, "no one is going to pluck you out of my Father's hand." God put a double security on your life. Hallelujah. The only way, the only place where that hand could be opened, there's a little latch on the inside. You say, "God I don't want to serve you anymore. He makes the lock a little sticky because he wants you to consider it good but He won't keep you against your will. But as far as any pressures of this life are concerned, God wants you to know that eternal life starts right here.
We had a funeral here yesterday and I so appreciate this family and the close bond that they had. I was so glad that I could tell them that life hasn't stopped, it's continuing on. That you have eternal life within you and as you walk with God because your faith in Him you're never going to perish. This is what He tells us. You're just going to pass from a night of earthly existence into the bright day that God has prepared for you. Those loved ones of yours are happy in the presence of God. They all have heavenly bodies totally identifiable. God even took care of that. God wants you to know, He doesn't want you to be ignorant of this, He tells you this. And that experience where God let me see these people there, I saw many people whose funerals I've had right from this church. They were there happy, rejoicing, and full of life and vigor. Their personalities were still keen, it was them. But they were there minus the pains and the hurts. The things that have blighted this life are gone, but the personality, the part that makes you, you, is going to go on. This is why He tells us that when man became a living soul that soul will live for ever. You know what that soul is? That soul is your humanity. You're going to carry those characteristics that are typically you right to heaven with you.
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