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Modern Sexuality: Part 6 – The Truth About the Homosexuality: Transcript

MODERN SEXUALITY SERMON SERIES

THE TRUTH ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY

ED YOUNG

FEBRUARY 13, 1994

There’s a fascinating fact about men. They love to give other men nicknames. They’re really into the nickname scene, aren’t they? Think about the world of sports. These nicknames might bring images to your mind in a nanosecond. “The Playmaker.” “Dr. J.” “Moose.” “The Golden Bear.” “The Shark.” How about from the political spectrum? “Slick Willie.” “Ike.” “Abe.” “Ollie.” “Camelot.”

Nicknames are kind of terms of endearment. They’re a man’s clumsy way of showing another man, “You matter to me. You’re important to me.” More often than not, nicknames are terms of endearment.

However, some nicknames are terms of devastation. “Homo.” “Faggot.” “Queer.” “Queenie.” “Dyke.” When a man or a woman gives that name, that slang term, to another person, the person receiving slang terms like I just described to you is humiliated, devastated. They’re rocked to their core, because someone has told them, someone has referred to them as being a homosexual.

Just the mention of the word homosexual makes people nervous. They want to change the subject, because they don’t really know that much about it. You see, homosexuality is a very complex and mysterious condition. It’s a sad thing to say, but most of us know as much about homosexuality as the comedians who joke about homosexuals, or maybe a couple of slang terms. We might know a few off-color jokes, but that’s pretty much it. Most of us have limited knowledge concerning homosexuality.

I want to say a word to those in our midst who are heterosexual. Today, I want us to listen with a very open mind, to receive God’s truth, to learn about this matter. Let’s take all the presuppositions, and put them aside, and say, “God, you show me what you want to show me today, right here.” God’s brought us here for a reason, by divine appointment. He really has. He has a word to speak to my life and to every life here. Every time you walk through these doors, God wants to speak to you.

Let me say a word to those in our midst who are homosexual, because we have some who are struggling with this. I want you to know that you matter to God. You’re a much-loved person. But God says in His word time and time again that sex is for one man and one woman in marriage. The Bible goes on to say on seven different occasions that homosexuality is a sin. The Bible says it four times in the Old Testament and three times in the New Testament.

I have some friends who are homosexual, and I’ve talked to them. I’ve talked to many others in counseling situations, and they will tell you, in no uncertain terms, that the gay lifestyle is anything but gay. Anything but gay. One author suggests that half of the suicides in the United States of America are committed by homosexuals. Two-thirds of the homosexual community has had, at one time, a sexually transmitted disease. What should our stance as a body of Christ be? How should I treat them? Over the next few moments that remain, I want to answer four frequently asked questions about homosexuality.

Question number one: what causes homosexuality? Question number two: what activities are homosexuals engaged in? Question number three: can homosexuals change? Is there hope for the homosexual? And question number four: what kind of attitude should I have, what kind of attitude should we have collectively as a church, towards the homosexual community?

Let’s start with question one. What causes homosexuality? There are three leading theories. The first theory is called the “Destructive Family Dynamic” theory. Let’s picture mom as a captain of a ship. She is bad to the bone. In fact, she is domineering, she is tough, she is legalistic. And dad? Well, dad is being towed in the wake of this giant vessel. He is content to ride on the dinghy and channel surf and watch ESPN while he’s eating Doritos. If a son is born into an environment like this, suddenly the mom has taken his masculinity and thrown it overboard. He wants masculine affection, and he looks, and he tries to find it. But there’s dad, way back in the back, and he can’t even communicate with dad over the roar of the diesel engines. “Hey, Dad! I want some male affection! Dad, Dad!”

If this goes on for a while, then this little guy, as he begins to develop, is vulnerable to a homosexual experience. 85% of homosexuals, in a recent study, say the reason they got involved in it was because they missed the affection from a father. They so wanted male affection that they would do anything to get it. That’s what oftentimes occurs. Plus, here’s this little guy, and he looks at women and he thinks that all women are the captain-type figure like his mom. He doesn’t want anything to do with the captain, so then he looks at a man. You add to that the addictive power of sex, and you see what can occur.

A second leading theory – and this leading theory is leading among the gay propaganda people – is the genetic or chemical theory. They say, “I was born that way, and I have to live this way, and don’t rain on my homosexual parade. I am what I am, and you are what you are, and I’m just going to do what I feel like doing.” The thing about this is that there’s no conclusive medical evidence whatsoever that supports this theory. Zero. None. One statistician who researched the gay lifestyle found that 82% of active homosexuals said they were homosexual because they were taken advantage of in an early childhood experience, and they had a very weak father figure. So the rest, 18%, feel like, “Well, I was kind of born this way.”

Let’s say the genetic theory was true, and let’s say that if someone was predisposed to this then they had a tendency to become a homosexual. That still does not explain deviant behavior. We still have a choice. What if I was predisposed to anger? Would that give me the freedom to murder about 25 people? “Well, you know, I was just born that way. It was just a genetic thing. I had no choice, and don’t get mad at me! I had to kill these 25 people. I really did.”

Here’s the third leading theory. An early homosexual experience. There’s a window of time in our development where we’re trying to find out what femininity is, what masculinity is, and all these things are happening to us. At that moment in time, if a trusted friend or family member steps in and takes advantage of us sexually, well, you can see where that would lead. Again, this person is trying to escape a dominant parent, this person sees this trusted individual, and you have homosexuality. You have many people going into the lifestyle because they were taken advantage of at a young age. I want to ask you, and just answer this in your minds, if you are involved in the homosexual lifestyle, where would your sexuality be at this moment if your path hadn’t have crossed the path of the person who took advantage of you at a very young age? Where would you be? Where would you be?

Researchers will pretty much say, “It’s a mystery. We’re not sure what causes homosexuality.” But most would say the third theory would be the leading cause of it.

Let’s move to the second question. What activities are homosexuals involved in? The gay propaganda people want to tell us that homosexuality is kind of like two men, holding hands, walking down the primrose path of life. It’s two women kissing now and then, and it’s no big deal. That’s what the media shows us, little 30- and 45-second pictures. Everything is fine, and they say, “We’re just like heterosexuals. We’re monogamous; we have a mutually satisfying, homosexual relationship.” That’s what they say.

But the Institute for Sex Research said that less than 10% of the homosexual community is relatively monogamous. In other words, the other 90% is promiscuous, and I mean promiscuous. An average homosexual will have between 20 and 106 different sexual partners a year. Over a lifetime they will average between 300 and 500 – and some, 1,000 nameless, faceless sexual experiences. These sexual encounters are going on right under our noses, in public restrooms, in parks, in bath-houses. They have an eight times greater chance, homosexuals do, of contracting syphilis. A 5,000 times greater chance of contracting the AIDS virus. They’re in great fear: fear of disease, fear of God. They want to talk about the genetic theory, because if they can somehow tie in genetics and chemicals with the homosexual lifestyle, “Hey, no problem! I don’t have to worry about the guilt, I don’t have to worry about that little feeling inside that says what I’m doing is wrong. It more or less explains my behavior away. I’m just an educated gorilla. That’s what I am, no problem.” All this stuff is given to us by man.

I’m going to show you something right now that is very graphic. If you have some children here, I’m going to warn you, you might want to take them out during this segment. Dr. Stanley Montief, a medical expert, a physician, has been studying the homosexual lifestyle for the last 20 years. He has a book out on the topic, and he’s going to show us what goes on in homosexual encounters. Listen as Dr. Stanley Montief talks.

Video: Homosexuals engage in fellatio, which is either insertive or receptive oral sex. About 93% engaged in rectal sex, which is anal intercourse. Of course, the rectum was not built for intercourse, so when you carry out anal intercourse, why, you manage to tear the rectal mucosa, you expand the sphincter in many instances. It’s not a healthy activity. It is because you tear the rectal mucosa that there is such a high incidence of disease in these cases.

Then about 92% of homosexuals engaged in something called rimming. Rimming is simply licking in and around your partner’s anus. It involved actually placing your tongue into the anus, and you couldn’t do this without some ingestion of feces. Then you had something called fisting, and fisting involved about 47% of homosexuals. It involved taking your fist and your arm and inserting it into a man’s rectum, so that he could have sexual pleasure, and you could have pleasure by inflicting this upon him. Then 29% engaged in something called golden showers. What are golden showers? A man lays on the ground naked, another man stands around him and urinates on him. Then there is something called scat, and about 17% of homosexuals engaged in that. That was actively eating human feces or rubbing human feces on your skin, or rolling around on the floor in feces, something called mud rolling.

Ed: Dr. Stanley Montief. Remember, 1%, less than 1%, of our society is homosexual. Yet the gay propaganda people are trying to tell us that this is an alternative lifestyle, that homosexuality, again, is two men or two women, holding hands, kissing now and then. That’s about the extent of it. Most of it is monogamous-type activity. That’s a lie.

It’s a lie, but you won’t hear that from the media. So much of the media is controlled by people who are amoral, and many are very active in the homosexual community. If you really want to know some more about what their agenda is, I encourage you to buy a book called “After the Fall,” written by two homosexual leaders, Kurt and Madson. They list twelve principles of what the homosexual agenda is and how it is being spread. I want to cite four of these twelve principles for you to show you how focused, how educated, and how aggressive this movement actually is.

The first principle. They say that homosexuality is an inborn, involuntary condition. There are no choices, there are no value judgments, no right and no wrong. Do whatever is good for you as long as you aren’t hurting anyone.

The second one. The sex lives of homosexuals and heterosexuals are similar and conventional. I ask you, the acts that Dr. Montief just described: would you call those conventional and normal? You be the judge.

The third principle. That homosexuals should have full rights to marry, have children, and establish themselves as families. Now, how would you like children growing up in families who are participating in those kinds of activities? They want to force on the private sector hiring quotas, and I’m talking about churches. If churches would not hire homosexuals, we would lose our tax-exempt status. They’re infiltrating the public schools. Textbooks like “Heather Has Two Mommies” and “Daddy’s Two Roommates,” showing little ones how to masturbate and other techniques I will not describe.

Here’s the fourth principles. Any resistance to the movement should be viewed like racism or anti-Semitism. “Oh-ho-ho! You social terrorist! Hey, man, don’t rain on my homosexual parade! This guy’s a bigot. This guy and this girl – ” On and on and on it goes.

I don’t want you to pick up at all that this church or this pastor is homophobic, or that I hate homosexuals, because the Bible says over and over again that people matter to God. Jesus was called a friend of sinners. A friend of sinners. When I die, I would love to have on my tombstone, “Ed Young, a friend of sinners, a friend of homosexuals, a friend of adulterers, a friend of mockers, a friend of liars.” Would you like that to be on your tombstone?

The third question: can homosexuals change? Can they change? Because, you see, if they were born that way, they couldn’t really change. When I talk to a homosexual, I like to give them the bad-news verse and then the good-news verse. Take your Bibles and turn to the book of 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 6, I’ll begin reading with verse 9. I call verses 9 and 10 the bad-news verses, and verse 11 the good-news verse. Here’s the bad news. Here’s the apostle Paul writing to the Corinthian Christians. Here’s what Paul says: “Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexual offenders, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.” In other words, if someone is involved in a continual pattern of homosexuality, they will spend a Christless eternity. They will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Some are thinking, “Ed, are you talking about losing your salvation?” No, I’m not. You can’t lose your salvation. I can say this, what the Bible says. Jesus said, “I will know you by your fruits.” When someone is saved, when someone has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you will see change, you will see fruit. There are a lot of people running around who are homosexuals, who call themselves Christians, who aren’t really Christians because there’s no change there.

Then I move to the good-news verse. The good-news verse is the last part of this section of scripture, verse 11. “And that is what some of you were.” Say the word “were” with me. Were. W-E-R-E. One more time: were. One more time: were. Were. I love that, were. Because we were a lot of things. Check this one: Paul is talking to a group of Corinthian Christians, and some were homosexuals. Some were adulterers. Some were male prostitutes. “But,” and I love the transitional phrases there in the Bible, “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the spirit of God.” That’s good news, isn’t it? Can homosexuals change? No doubt about it.

A friend of mine I met about eight years ago was named Victor, and Victor was a leader in the homosexual community in Houston, Texas. Very affluent, articulate. A successful businessman. And Victor, for the first time, heard that he mattered to God, that he was a much-loved person. Even though he was in the homosexual lifestyle, he came to a point in his life where he said, “Okay, I’ve tried everything else. I’m not satisfied. Jesus Christ, I give my life to you.” At that moment, and it was a process, he was delivered from the homosexual lifestyle.

I saw someone who, I would say, was one of the best Christian men I’ve ever known. He would come to church and bring tens, twenties, thirty different people with him down the aisle, many coming to know Jesus Christ. A few years after he became a Christian, he found out he was HIV positive. I watched Victor die of AIDS, but completely delivered from the homosexual lifestyle. Can homosexuals change? Hey, there’s no doubt about it.

If you are a homosexual, let me share with you a couple of things. First, leaving the homosexual lifestyle will be the most difficult thing you’ve ever attempted. No doubt about that, no question. When you’re involved in sexual sin, especially deviant behavior like this, it has a grasp on the core of your being. Second, the only way you’re going to leave this lifestyle has to be with an uncompromising devotion to the person of Jesus Christ, relying on the Holy Spirit of God. If you don’t do that, then forget it. You won’t leave the lifestyle. Third: it’s going to take support and accountability. That’s what this body of Christ is all about in different ministries that we have in this fellowship. It’s time to come out of the shadows. We love you. The Bible says, time and time again, that you’re a much loved person, and God wants the best for you. He wants the best for me. We have to trust His sovereignty in regard to our sexuality. This week, if you’ll call our church office, don’t give us your name or address, we’ll give you support groups, ministries, different people to help you in this moment where you break the chains and become the kind of person God wants you and desires for you to be. You can become like my friend Victor.

Here’s the fourth question, and this is where it really gets tough. What should my attitude be toward those people who are homosexual? Should I avoid them? Should I run from them? I know Christians who say, “Hey, I’ll stand with you if you fall in adultery. I’ll stand with you if you cheat your business partner out of a lot of money. I’ll stand with you if you do this. I’ll stand with you if you have a violent temper. But homosexuality? Well, seeya later. Nope, not homosexuality. Everything else, I’ll stand with you.” I don’t know about you, but God has placed in my heart a love for people who are struggling with all strife. I don’t care what it is. I’m not that fussy. I don’t want this church to be that fussy. The confidence I have in this congregation is limitless.

We need to reach out and help these folks. Our church, collectively, and we, as persons, individually, need to do two things. Hear what I’m saying. We need to build bridges and draw lines. Did you hear that? We need to build bridges and draw lines. What do I mean by building bridges? I mean build bridges to that person struggling with homosexuality, bridges of love, of acceptance, of concern, of community.

But also, we have to draw lines in the sand. We have to say, “This is where I stand, alone on the word of God, and I’m not backing, I’m not moving. I love you, but homosexuality is a sin. It’s a sin. It’s rebellion against a holy God.” Now, when you draw lines in the sand, you will take insults. Especially the insults will be directed to me, because I’m the pastor of the church. But we love those who are involved in this. We don’t love their lifestyle; we don’t love their activities. But we love the person, and we will draw the lines.

When you are drug into this conflict, they’re going to call you every name in the book. It’s so easy to return the insult, to jump back if they jump at us, and say this and that and call them the slang terms and the queer jokes, and it goes back and forth. That’s a sin before God. The Bible says, in fact Jesus said, don’t return evil for evil. Speak the truth in love. That should be the stance of our church, that should be the stance in every one of our lives. Homosexuals, God loves you. Homosexuals, this church loves you. Homosexuals, listen to me: there is hope. I’ll say it again. There is hope. I’ll say it one more time. There is hope. If you want some evidence, one more time, look at the screen and see what the Lord has done.

Video: “One of the things we hear commonly is, “Well, if you change your homosexuality, then you must not have been gay to begin with. All I can say to that, from my personal experience, is that I know what I know from my own life. I know that I was gay.”

“God set me free thirteen years ago when I accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior, so I know that the change is possible. I’ve worked in this kind of ministry, a ministry to homosexuals, for eight years, and time and again I’ve seen people transformed by the power of Jesus Christ.”

“I’ve been out of the gay life now for eight years.”

“God has healed me of my homosexual attractions.”

“I went into the homosexual lifestyle right out of high school when I was eighteen. I was in that for two years, and I was constantly trying to fill some kind of void that was there, so I became a female impersonator solely out of the need for attention and affirmation. I was worshipped by people in the lifestyle.”

“On July 19^th, 1992, John Palk was married.”

Ed: Do you know what God wants, if you’re involved in the homosexual lifestyle? He wants, maybe one day, for you to be talking about what Jesus has done in your life, and how change can and will happen if you let it happen.

What in The Heaven’s Going On?: Part 1 – Are Angels Real?: Transcript

WHAT IN HEAVEN’S GOING ON? SERMON SERIES

ARE ANGELS REAL?

ED YOUNG

FEBRUARY 27, 1994

Dr. S. W. Mitchell, a prominent neurologist from Philadelphia, tells the story of an evening where he was very fatigued, he was preparing for bed, and suddenly he heard a faint tap-tap-tap on his front door. He screams down the stairs, he opens the front door, and there, standing on this snowy night, is a little girl, shabbily dressed, distraught. She said, “Dr. Mitchell, my mother is dying! Would you please help?”

Dr. Mitchell gets dressed and he follows the little girl in the red coat through the snow. She points him to where her mother is lying. He gives her mother medical attention, he calls for some specialists, and while the specialists are coming, Dr. Mitchell compliments the mom on her daughter’s persistence and intelligence. The lady looks back at Dr. Mitchell, and with a very puzzled look, she says, “Dr. Mitchell, my daughter died a month ago. I don’t know what you’re talking about. In fact, her coat and her shoes are in the closet over there.”

Dr. Mitchell walks over, opens the door of the closet, and sure enough, there is the little red coat the girl wore, and her shoes. Dr. Mitchell touches the coat, and the coat is very warm. It’s impossible. There’s no way she could have worn that coat on a night like tonight. I ask you, are angels real?

A family was camping near Big Bear Lake in California. They were around the campfire, and the father began to pray. He said, “God, give us a safe vacation.” Then he read some scripture verses, and while mom and dad and the little ones were cooking, he walks beside the fire, takes a couple of snapshots. Right after that the silence is broken by six motorcycles that invade their camp. These guys jump off their bikes. One pulls a gun, and they are robbing them on the spot.

Out of nowhere, the person begins to shake. He drops the gun. The six people jump on their motorcycles and they speed off as quickly as they entered the camp. This family, they were flabbergasted. They were shocked. What happened? Why did these people leave without taking the money and the valuables?

When they got home, they had their film developed, and on one of the pictures stands a white angelic-looking creature. Now the family realizes what scared the bikers away. Are angels real? Do they exist?

A mother and daughter are walking down the street of a giant metropolitan city. Right before they walked under a big wall, the seven-year-old girl stops in her tracks, and the mother stops, and at that precise moment the wall comes crashing down. The mother, pale with fright, turns to her daughter and she says, “Honey, why did you stop? We would have been crushed if you hadn’t have stopped. What made you stop?” And she said, “Mommy, you didn’t see the big beautiful man in the white robe? He stood in front of me so I couldn’t walk any further.” I ask you one more time, are angels real?

Missionary John Payton and his wife tell of an account where they were surrounded by natives in the New Hebrides Islands. These natives were cannibals, and they were intent on burning their hut and killing them and having them for dinner. John and his wife prayed all night, and in the morning, they looked outside their hut and they saw the natives turn and walk away dejectedly. One year later, the chief of the tribe was converted to Christianity, and Payton said, “You know, chief, I’ve always wanted to ask you this question. Why didn’t you guys kill us, tear us from limb to limb, and have us for supper one night? Why didn’t you come in on us? It was just my wife and I.” The chief said, “Oh, no, Mr. Payton. What were those 100 strong men with their swords drawn around your hut doing? Where did these guys come from?” Are angels real?

I believe so. Angels are real. Angels are legitimate, because stories like I just related to you are occurring hundreds and hundreds of times around our globe every single year. People are having encounters with angelic beings.

Today, we’re going to ask and answer two important questions. Question number one: what are angels? Question number two: how do angels impact my life? How can they influence me? I’m beginning a series today entitled “What In Heaven’s Going On?” We’re going to talk about angels, and what is going on. Let’s tackle the first question. What are angels?

This past week my wife said, “Ed, when I think about an angel, I think of you.” She didn’t say that; just joking. When we think about angels, we think, oftentimes, of dimpled cherubs singing “Silent night, holy night,” around a Christmas-type scene with the stockings hanging down over the fireplace, and the Christmas tree and everything. Some of us think of these beings with beautiful wings like an eagle, with halos. We think of stained-glass images. Angels, I’m talking about.

Gallup recently said that 60% of Americans believe in angels. Recently there has been a new push, a resurgence, of people involved in the study of angels, and a lot of literature and articles and videos and documentaries have been done on this exciting subject.

The Bible mentions angels over 300 times, but it does not give a super-detailed description of angels. It does, however, give an angelic arrangement. What are angels? The word “angel” in the Bible refers to a messenger, God’s messenger. Angels are not omnipresent, meaning they cannot be everywhere at one time. Sometimes they’re at the throne, other times they’re influencing my life and impacting your life. You’re talking about frequent flyer miles? These people are gold-medallion eternity winners! Quabillions and trillions of miles they fly back and forth, back and forth. They work for God. They give God glory. They don’t point at themselves and say, “Look how strong I am! Look how big my sword is! Look at this shield! Look how much I can bench-press!” They always are pointing to God.

I want you to notice something. Angels are created beings. They’re created beings. Colossians 1:16 says the following words: “For by Him all things were created.” In other words, at one time there were no such things as angels. But God created angels to worship Him and to minister and to help you and me. We don’t become angels when we die. A lot of people erroneously believe, “Once I get to heaven, suddenly God will give me a fifteen-foot wing span.” Angels are created beings. Their numbers remain constant. God has made them on our behalf. “For by Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.”

Angels also can take on forms. Most of the time they’re invisible, but sometimes they take on the form of people and individuals. The Bible says that we have entertained angels without even knowing it. It says, “Whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things were created by Him and for Him.” The first thing I want you to notice about angels: they are created.

The second thing I want you to notice is that they are organized. That’s the angelic arrangement I’m talking about. First, we have the CEO angel, the head angel. His name is Michael, the arch-angel. Second we have Gabriel. Gabriel is God’s messenger, a messenger of good news. Gabriel was the angel that appeared to the Virgin Mary and said, “Mary, you will have the Messiah.” That’s Gabriel.

We also have the cherubim, and the cherubim are angels that are surrounding the throne. And we have the seraphim; they are angels that are beside the throne of God. They really know how to worship and express love to the Lord. They’re organized. They really are.

But – notice this third thing about angels – you should not worship angels. If I worship an angel, if you worship an angel, we are worshipping the creature rather than the creator. The Holy Spirit of God indwells our hearts. Angels cannot indwell our hearts and lives. The Holy Spirit ministers in us, angels minister to us. The Holy Spirit ministers to us spiritually, angels minister to us physically. Remember, angels give glory to God. They help us, but they have nothing to do with indwelling us. Thus we should not pray to them or worship them. If we hear about an encounter with an angel, or maybe we have a personal one-on-one connection with an angel, we should glorify God because of it, and think about the outrageous love of God. He’s concerned about you and me so much that He has commissioned angels, millions and millions and squillions of them, to take care of us in different circumstances. I see some people laughing because I used the word “squillions.” LeeBeth, our seven-year-old, that’s a word she made up: squillions. Who knows how many squillions of angels there actually are, but that’s a fact.

The second question – and we’ll really concentrate on this one – is this: how do angels impact my life? Here I am in the 1990s. We saw some of the interviews, we heard the song that said “angels watching over me.” Is all that really true? What does God’s word say about angels? How do they really impact my life?

If angels are going to impact your life and my life, I have to be aware, aware, aware of four things. Say “aware.” You’ve got to be aware. First, I’ve got to be aware of their presence. If I am really going to get in on what God has for me regarding angels, I’ve got to be aware of their presence. Most of us have no clue, no concept that angels are all around. If we had the eyes of God right now, we’d see that thousands upon thousands of angels are floating around, ministering, helping us while I speak. We read a verse like Colossians 1:16, “For by Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth.” We read these things and we don’t realize how near the angels are. We think, “Well, that was maybe in Biblical times, or that was during that spiritual awakening, or during this moment.” That line of thinking is false. Angels are alive and well, and they’re as active today as they were thousands and thousands of years ago.

Recently, I took a trip on an airplane. Seated a couple of seats away from me was a mega superstar. I’m talking about big-time, huge-time. While this mega superstar was seated about three seats from me, I noticed a businessman walk on the plane – you’re talking about hilarious – and he has this magazine with this person on the front cover! He walks in, “Eh, um, ‘scuse me please,” and he gets his bags and puts them under. The flight attendant says, “I’m sorry sir, that must go in the overhead or beneath your seat, or we’ll have to check that.” He was kind of cussing, “Oh, I can’t believe it!” and he finally jams it underneath his seat, he takes his coat off, and he’s ready for the flight.

Then he taps this mega-superstar: “Hey, uh, is there a pillow up there?” He hands him a pillow. Then he takes his magazine out and he’s reading this article – I looked back – about this mega-superstar. He has no idea he’s right in front of him. He’s reading the article, and you could tell this guy was into it.

I thought about this scripture verse and other verses like it. We as Christians, we read God’s word and we read about angels, we read about the Holy Spirit of God, we read about the ministry, we read about the love and encouragement, and we don’t realize that angels are right there around us. They’re surrounding you and they’re surrounding me. They are present. Just because we can’t see them with our eyes doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Our eyes are so limited anyway. We’re limited as human beings. People talk about how great human beings are made and everything. Yeah, before sin entered the picture, we were made in an incredible way. But we’re limited.

I think about our dog Domonique. Man, Domonique is much more superior than I am in many aspects of life. He can hear a lot better than I can; he can see in the dark. I’ll be outside – “grrrrrr” – and about five minutes later someone will walk up behind our fence or something. We cannot see the dimensions of a nuclear field or an atom or electricity, yet we know it’s there. One day, the Bible says, when we get to heaven, the scales will drop off and God will say, “Ed, you remember that time? Did you see that angel? Look back on your life.” I’ll go, “Whoa, incredible. There were angels all around me, angels watching me, and I had no real idea that they were there.”

I’ll read to you another exciting verse of scripture. Hebrews 1:14: “Are not all the angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” Then Matthew 18:10 – you might want to write these down; we don’t have time to turn there – “See that you do not look down on these little ones,” Jesus is talking about children, and He says, “for I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my father in heaven.” That’s talking about guardian angels, folks. I believe the moment a child is brought into this world that God assigns a guardian angel over them, and the Bible says, as Christ says, angels over them. Are you aware of their presence? If you want angels to impact your life you have to be.

But not only do you have to be aware of their presence, secondly, you have to be aware of their power. These beings are powerful. They’re sexless, they cannot get married, but they’re super-powerful. I’m talking about big-time powerful. I call them God’s Secret Agent force, or Secret Service force.

Ever watched President Clinton run on CNN? If you can call it running. He has these Secret Service guys around him with these uzis. The Secret Service, they have a way of kind of blending into the scenery, don’t they? If we could see our lives as we walk along the brief stage of history, as we do what God wants us to do, if we could see, again, with the eyes of God, we would see this angelic Secret Service force around you and around me. The Bible tells us in Psalm 91:11-12 – you’re talking about an exciting section of scripture – the Bible says, “For He will command His angels concerning you.” The angels act on God’s command – not of their own free will, on God’s command. “He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all of your ways. They will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike you foot against a stone.”

I believe this will happen in heaven one day. When I get to heaven, God will say, “Ed, come here a second. Do you remember when you were almost in that accident? Do you remember when you were almost in that tragedy? Do you remember that temptation, and you almost fell? Well, you didn’t know it at the time, but my angels helped you, they assisted you. They were your Secret Service force, and they helped and they ministered and they took care of you.” God will say the same thing to you. We’re talking about powerful stuff here, folks.

Think about angels in the life of Jesus. Angels announced his birth, angels told the shepherds, “Hey, don’t freak out, calm down,” angels ministered to Jesus after the temptation, angels were there in the Garden of Gethsemane before He was being crucified the next day, angels were around the cross as He was dying for your sins and mine. Easily He could have called on legions and legions of angels to take Him down from the cross, but He didn’t. Jesus said, “Not My will, but Your will, Father.” Then angels rolled away the stone for the resurrection, and angels were around Jesus when they ascended with Him to heaven. So angels are here. They’re around us. They are powerful creatures.

I ask myself this question, and I ask God this question, and so do you. “Where are the angels when tragedy strikes? God, where were the angels when the little girl was taken and brutally killed in Plano? Where were the angels when that father was murdered in Irving Mall a few months ago? God, where were your angels?” Hebrews 11 gives us some insight on that line of thinking. While you’re turning to Hebrews 11, I want you to listen to me. We live in a fallen world. We live in a sin-saturated world. Our world is imperfect; Satan is powerful and he is strong. Every time I see a tragedy, I’m reminded that Satan is powerful. But we serve a God who is more powerful. He’s already won, even though Satan is free right now to act and move and roam, and he is stealing and killing and destroying.

Hebrews 11 is a chapter that describes the Hall of Faith. You’ve heard of the Hall of Fame, haven’t you? Athletes, they really try to get into the Hall of Fame. They think it’s the ultimate to be in the Hall of Fame. The Hall of Faith? People, I’m talking about the great patriarchs and matriarchs of the Bible, who by faith endured and conquered amazing things. The angels of God, these heavenly beings, helped them in these situations. They closed the mouths of lions, they won wars for them. They did some incredible, supernatural things. But in verse 35 in Hebrews 11, the course and the mood changes. Verse 35 in Hebrews 11 says this: “Others,” that’s talking about others of faith, others of passion, others who were spiritual risk-takers, “were tortured and refused to be released.” In other words, these people called on the angels of God. They said, “God, send your angels to cover me! I’m getting ready to be burned at the stake or torn apart by lions!” They were tortured and refused to be released so that they might gain a better resurrection. God does not tell all the angels to rescue all His followers all the time. The word tells us here in no uncertain terms that the people who suffered without the physical assistance of the angels when they were tortured and killed received a better reward in heaven.

We’re so limited, you see. We see life in just thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty years, and we think that’s really big time, and that’s really a lot. God sees it in a matter of eternity. One of the angels’ responsibilities is that the moment we close our eyes and we give out this life and we graduate to the next life, the angels will surround us and escort us to heaven. Go back to the life of Christ. You see, when Jesus was dying on the cross for our sins, and that night even before He died, He said, “If it’s Your will, God, let this cup pass from me.” What did Jesus say? Again, I’ll say it. “Not My will, but Your will.”

We don’t always understand God, folks. But I’ll tell you one thing: He can always be trusted. Things happen that I cannot explain: why God chooses to commission His angels to rescue one person and not to rescue another person. We will never know until we get to heaven, and that’s why we have trust God. But He does rescue, and He does have angels, and they’re powerful and they’re there.

The presence of angels, the power of angels. Thirdly, we have to become aware of the perspective of angels. This third point should really motivate you and motivate me to live the kind of life that Christ wants. How many here watched Tanya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan go at it? I’m talking about not in Norway, but by means of television. Do we have anyone that traveled to Norway? None? Okay.

The eyes of the world were on these two. There were so many things involved: the pageantry, the beauty of ice skating, plus their conflict and the attack, etc., and on and on. Millions and millions and millions of people watched every move they made, even the color and how the shoelaces were actually negotiated in the skate of Tanya Harding. What if I told you that your life, your life, from the moment you were born until the moment you die, has been watched closer than the world watched Tanya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan? What would you say? “Wow. Whoa. Whoo. I had no idea. Man. That’s kind of scary.” And you push the rewind button: “Hm, what did I say and what did I do there?” It would kind of freak us out a little bit, wouldn’t it?

We have people much more important than mere human beings watching us. The Bible says we have the angels watching every single move we make. The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 4:9, “We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe,” Paul writing this, “to angels as well as men.” This word spectacle comes from the athletic games that the apostle Paul must have loved to attend. Thousands of people would watch these games. The apostle Paul says that as we walk and as we talk with Christ, zillions and quabillions and trillions of people are watching us – these people are angels, heavenly beings – live the Christian life. I don’t know about you, but that motivates me and encourages me and strengthens me to really live a life that reflects the glory of the Lord.

We’ve got to become aware of the presence, the power, and the perspective. You see that, the perspective? They’ve got a different perspective on life. Finally – and I’ll close with this one – if we’re going to let angels and this “What’s going on in heaven?” impact our lives, we have to become aware of their party. I’m talking about an angelic party. There are some of you here today, and you’ve been playing games with God. You are not sure, if you were to die right now, that you would spend eternity in Heaven. One of the angels’ tasks not only is to take us to heaven, it’s also to separate the wheat from the tares, the saved from the unsaved. There are angels – I’m talking about death angels, and angels who carry out God’s judgment. We don’t like to talk about it a lot – “Let’s change the subject, Ed,” – but it is a fact. God loves you, and God is concerned about you so much, that He wants you to know Him personally, He wants you to spend eternity with Him in Heaven. The angels want this because the angels reflect the glory of God.

The Bible says the angels, if you don’t know Jesus Christ, are planning a party, a bash, a celebration like we have never seen in our lives, just for you, just for me. But the party will not happen until we repent and cry out and say, “Jesus Christ, I give the reins of my life to you. I unclench my grasp on the reins; you take them.” The moment we ask Christ to come into our lives, the moment we do this spiritual u-turn – that’s what the word “repent” means – and we tell the truth about ourselves, a party will occur in heaven like we have no comprehension. Engraved invitations to all the angels and the saints up there, and the food is the best thing you’ve ever had in your life, and that party will continue until it culminates when we die and we close our eyes on this life and open them to the new life. We’re escorted to this giant party in Heaven, a banquet table is prepared and it goes on and on and on and on. God wants that for you. He really does.

So this angel thing should motivate a lot of people – some, here, to receive Christ, others here to live a pure life, some others here to be aware of their deliverance and their power. I pray that as you leave this place you can say in the depths of your being, “Ed, I realize angels are real, and I realize what kind of impact they can have on my life, and now I’m ready for that to occur.”

What in The Heaven’s Going On?: Part 2 – Satan And The Angelic Rebellion: Transcript

WHAT IN HEAVEN’S GOING ON? SERMON SERIES

SATAN AND THE ANGELIC REBELLION

ED YOUNG

MARCH 6, 1994

Why can’t we rally our forces to provide three square meals a day for every man, woman, boy and girl? Why is it that almost a quarter of the world’s population will go to bed hungry tonight? Why is it that nations fight against nations? Why can’t they put down their weapons and develop some peace? Why are law-enforcement officers arresting record numbers of criminals and filling our prisons and jails to the max? Why? Why can most of us remember, clearly and vividly, telling something that was not true to another individual – maybe even this week, or today. Why can every one of us recall taking something that was not ours? Why are some of you mad at me because I brought up those issues? Why do adults molest children, why do people murder one another? Why?

What I’m driving at is this: why is there so much evil in the world? The Bible answers all of the questions by saying that the reason there’s so much evil in the world is because of one being. His name is Satan. Today, as I continue this series entitled “What in Heaven’s Going On?”, as I talk about Lucifer and the angelic rebellion, and we discuss Satan, the Devil, the adversary, I feel like a gymnast walking across a balance beam. When you talk about Satan, people hold extreme views, don’t they? On one hand, we have some individuals who were brought up with backgrounds where you thought of Satan as that pitchfork-toting, smoke-snorting, goatee-sporting, red-suit-wearing, Armored-deviled-ham-looking, diabolical demonic force who sends his demons to ambush you. You think demons can jump in and out of your life as quick as you jump in an out of cars. You’re a demon-duster.

On the other hand we have people from backgrounds where you didn’t really hear that much about Satan or the Devil. You’re wondering if there really is such a thing. You see the problems in the world, but you say, “Hey, it’s just because of a lack of education, a knowledge situation.”

Balance is the key, because I don’t want to lose the ear of either side. I want us to know about Satan, to really understand what this being is all about. Frequently we receive, in our church offices, by mail, resumes. Resumes from all over the country. Men and women, feeling called into the ministry, maybe want to work at the Fellowship of Las Colinas. Or they know we are in contact with a number of churches around the country, and they say, “Could you send us some recommendations, or take my resume and send it off to a particular church, or do you have anything available for me?” Every one of those resumes, as I read them, pretty much have four elements: a background study of the person, their education, their experience – past and what they’re doing presently – and then some goals and objectives. When you look at a resume, it pretty much gives you a thumbnail sketch of that person, what that person is really about.

I thought this week, as I was preparing for this message, wouldn’t it be awesome, wouldn’t it be fascinating, if we could read a resume of Satan, of Lucifer. If we could just read background, education, experience, objectives. Then we would know all about him, and then we could really move around his temptations, and watch out for Satan tripping us up and pushing us over a cliff or falling into a ditch or getting caught out in the rough. Wouldn’t that be great?

I have good news for you. His resume is listed right here in the word of God. Today, over the few moments that remain, we’re going to read and examine and discern Satan’s resume. Let’s jump right in.

His background. Have you ever thought, “What is Satan’s background?” Ezekiel 28 calls Satan “Lucifer.” Originally, he was called Lucifer, and the word Lucifer means “Star of the Morning.” Satan is a created being. I’ll say it one more time: Satan is a created being. In fact, the Bible tells us he was the most beautiful of all the angelic hosts. Satan. Lucifer. He was attractive, and all the angels looked up to him. In fact, he and Michael were the angelic CEOs. As you read this first section, his background, you’re thinking, “Wow. This being; what a future, what potential. He worshipped God, he glorified God. A leader of the angelic hosts.”

How about his education? If there had been a University of Heaven, Lucifer would have graduated at the top of his class. You read the words of Jesus in the New Testament. When Jesus talked about Satan, when He talked about evil in the world, He said, “Evil is being orchestrated in the mind of an intelligent being.” This person blew the top off the SAT. He knew what was going on. Satan is intelligent. He’s intelligent, but he’s not omniscient. He’s powerful, but he’s not omnipotent. He’s smart, he really is. He’s crafty. He’s mobile, but he’s not omnipresent. You see, he’s a far cry from God, but he’s much more intelligent than you are and he’s much more intelligent than I am. His education.

Let’s look at his work experience, his past. What did he do? Again, one of the top angels. The book of Isaiah, chapter 14 – you might want to turn there; I’ll begin reading in a couple moments with verse 13 – tells us what happened in glory. Lucifer got together with about a third of the angels, and he attempted – I’ll say attempted – a hostile takeover. He began to read his press clippings. He looked and said, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is reflected back and who is the best of them all? I know what I’ll do. I will elevate myself above God. I will dethrone God.” A war started in heaven, it continues on earth, and it will culminate at Armageddon.

Lucifer said the following words in Isaiah 14:13: “I will ascend to heaven.” Notice the personal pronoun “I”. “I will raise my throne above the stars of God. I will sit enthroned on the Mount Assembly. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds. I will make myself like the most high.” You have the sin of pride entering the picture. If pride can cause the downfall of an intelligent being like Lucifer, I think it could cause a fall in your life and in my life, don’t you?

He tried to take over the throne of God, a war broke out, and God cast Lucifer out of heaven. He took one-third of the angels with him. They are now called the fallen angels. Lucifer is referred to as Satan, which means “the adversary,” and the fallen angels are called the demons. Some of the demons were sent directly to hell; others are Satan’s Secret Agents. They’re his task force and they want to thwart God’s people and God’s purposes throughout the world. The evil one, Satan.

Jude 6 reads, “The angels kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation.” I had to ask myself this question as I studied this passage: why, in a perfect environment, could something like this occur? Heaven is perfect. You have all the angels, they’re giving worship and glory to God. You have Lucifer, beautiful, Star of the Morning. How could a being like that cause pride to assault him and then entertain the thought of elevating himself above God? How? How?

I think the apostle Paul gives us the answer. Jot this scripture verse down: 2 Thessalonians 2:7. The apostle Paul refers to it as the mystery of iniquity. The mystery of iniquity. In other words, in our finiteness, it’s impossible for us to grasp what all happened and why it happened. But I do believe this: the Bible says time and time again, we are creatures. God’s creation has a freedom of choice. We’re not like puppets, we’re not like robots. We choose to love, we choose to obey, we choose to follow or not. The angels also have this option, and Lucifer took another path. His past experience.

What’s he doing now? Where is he presently employed? His agenda: the Bible says, in John 10:10, the agenda of the demonic force is to steal, kill, and destroy. He wants to take as many people to hell with him as possible, and he’ll do anything to infiltrate your life. He’ll do anything to take me down. He’ll stop at nothing to trip us up. That’s what he’s doing presently. But I will say this. The pink slip is on its way. Satan is on a leash; he knows it. When the pink slip is given to him one day by God, it’s going to be smoking, and that is when he will be sent to hell. So God has won, but Satan is free to roam right now. His experience.

Some are saying, “Ed, this is fine and good. The background: I had no idea he was called Lucifer and was an angel. His education and his experience. Let’s get practical for a moment. How is this influencing my life? How is he affecting where I live, my relationships, my finances, my emotional equilibrium?”

I’m going to spend the rest of the time talking about his objectives, his goals. Any resume you read has this. What are Satan’s goals, what is he all about? Some are saying, “Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. I saw “The Exorcist,” and I know. He wants to possess people. That’s his goal. He has these demons and they will ambush me at any moment during any part of the day.” Some of us are intrigued by Satan worship, by all the demonic activity worldwide, and we buy any and every book at the Christian bookstores. We read about Satan. We’ll spend 80% of the time giving the Devil a black eye, and learning his philosophy, and his agenda, and about 20% of worship to God. Can Satan use a demon to possess someone? Yes. He sure can. It’s not common, but it happens, and I’ve seen it before. Does it happen all the time? Do I see it every day? No. But I have seen it before.

“How do you know then, Ed, if someone is demon-possessed?” The Greek term is not demon-possession; the word is demonized. “How do you know it?” Let me give you a couple of characteristics if you’re wondering if someone in your life is demon-possessed. First, at some point in time they have opened their lives up to Satanic worship, the occult. Second, they exhibit some multiple personalities. Third, they have a pattern of evil over a long period of time, and they show no remorse or no guilt. Any time you mention the word “Jesus” or “the blood” or “the church” they have a negative reaction. Those are some signs that someone could be demonized. If you know someone who could be demonized, don’t try to handle it alone or by yourself. Great discernment and biblical knowledge is needed. Please call on the pastors of the church here, and we’ll be happy to take a team approach and to deal with this.

Some people, though – in fact, entire denominations are built on this – they try to tell us, they try to say, that every human disorder is the result of a demon. If someone is angry – “Well, you need the demon of anger cast out of you.” If someone is playing tennis and they trip over the baseline – “Well, that’s the demon of uncoordination.” They say, “Hey, one-two-three, cast a demon out of me, it’s no problem, slam-dunk deal, seeya later, Jack.” You see, we are multi-dimensional people. Every human disorder cannot be directly related to a person being demonized. Does Satan enjoy people having problems with anger? Is he the root cause? Is he behind the fallen world? Yes. But it does not necessarily mean they are possessed.

Jesus dealt with many, many people: adulterers, tax collectors, extortionists, liars, cheaters. He didn’t say every person, every man, woman, boy, and girl, was demon-possessed. He looked at many in the eye and said, “You need to bow and ask me to come into your life. You need to know the truth, and the truth will set you free. You matter to me, but I want you to see how much you matter to God.” On the other hand, He dealt with people who showed signs of demon-possession throughout the scripture. The demons were always subject to His authority, and he cast them out. So call on the pastors on the church, or if you’re involved at another church, call on the leadership to help you in this matter. But, yes, possession can take place.

Satan’s favorite task, though – and this is going to shock you – Satan’s favorite ploy, his favorite trick, is not the possession thing, although he would love to possess you with one of his fallen angels. His favorite thing is to do something called a little bit of TLC. Say it with me: TLC. One more time: TLC. It’s a carefully designed, sequential, three-phase approach he uses over and over and over again. It’s not like we’re wondering, “What are his objectives? What does he want to do?” It’s there for us in the Bible. It’s written for us throughout the pages of scripture. TLC. I’m not talking about Tender Loving Care.

The first phase is the temptation. He tempts you, he tempts me. “How does he do that, Ed?” A year ago, Lisa and I bought a brand-new television. This brand-new television has a contraption, a feature on it, that I don’t really know that much about. If I can’t get it to work, I’ll hand the controls to Lisa. It’s called picture-in-picture. Who all has that on their television set? Hands are going up everywhere. Now, second question: who knows how to work picture-in-picture? Not me. When Lisa has the control she can do picture-in-picture. Think of your mind as a television screen, and think about picture-in-picture. You can be watching one channel and another channel at the same time. The Holy Spirit, throughout the day, as we have options, paints great, wonderful, God-driven Technicolor pictures in our minds. He says, “Follow this, Ed. Follow this. Take this path.”

As he is painting those Technicolor pictures that reflect the authority of scripture, at the same time the Evil One – bing! – pushes the picture-in-picture button, giving you a Technicolor temptation of taking the opposite route. He’s saying, “Ed! Hey, God wants you to go here. Yeah, I see His picture. But just look at my screen, just for a second. I’m not asking you to do it! Just look at it. That’s right, just for a second, just look at it.” The temptation stage. Sound familiar?

I wish Satan stopped there. In fact, if he stopped there, we could all say, “Ed, no problem. I’ll just push the button and the other picture will vanish and I’ll have the Holy Spirit’s picture and no big deal.” Boy, I wish he stopped there. Don’t you, too? He doesn’t, though. He moves into the L phase. He begins to lie to us. In fact, in John 8:44, Satan is referred to as a liar and the father of lies. You’re talking about distortion, you’re talking about false advertising? He then tells us, “See the picture-in-picture? You see my picture? You were thinking about it. Now why don’t you consider doing it? If you’re a real man or a real woman, go ahead. You only go around once. Come on, what’s the big deal? God will wink at it. He grades on a curve anyway. Come on. No problem.”

Satan oftentimes uses areas and temptations that we are vulnerable to. He knows exactly what lies we will listen to most. You see, what lie I will listen to and I will fall into is not the lie he’s going to use for you, and vice versa. He’s crafty, now. You’re talking about target marketing? Direct mail? Telemarketing? This genius, we’re talking an intelligent being, was right up there with Michael. And you see, he uses our senses as inlets. Our senses are inlets, and when Satan sees an inlet caused by our senses, he paddles his craft quietly into the inlet. Then he is ashore, and he steps out on the beach, and he begins to lie. And he lies and he lies and he lies again.

What kind of lies has he told you this week? What kind of lies? “Maybe you can get ahead financially if you kind of look the other way. Maybe you can get involved in that relationship outside the marriage bed.” Maybe you have problems with self-esteem, something we’ll talk about over the next four or five weeks. Satan knows that. “I’ll help you overwork and overindulge.” Maybe power and prestige is your temptation. He knows. He knows.

When we fall into the ditch, when we fall into temptation, when we look at a picture, when we believe his lies, does he stop there? No, he doesn’t. He moves into the C phase, which stands for condemning. Satan condemns. He condemns us. We’ve fallen, we’ve sinned. Then he looks down at us. We’re out in the rough, we’re buried in the sand trap, we’re in the weeds, and he says, “Well, ha ha, this is pathetic! You’ve fallen! And you call yourself a Christian? God will never forgive you for that one! You go ahead and just check out of Christianity. It’s over. There’s no way He could ever use you for His purposes.” Here’s what he tells me: “Ed, you think you can stand up before 2,200 people this weekend, and God can use you? Come on, get a life!”

So many Christians I know walk around defeated all day, because they know, “Okay, I believe it. I really can’t be used; I know. No, this is impossible. That was the unforgivable sin.” Satan laughs and he loves that and he lies and lies and lies.

But that’s not the truth. God says you can be used in an awesome, mighty, power-packed way. If you admit the truth about what you did, if you come clean, He will wash the stain, erase the sin. You do that spiritual 180 and repent, and he can use you. Don’t believe that. Call Satan what he is: a liar. You’ve called someone a liar before, haven’t you? Do that in your prayers. If you hear these lies coming, if you see the picture-in-picture in your mind, say, “Hey, you’re a liar. That sin a long time ago has been forgiven; it’s washed clean.” The only person that will bring it up in your life is Satan, it’s not Jesus. It’s not.

Let me conclude by saying two pastoral words. I’m talking to two groups of people here. One group is what I would call the Seekers. You’re investigating Christianity. We’ll have a couple hundred over our three services. You’re thinking about Jesus, you’re thinking about the Bible, you’re thinking about the church and spiritual things, and you’re on the edge of making the best decision you’ve ever made in your life – which is to give control of your life to Jesus. It’s to ask Him to come into your life. It’s to receive what He did for you 2,000 years ago on the cross.

Satan is not going to sit idly by and say, “Oh, no problem. Just go right ahead into the family of God. That’s great; you can be born again into this family. Yeah, don’t worry about it; everything’s fine.” Is Satan going to do that? No. The Bible says he clouds and he blinds the minds of unbelievers. He puts the blindfold on. He does not want you to grasp the essence and the depth of the gospel.

I’m sure some of you have been down on one knee, and you just want to bend the other knee and bow the other knee and say, “Jesus, I ask you to come into my life.” But right before you bow the other knee, Satan resurrects a doubt that’s been settled years ago, or he tells you, “What would your friends think?” He begins to lie and blind, and blind and lie. It’s not going to be, seekers, an easy thing. You have to say, “Jesus, show it to me. Satan, you’re a liar. I open myself up to you, Jesus Christ.”

The second pastoral world will be to those of you who are mature believers. Listen to me: I’m talking about mature believers. Here at this fellowship we have a large group of folks: you have your daily quiet time, you read God’s word, you pray. You’re involved in the life of this church in a phenomenal way. We have over 400 people, laity, that make Sunday mornings happen. They’re not staff members. You might be one of those in the core and you’re really trying to worship God and give your life to God, and Satan knows, in most cases – listen to me – he is not going to involve you in some spectacular sin, although he’ll keep trying. He reverts to plan B.

You know what plan B is? He lines up those Christians, those people in church, those folks called God’s children, and he vaccinates us with a mild form of Christianity because he doesn’t want us to catch the real disease. He is satisfied to do that. “I’ll just give you about 80% of Christianity. About 92.3%. I’ll give you about 71%.” A lot of us are walking around, and with our mouths we say, “God, I worship you. I give you the glory.” But in our worship, it’s about 80%. In our finances – well, we just kind of throw a tip at God now and then. We don’t give the first 10%. Our relationships? Yeah, most of them glorify God. The places we go? Yeah, a lot of them do, but when I’m around that crowd…

You see, anything less than 100% devotion to Jesus makes a mockery of the cross. It’s time for people here to say, “I’m ready for the real disease. I want to catch it.” Do you have it? Do you have it? You see, my prayer as the pastor of this church is that when people see you and they see me, they say, “Whoa, there goes a person who has the real disease.” Understand Satan’s resume. Realize he plays for keeps. The stakes: eternity. Catch the real disease.

A Few Good Men: Part 1 – Inside Out: Transcript

A FEW GOOD MEN SERMON SERIES

INSIDE OUT – JONAH AND THE WHALE

HOW TO FOLLOW GOD’S LEAD

ED YOUNG

MAY 15, 1994

Well this Friday morning I had the privilege of speaking to the entire first grade at my daughter’s elementary school. I had the privilege of speaking about one of my most favorite subjects in the entire world, shark fishing. I lugged up all of my shark paraphernalia, the big game rod and reel, shark jaws, photographs, and I even took my prize possession, a stuffed eight-foot hammerhead shark. Needless to say, the children were enamored in the equipment, in the words, in the facts about sharks and shark fishing like I am. After the end of my presentation, after I taught them one of my favorite shark songs, (don’t hold your breath, that will be on another message) I made the mistake of opening up the floor for questions. Every hand shot up, oh, ah, me, me, me. And the questions sounded like this.

If you are, like, in the water and you are not really doing anything, will a fish swallow you? They were expressing a fear that we all have. What’s it like to be swallowed by a big, slimy, gargantuan fish? Today on this stage, through this word, we are going to meet someone who was swallowed by a fish, and this man lived to tell about it. His name is Jonah. Over the next few moments we are going to see how Jonah discovered how to follow God’s lead. We are going to take his life, dissect it, turn it inside out, and when we do that we will also be able to know how to follow God’s lead for our lives.

The life of Jonah. Take out your scripture outlines, you’ll find them in the bulletin. These outlines pretty much cover the verses I am going to talk about. For the next seven weeks we are in a series entitled “A Few Good Men”. We are doing more of a Bible study type format in this series and I think we will gain some insight and truth from these lives that will really rattle our cages for the glory of God.

While growing up one of my favorite shows to watch had to be Jacques

Cousteau. I remember one episode where Jacques said, “Watch Philip and Bernard as they dive into the beautiful water, because they will ride on the back of the giant killer whale. Notice how they grasp the whale’s tail, and the tail takes them and propels them through the beautiful water at about 20 miles per hour.” See the little whales on your outline – four whales? I want to share with you four whale-sized principles that we need to jump on, that we need to grab onto, if we are going to learn how to follow God’s lead.

The first whale-sized principle is that when you cruise away from God, there will be consequences. Write that by the first whale. When you cruise away from God, you are going to find out, there will be consequences. Let’s look at this first verse to the fifth verse as we meet our man, Jonah. The Bible says, the Word of the Lord came to Jonah. We are not sure whether it was through a prayer, or maybe an audible voice or through Jonah reading the scriptures, or from a relationship, but we know the Word came to Jonah. I think all of us here could say, if we were honest about ourselves, that we have felt the Word of the Lord coming to us, in certain situations. I doubt we have ever heard an audible voice, but you have been in that message, in that Bible study, or you have been praying or in a relationship where you feel the Holy Spirit kind of stepping on your toes a little bit, kind of prompting you, telling you this is where God is leading. We have all felt that. And God speaks to us today.

And He spoke to Jonah. And what did God say? “Jonah, go to the city of Nineveh.” Maybe Jonah had the kind of reaction that we would have had, “You mean N…, N…, N… Nineveh, you mean the capitol of Assyria, God, 120 thousand people, our archenemies, they hate our guts, they skin people alive, no….anywhere but Nineveh, please God no.” And God said, “Jonah, I don’t stutter or stammer, GO TO NINEVEH. I’m going to be with you, I’m going to take care of you.

The way to Nineveh, Jonah, is the way of obedience.” Jonah, though, does what a lot of modern day Jonahs do here. He becomes the quintessential running man. This verse and this text goes on, “But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed to a place called (I love this word) Tarshish.” He headed to Tarshish. Maybe Jonah did something like this, maybe he walked outside of his humble surroundings and he thought oh, I feel God leading me to Nineveh, I don’t want to go, that’s a 500 mile trek through the Arabian desert, rattlesnakes, robbers, lions, bears, that’s not me. I need a break. This prophet stuff is pretty difficult. So he went inside and opened up a copy of the Joppa Daily News and he turns to the travel and leisure section and there is a full page ad, and these words catch the prophet’s eye. Cruise Aboard The Disobedience II And Visit Club Med Tarshish. The article talks about the sugar-white beaches, the crystal clear waters of the Mediterranean and Jonah picks up his cellular phone, dials his travel agent, and he says, “I’m not sure I’m going to go on this but do you have any space available?” “Oh yes, sir, Mr. Jonah, we have space available for you, no doubt about, in fact, we are running a special right now.” So Jonah, over the phone, gives the number, the code of his Hebrew Express Card, and he is on his way. He goes down to Joppa, jumps aboard the Disobedience II and he is off to Club Med Tarshish, off on the track of disobedience.

In the Christian life, there are only two cities, Nineveh (obedience) and Tarshish (disobedience). All of us are either going to one city or the next. You can’t straddle them, you can’t have one foot in Nineveh, one foot in obedience, and at the same time live in Tarshish. You are going from one place to the next. For some people who are involved in marriages, you say, “I’m not going to Nineveh, I’m going to get a divorce, and cruise easily to Tarshish.” For some students here, you think, “I’m not going to go to Nineveh and really be honest as I write that paper or take that test, I’ll just kind of cruise the way of disobedience to Tarshish because the vessel is sailing on time, low fares, no problem, I’m going to Club Med Tarshish.” Or maybe in the business world you say, “I’m not going to be honest, I’m not going to tell the client everything, I’ll keep a little back because you know it is a 500 mile trip there to Nineveh, God, I’ll just go to Tarshish.”

We have a lot of modern day Jonahism going on right here. The Bible though, continues and it says (and I love this phrase, circle this phrase) it says, He went down to Joppa where he found a ship. Circle that phrase – he found a ship. In other words, he was looking for a ship. Here is the principle that you need to understand and know. Satan, the evil one, will always provide transportation away from Nineveh to Tarshish, always, always, always, it will be there. I talked to a single Christian lady about four years ago, and she said, Ed, I really wanted to get married and I prayed and I said God, You bring the right man into my life. And the next day, it was phenomenal, Ed, I met this great looking guy, successful, sweet, he wasn’t really a Christian but he was perfect and I thought surely because of the circumstances, everything will work out. And my life now is in shambles. Just because the circumstances are right, just because the vessel is leaving at just the right time, the winds are blowing in just the right direction, does not constitute being in the will of God. Satan is the ultimate travel agent. You are having marriage troubles and he will provide someone at the office, or someone you come in contact with, that looks like a much better vessel, a vessel that understands you, a vessel that really loves you, and it is so easy to jump aboard that vessel and sail to Tarshish. This happens in every area, in every arena, in every slice of our life. Either to Nineveh or to Tarshish.

So the next time you are tempted to say, oh it must be God’s will, the circumstances are working out, everything is cool, remember our man Jonah. You talk about perfect circumstances, full page ad in the Joppa Daily News, travel agent, low fare, he was on his way.

This text continues, after he found the ship, it said that he paid the fare. Circle that phrase, paying the fare. Jonah paid the fare. Even though it was a low fare, he paid the fare. But this low fare ended up being a very high fare. My Dad told me years ago, he said, “Son, if you go the way of disobedience, you will never get to where you are going and you will always pay the fare. On the other hand, if you go the way of obedience, you will always get to where you are going, but, here’s the kicker, the Lord will pay the fare.” He really will.

I lock eyes with people who matter to God every day I am walking on this planet. And so many of these people are paying the fare. I look into their eyes and can see it, the look, the expression, they are paying the fare because they have left their family, they are paying the fare because they come to church maybe once every month or twice a year, they are paying the fare because they are headed to Tarshish, their life is one of disobedience. Because when you run from God you are going to run right into God. You can’t get away from Him. The Bible calls Him the Hound of Heaven, and Jonah discovered this.

Then the Bible says the Lord, after Jonah boarded this vessel, the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and I thank God for the winds that God sends in my life. Jonah was so relaxed, he was asleep in the cabin aboard the Disobedience II, but God sent a wind, a warning signal. Wissssssshhhhh, Jonah, wake up Jonah. Ed, wake up, Ed, Wisssssshhhh, wake up. You’ve got to thank God for the wind. Jonah, though, didn’t pay that much attention. And the Bible says the winds were blowing at such a force, force-ten winds, that the sailors were frightened. Hey, if you are ever on a cruise, or in a boat, and the sailors or the captain, they are freaked out, you had better worry.

And these sailors, the Bible tells us, knew Jonah was running from God. Disobedience harms those around us. Disobedience can tear apart the innocent bystanders, and Jonah, our man, God’s man, was messing up the lives of these sailors. So what happened? After God sent a wind, the sailors go below and say “Jonah, wake up, something is wrong.” Jonah says, “I know why, I am running from God. Throw me overboard.” They say, “What if….?” “Throw me overboard”, Jonah pleaded with them. So they throw God’s man overboard, (splash, splash) and the winds subside, the water is calm. And something happens.

Skip down to Jonah 1:17. But the Lord provided the big one, a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah (isn’t this gross) was inside the fish three days and three nights. All the fish slime is sloshing around, the digestive juices begin to eat away at him and the stench is terrible in the fish’s belly. That’s why I call Jonah’s life, in this situation, a life of “re belly iun”. You rebel from God, you go the opposite way, from where he is directing, you will end up in the belly of something. And God keeps Jonah there for three days.

I believe this miracle. Because it is a miracle. But I will read you something I came across recently. In his book entitled SIXTY-THREE YEARS OF ENGINEERING, Sir Francis Fox relates the following. “In February 1891, the whale ship Star of the East was in the vicinity of the Faulkland Islands when the lookout saw a large sperm whale thrashing about. The two whaling vessels converge on this beast. The tale slaps one vessel, rocks it, two sailors go overboard, one drowns, the other has disappeared, they think for sure it is over. Lights out, he’s gone too, he has drown. They harpoon this beast, tow it to shore. Twenty-four hours later they are dissecting it, and the men say STOP something is moving in the stomach. They open it up and there is Frank Bartlett, the sailor who was overboard had been swallowed by this giant sperm whale. They revived him and he lived to sail again.

Sometimes God will put us in a situation, He will knock all the props out, just to get us to look upwards. You see, Jonah should have obeyed him when he picked up the cellular phone and just kind of inquired about the trip. He should have obeyed God when he set foot on the Disobedience Two. He should have obeyed God when he felt the boat rocking and everyone was getting seasick, but he didn’t, and he ended up in a whale’s belly. Some of you can say, Ed, I am there right now. Or maybe some are in the storm phase, others are thinking about calling the travel agent of disobedience. But you are there.

Here is a second whale-sized principle. Prayer will take you from the pit to the pinnacle. Chapter 2:1. Is that a great verse? It says, “Then Jonah prayed.” Boy what a spiritual giant, man, hey Jonah, amen and amen there. The Bible says in chapter 2:1, from inside the fish, Jonah prayed, he did kinda a 911 prayer, to the Lord, his God. If I am going to follow God’s lead, I’ve got to pray. And Jonah gives us a great example on how to pray. Read this passage when you go home. Jonah prayed first of all with a tender heart, a heart of confession, a heart that told the truth about his condition. I challenge all of you, as I have said many times on this platform to write out your prayers to God. I keep a notebook. I write out my prayers. I write out the sins I am confessing. We have to get right with God, and sin can be a blockade in regard to my fellowship with God. When praying we have to confess, to tell the truth about our sins, and to wipe those barriers clean. Secondly, though, after Jonah confessed, he prayed scripture. I didn’t write all the verses down in Chapter 2. Look at it this week. He prayed scripture. We have to hid scripture into our hearts, we’ve got to feed on it, it gives us life, it gives us spiritual calories and when difficult times come, and when the good times come, we can pray scripture. Jonah, though, did blow it. He should have prayed on the pinnacle and as well as in the pit. We’ve got to pray, we’ve got to know how to connect with the holy God.

Jonah 2:10, and the Lord commanded the fish and it vomited Jonah onto dry land. What a miracle. Isn’t that amazing? Jonah couldn’t get away from God, could he? He was a running man, but God was right there on him, the Hound of Heaven. He was pursuing him. Every Sunday morning our associate pastor, Owen Goff, gets here at 6 am. He makes sure that everything is running A-OK, he is a true servant, a true man of God. One thing Owen has done for the last four years, right before the service as I am trying to tweak the dial on every point in the message, I hear this faint knock. (Knock, knock, knock) “Oh, pastor, it’s about that time to walk over now, its about 8:57.” I say, “OK, Owen.” “Here’s your microphone.” So I rig this microphone up, and we walk over together. And he makes sure that I am here on time. If I am talking in the lobby, he will come to me “Oh, pastor, you have about two minutes.” A couple of months ago, I decided to play a little trick on Owen. At about ten minutes before nine, I get up and go outside and I hide behind the cars in the parking lot. And I see Owen looking at his watch. It is about 8:58, he is walking over to my office. (Walk illustration amidst laughter) Owen, the guy can really cover some ground. So, he goes inside and about five minutes later I see him come out, he’s looking. “Have you seen the pastor?” And then he sees me. Ah, there you are, you scare me when you do that.” In the same way that I cannot get away from Owen on Sundays, I am reminded of how God pursues us. I don’t care how far you cruise, you cannot get away from God. So Jonah, it is one thing for Jonah to be delivered, to be spit up on land, but God does something else. And this is the great news of today’s message.

And here is the third whale-sized principle. We have to seize the moment of a second chance. We have to seize the moment of a second chance. And the great thing God does, He gives Jonah a second chance. I would never preach again if the gospel was not a gospel of a second chance. Throughout the Bible we are presented with the message of a second chance. Our man Moses, takes the ten commandments, smash-h-h-, God comes to him and gives him a second chance. David, a man after God’s own heart, at the peak of his career he commits adultery, he has this girl’s husband killed, but later on God gives him a second chance. He seizes the moment. Samson, that Biblical bodybuilder, has a haircut in the devil’s salon, he blows it, loses it. God, though, comes back to Samson a second time. He seizes the moment. Simon Peter, he denied Jesus, three times. Jesus, though, gives him a second chance on the shore.

I love this verse. Jonah 3:1. Then the Lord came to Jonah a second time. “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” God was preparing to destroy Nineveh, but because we serve a God of grace and compassion, Jonah go and preach there and the city will be saved. And sure enough Jonah obeys. He jumps aboard the Second Chance and goes to Nineveh. He preaches to the inhabitants and 120,000 are spared. We serve a God of a second chance. Maybe God is giving you, today, a second chance. He is whispering to you, this is it, a second chance. And you say, you know when I was a kid I had an experience with God but I have gotten away from the Bible, from God and the church and spiritual things. And today He has brought you here for a second chance. Do the Jonah thing, the Moses thing, the Samson thing, the Simon Peter thing. Jump aboard, grab onto this whale-sized principle and let it take you to where God wants you to go. Are you seizing the moment of a second chance?

And that brings us to the fourth whale-sized principle. If I had been Jonah I would have stopped the book right here at Jonah 3:10, because he is looking good there, you know, he has messed up, God has delivered him, he preached to Nineveh, 120,000 people are saved. The sad thing is, it takes God longer to prepare his men to preach than it does for 120,000 people to get saved. That is kind of sad, isn’t it? But, Jonah does something that is so human. And this is something I can identify with and that is why these characters over the next seven weeks will change our lives. Because not only do they show you their strengths, they also point out their weaknesses. And we can really get on common ground with that. Jonah, after 120,000 people are saved, he leaves the city of Nineveh, and enters the moan zone, and sits there on a hill and he waits for God to destroy the city. And then he gets mad because God tells him, “I am a God of grace, a God of compassion, people matter to me, I am patient, I want all to come to repentance.” And then Jonah says, “God it is hot.” So he makes himself a kind of little hut with some branches and a vine. God, however, causes a worm to eat away at one of the major vines, the vine breaks off and Jonah freaks out because the vine is falling apart. And he is whining and saying, “God, I need to die God, this is horrible, this is terrible.” And God says, “Hey, hey Jonah, wake up Jonah, now wait a minute.” Look what He says here, the last verse in the text, But the Lord said (Jonah 4:9-11) “You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people, Jonah, who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?”

If we are going to follow God’s lead we have to be concerned about what God is concerned about. And God is concerned about people. People are important to God. You are, I am, the world is. You see, Jonah thought that God was just a Jew God, an Israel God, a Hebrew God. He couldn’t grasp the fact that God cared even about the sorry, down-trodden, negative, horrible Ninevehites. I have seen people in the church who will complain because of a misspelled word in the bulletin, or because the music might be too loud in a certain area, and then I see ten people come to Christ. These people are upset about the little things but they are missing the big things. They are concerned about the vine when God is saying, “Hey, don’t concern yourself with just the little stuff, make sure you are impacted by what impacts Me. Make sure your heart beats fast over the things that cause My heart to beat fast, and that is people.” People coming to Christ, people growing closer to the Lord, people becoming more and more like Him. Jonah was a little bit jealous because God was not working the way he wanted God to work. He thought he had God in a nice little box. Every box I try to put God in, He gets out of it. We cannot put God in a box.

So to be a part of God’s lead, we have to grasp these four steps. I challenge you to do one final thing that, I believe, crystallizes this message on how to follow God’s lead. I challenge you when we sing this song of commitment, to make the words you are singing your prayer, as you pray in your spirit, God wherever You lead, I am going to go.

A Few Good Men: Part 2 – Against All Gods: Transcript

A FEW GOOD MEN SERMON SERIES

AGAINST ALL GODS – ELIJAH

HOW TO STAND UP IN DIFFICULT TIMES

ED YOUNG

MAY 22, 1994

About four years ago Lisa and I traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada. For a convention, let me add. While we were in Las Vegas one of the biggest fights of the decade was taking place, a bout that featured Sugar Ray Leonard against Thomas “the hit man” Hearns. The pre-fight hype had hit a fever pitch level led by boxing icon and promoter, Don King. Talk on the street was, who you were betting on, who was going to win. And everyone had their opinion. I tried to get tickets, however they were kind of out of my price range. Wwe are talking about $500 a ticket! But the fight definitely lived up to its billing because it was one of the greatest boxing matches of the decade.

Today, though, all of you, that’s right, all of you have ringside seats to a bout that would make that championship bout in Las Vegas look like a scuffle on an elementary school playground. You’ve got tickets to a bout that occurred about 3000 years ago, not in Las Vegas but on Mt. Carmel. In fact, if Don King would have been living 3000 years ago, he might have called this fight, “The Cosmic Conflict On Carmel”. As we watch this match we are going to get up close and personal to one of the fighters. We are going to watch his punches in slow motion, because this man is one of God’s true gladiators. His name is Elijah. And Elijah, through this nip and tuck battle, is going to reveal to us how to stand up in difficult times. I am not sure if you have noticed it yet but life if full of difficult times. We can’t dodge them, we can’t run from them, they are right here at us. Just for a moment think about a difficult situation you are in at this very moment. Just for a second, think about it. It could be in a relationship, at work, maybe in your home. It could be a business transaction, it could be problems with your thought life. Whatever it is, just think about it.

This match takes place in I Kings 18, so take your scripture outlines, they are disguised there in your bulletins, probably the last insert that you have. You will see the title AGAINST ALL GODS, that is your scripture outline. All these scriptures are from the New International Version except there is one from the New American Standard. But I want us all to be reading from the same translation, and the same page.

Let’s set the situation and set the stage for this match. You’ll see the first verse there, which is verse 16, says that “Ahab went to meet Elijah.” Well, this begins round one. And after every round I am going to share with you a principle that we can learn, that we need to know about standing up. So after I have described round one, then I will come back to the principle, then you take your pen or pencil, fill in the word and we can move on.

Round one. The Bible says that Ahab saw Elijah. First question. Who in the world is Ahab? Ahab was the king in Israel and he had great potential. However, he made a serious mistake. The decision was to marry a lady named Jezebel, and it was the last decision old Ahab ever made. Jezebel was beautiful, rebellious, ruthless and involved in something called Baal worship. Baal worship centered around power, sex, lust. Baal was the fire god and Jezebel was really into it. She was into it so much that old Ahab adopted Baal worship as the state religion of Israel. Here we have God’s king, God’s nation, and they had kind of iced Him out, elbowed Him out, and now they are putting in Baal worship. Who ran the country? Jezebel. Might that sound familiar to anybody? (laughter) I just wanted to see if you all were listening. (more laughter) Anyway, Jezebel did not like the priests and the followers of the Lord. And she and Ahab had hundreds of them murdered, massacred.

It was in such a climate that God’s gladiator, our man Elijah, bursts onto the scene and he confronts these two. He says, “Because of your rebellion, because you are following Baal, and because you have kicked out the true God, it is not going to rain for three and one-half years in Palestine.” Ahab and Jezebel said, “Yea, right, right, you Hebrew hillbilly. Leave us alone.” And Elijah runs off. They do not see Elijah for three and one-half years. Guess what happens. It does not rain for three and one-half years. And this sets the stage for this encounter. Here is old Ahab walking around Israel. It has been declared a national disaster area, the whole nation, dead carcass of livestock, the flies. And all the brooks and the rivers had dried up. He is really feeling depressed and then he hears that Elijah is in the area. And Elijah, through, a servant meets Ahab and that brings us to our text in round one. Ahab went to meet Elijah, “When he saw Elijah”, circle the word saw. When he saw him, I guarantee you Ahab thought about how many times he had messed up. He thought about the fact that he disobeyed God and married an ungodly woman. And I have seen this occur in so many different lives throughout my ministry, people marrying the wrong person, an ungodly person. Ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent of the time it does not work, because the ungodly party in the relationship will slowly drag the godly party down and then the formerly godly person will end up in the Baal worship thing. Baal worship is not some old day, ancient deal, it can be a modern day situation. I know many people who are worshiping Baal while I speak, the Baals of pleasure, the Baals of power, the Baals of lust. I believe we can look around and point our fingers and say, hey, that’s Baal worship, that’s 90’s Baal worship. Baal worship is something that has happened ever since the fall of man. So Ahab was reminded of that as he saw God’s prophet, that he had messed up, he had married the wrong person. Then he was reminded that he had killed, he had massacred God’s followers. Elijah reminded him of his sin. And you can tell when they locked eyes, the battle was happening.

As a kid growing up in Columbia, South Carolina, I used to venture down to Township Auditorium to watch professional wrestling. I used to marvel at Chief WaHoo MacDaniel. Nature boy, wow, Rick Flare. And, of course, Johnny “the hammer” Ballentine. We would go to Township Auditorium and wait. We would get so excited when we knew the battle was beginning. And we knew the matches would begin once a little man with white hair would stand up and slowly make his way to the ring apron, take a hammer and hit that bell four times, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang. And then the announcer would say, “OK, Columbia, South Carolina, let’s welcome professional wrestling.” And the crowd would go nuts. If that little man with the white hair had been living during this time, when he saw old Ahab and when he saw old Elijah lock eyes, he would Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang and say, “The battle has begun, sports fans.”

And here, our man Ahab tried to start out with the first punch which is really weak. He said to him, “Elijah, is that you, you troubler of Israel?” You see Ahab was doing something that I like to do and you like to do when we are confronted with our sin. We want to point the finger at someone else. It’s your fault, you are the one who made me do it, and we make excuses. We like to point out in other peoples lives, problems and rebellions, oftentimes that are problems and rebellions in our own lives, don’t we? Maybe in a marital situation, maybe in a business partnership, we point the finger. Elijah, though, returns this punch. Elijah says, “I have not made trouble for Israel, but you and your father’s family have. You have abandoned the Lord’s commands and have followed the Baals. Now summon the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel.” This could be kind if the pre-fight press conference. He is going, “OK Ahab, you, me, the prophets of Baal, Carmel, let’s do it, let’s get it on. “And bring the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.” This shows you how prevalent Baal worship was, 850 people dined at the table of Ahab and Jezebel, every day. Asherah was the female counterpart of Baal. So Elijah, this Hebrew hillbilly, God’s gladiator, he puts down the gauntlet and says, “OK we are going for it.”

Mount Carmel. What is the principle here? Round one. Standing up leads to conflict. That’s the principle. Standing up leads to conflict. If you stand up for God, if you follow the Lord Jesus Christ, you will have conflict, I will have conflict. If you are not experiencing some conflict right now in your life, then something is wrong. Something is wrong. Because when you stand you are going to do battle. That is why the Christian life is called warfare. That is why it is referred to by the Apostle Paul as a wrestling match. It is a battle. Light and darkness. You will meet those Ahabs, you will meet those Jezebels, you will meet those people who will try to throw stones at you, shoot arrows at you, talk behind your back, because you are standing. Are you experiencing conflict? Are you?

Let’s go to the second round. The second round takes place in verse 20. The Bible says; So Ahab sent a message. Highlight that word message. Highlight that word message, circle it, put an exclamation point by it. So Ahab sent a message among all the sons of Israel, and brought the prophets together at Mount Carmel. The Christian life, ladies and gentlemen, is a swim upstream. It really is. And you should feel the current pushing against you.

About five years ago I went trout fishing in Colorado. I was with a friend of mine who is an expert fly-fisherman, and I had never fly-fished before, especially in conditions like this. I stepped into the waters with these waders on and ooooh, I was down stream. I started laughing and he said, “Ed, it is going to take you a couple of hours to get your river legs.” And he taught me how to walk against the current. And for four days, while I was fly-fishing, I had to walk against the current, I felt the push, I felt the drive.

As I was studying the text this past week I thought about the Christian life, that’s that conflict, that’s that push. But also the second principle in round two. Standing up sends a message. Standing up sends a message, because people are watching you, they are watching me. Scores and scores of people, they know we are Christian, they know we follow the Lord Jesus Christ and when we come to an opportunity to either stand or to falter, to have courage or to cower, they watch and see. Is this stuff for real, is this man truly a man of God, is this woman truly a woman of God? Round two. Here is what happened. Ahab sent a message to the entire nation. Mount Carmel. Mount Carmel, 17,000 feet. It juts out over the Mediterranean, it would make the Mirage look bad. Flowering trees and greenery still grows there today. The nation of Israel packed the Mount. They were probably serving camel dogs and everything. And maybe a modern day boxing announcer might have said this. “Welcome to the Cosmic Conflict at Carmel. In this corner fighting out of Satan’s camp, they have on the white robes, the gold medallions, let’s put our hands together, the bad boys from Baal. Their opponent, the sole solitary figure, God’s gladiator, the Hebrew hillbilly, he is wearing the camel hair coat with the leather belt, Elijah.” And then they come together and they fight.

Get the picture now. On one side you have the prophets of Baal, 450 of them. They are ready to go. And behind them are the prophets of Asherah, “Go, go, beat Jehovah, go go.” And they begin to look at Elijah and they begin this conflict. They have on long white robes, pointed hats and they wore giant gold medallions that reflected the sun and these medallions would embarrass any modern-day rapper. Remember Baal was the god of the sun, god of fire, and for this reason they wore these giant medallions. So here they are dressed in this beautiful attire with all the regalia. On the other hand is our man, Elijah, hadn’t bathed in three or four days, rack head you know, kind of those steely eyes. But the people watched, they really watched. And look at the message they saw from God’s man. One man or one woman plus God equals a majority. I don’t care if you are facing 400 modern day prophets of Baal and 400 modern day prophets of Asherah, one plus the Lord equals a majority and that is great news. Many times we face situations, you know, when the peer pressure begins to circle, like a school of tiger sharks. What do you do? You rely on God. Standing up sends a message.

Let’s go to round three. Round three begins. Elijah went before the people and said (this is a classic, classic verse and phrase) “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” Or let’s say it this way, you do Satan a favor if you waver. Elijah walks up to the entire nation of Israel and he says how long are you going to waver between two opinions. You see the people, they wanted to put one foot in Baal worship, sensuality, pleasure, materialism, bowing down and worshiping those gods but at the same time they wanted to accommodate a little bit of Jehovah, a little bit of the Lord, and kind of mesh everything together. But Elijah said no. That is making a mockery of God. That is committing cosmic treason. And when he put this question to the people, how long will you waver, listen to their response. “But the people said nothing.” But the people said nothing. Are you wavering between two opinions? It will get you nowhere.

Every week my wife and I have a date and one of the biggest challenges we face is choosing the restaurant. We’ll drive around. “Lisa, where do you want to eat, honey.” “No, where do you want to eat.” “Well, really where you want to eat is where I want to eat.” “No, where you…..” And we will waste 25 minutes! This past week I drove with some guys here in this church from Branson, Missouri to Bull Shoals, Arkansas. We had a map, but none of us had a clue where we were going. None of us had a good sense of direction and we were too macho to ask anyone for advice. And we drove for over three hours down a long, winding road to nowhere. If you waver, if you say, well I am going to follow God some, and follow Baal some, it will nail you. And this is what happened in round three.

Elijah went before the people and said, How long will you waver between two opinions, if the Lord is God, follow Him, but if Baal is God, follow him. But the people said nothing.” They were sideline people, sitting on the sidelines, waiting for the dust to settle. Sound familiar? ‘Well, once the battle takes place, Elijah, then we will see which side we are on.’ Then Elijah said to them, ‘Am I the only one of the Lord’s prophets left, but Baal has 450 prophets?’ Then he says, ‘Get two bulls for us.’ I’m thinking, Elijah, where are the gloves, you’re talking about two bulls, what is the deal here? Elijah said this, “You know, Baal boys, your god is a god of fire, right?” They go, “Yes, he’s the god of fire.” He said, “Let’s do a challenge. You take one bull, I’ll take one bull, I’ll let you go first. You build an altar, cut the bull up into pieces, you pray and if your god answers by fire, he is the true god, or if my God answers by fire after I build a sacrifice, well He’s the true God.” And the Baal boys go, “Oh, no problem, we’ll win.” So they take the bull, chop him up, put him on the altar and they begin to pray and dance and cut themselves, blood flowing. They are going crazy, standing on the altar, jumping up and down. No one was home. This went on for hours and hours and hours, and I love what old Elijah said, because you thought trash talking was a 90’s thing? Listen to what Elijah said. At noon, Elijah began to taunt them, “Shout louder”, he said, “surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought or busy, or traveling.” (laughter) You laugh, let me tell you what this means in the original Hebrew. Most translators were afraid to really translate what this phrase meant. Elijah was saying maybe Baal is in the men’s room or maybe Asherah is in the ladies room. That’s what the Bible says. The bad boys from Baal didn’t like that, but nothing happened.

Elijah said “Ok, calm down, nothing has happened.” Then he takes the bull. He built, the Bible says in the original text, he rebuilt the altar, and how many people here need to rebuild an altar of commitment, of love, of worship to God in our families. He rebuilt the altar, put the bull on it, and at the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah steps forward, circle those words, steps forward and prayed. He was praying that God would answer by fire to show who was the true God. He had the people drench his sacrifice three times with water, water was dripping off of it, dripping over into a trench around the altar. Then, boom, God answers by fire. All the water, all the sacrifice, the altar is consumed. And guess what the children of Israel did. “All right, we were with you God, we were there all the time. Hallelujah, praise God. I knew, I knew, I knew He was the one.” And they began to do the wave, and all that stuff, and “Oh, yes, we follow you Lord.” That sounds just like humans, doesn’t it. See these humans, I feel so sorry for them, the children of Israel, they missed an opportunity to really step out on faith, to really do what God wanted them to do, to say OK I am with you, God has done so many great things for our nation, for our people. I have seen Him guide us, I have seen Him direct us. But they stood over. They waited and then when everything looked cool, “OK we are with you God.” You know what scares me? This is going to happen in some of your lives over the next year, exactly what happened to the children of Israel, it will happen to your life. Many here, over the next year. What am I talking about? Our church, The Fellowship of Las Colinas, has been blessed in an awesome way. Like few churches I have heard about or seen. And we have just purchased 159 acres where five major freeways come together. And we in this next year or year and a half are going to build on that property, our first phase. And it is time for God’s people to give, to say I am following God, I believe in God’s vision, I am going to give of my time, of my talents and of my treasure. And a lot of us will get in on it, we will sacrifice, we will give. But some will sit over here, on the sidelines, and kind of wait for the dust to settle. And then when all these people have sacrificed and prayed and given and the building is there, you will come off of the sidelines and out on the field and say, “Oh yeah, I was with you the whole time, Ed. Sure we were with you Fellowship of Los Colinas. Oh, I didn’t give anything, I didn’t pray, I didn’t sacrifice. Oh, isn’t this great, this building here, man alive, thousands of people are being saved, thousands of peoples lives are being touched, I was with you, oh yeah, I was there.” Will you let that happen to you? Please don’t, I beg you don’t, I’ve been there before, I’ve blown it before, so have you. Take advantage of this opportunity.

And here is the third principle. Standing up demands a decision. Standing up demands a decision. And the question I ask you today is this, how long will you waver between two opinions? If God is God, serve Him, follow Him, in your marriage, in your finances, in your relationships, emotionally, spiritually, follow Him. If Baal is god, go ahead and follow him. Don’t try to be someone you are not. Either say I am in or I am out.

So we have learned today three valuable truths, something we really need to know from these three rounds. Now I want to tell you what you need to do. It is great to know these things but what do I need to do? I came across a verse this week that blew me away. The last verse on this outline. James 5:17. “Elijah was a man just like us.” Is that a powerful verse? Elijah was a man just like us. Ah. That gives me some relief, doesn’t it? Elijah through his life, inspired by the Holy Spirit, I believe, is leading us to do three things. First, we have got to be pray-pared. That is right, we have got to be pray-pared. This is the story of Elijah. Elijah did not walk around and then one day, oh, man, we have a conflict at Carmel. Oh, oh, dear God, please give me the strength, I hope we win the battle, Lord, please answer by fire, please, please, please. He didn’t do that. Read and study his life. He walked with God, he talked with God, he knew where God wanted him to move, he knew when he wanted him to stand, he knew when he wanted him to relax, and to replenish himself. But because he walked with Him, because he was pray-pared, he was ready. And he was pray-pared, and pray-pared himself in the out-of-the-way places. I am talking about back on the hillside, away from all the crowd. And because he pray-pared himself in the small things, when he got to the major league thing he was ready to go.

Number two. Be available. Be pray-pared, number one. Number two, be available. God is not concerned about your ability, He is concerned about your availability. Elijah was a man just like me, just like you. And how often, have I done this? Again, I have sat on this proverbial stool and I have said; oh there is no way I can do that, I don’t have the ability to stand up for three services and say this and lead you. You’ve done the same thing before. God is not concerned about that. We are just whining. God says, “Ed, if you are available.” “Elijah, if you are available.” “Susan, if you are available.” What can He do? He can take an ordinary human being and use us in extraordinary ways. That’s Elijah. Are you available? We should live our lives in this posture, with our hands upward toward heaven saying OK God, I am available. No, I don’t know the words today, but I am available. And watch what happens.

Number three, be decisive. Elijah was decisive. He stepped out there. He took a risk. He followed God. He was decisive. A good friend of mine has been a part of this church for three years. In fact, when our church only had less that 100 members, he and his family joined this church even though we didn’t have a lot of stuff going on for the family. Now we do, we have many, many activities for the kids. If you are knee-high to tree-high, we have it all here. But he joined and took a step of faith and I watched this man and his leadership grow and move within our church. About eight months ago he came to me and he said, “Ed, I have an incredible opportunity to move to Chicago.” And this man was the CEO of a company here, a very successful company that does over $50 million in sales a year. But he was going to Chicago for even a better deal. And so he left. It was very tough to see him go. And he was in Chicago and lived up there for about two months when he felt he had made a bad choice. I mean a bad choice. He said, “Ed, I feel like I am out of God’s will.” And so, this man, you talk about standing up, walked before he superiors, of which he has only a few, and he told them, I have a higher calling first of all to God, secondly to my family and thirdly to The Fellowship of Las Colinas and I am giving up this position and moving back to the metroplex. And he did. And God has blessed his life in a mighty, mighty way. You talk about sending a message to people. You talk about making a decision. He can tell you. But he would say these words, and I would say these words to you, it is worth it. It is worth it. So church, who are you going to serve – God or Baal? How long will you waver between two opinions?

A Few Good Men: Part 3 – Great Walls of Fire: Transcript

A FEW GOOD MEN SERMON SERIES

GREAT WALLS OF FIRE – SHADRACH, MESHACH AND ABEDNEGO

HOW TO STAY CALM UNDER FIRE

ED YOUNG

MAY 29, 1994

When I was ten years of age, my parents had a home built and the builder did a magnificent job. He built the two story structure on about an acre lot with gorgeous Carolina pine trees and across the street from a 25-acre lake. We were 15 miles from downtown, Columbia, South Carolina. It was the ultimate place to live. However, a couple of weeks before we were supposed to move in, tragedy struck. Someone set fire to the house and it burned to the ground. One of the things etched into my memory is a picture of my father and I walking through the charred remains of this structure. It was gone. The chimney looked like the Washington Monument. The builder had to dig up the foundation and start the entire process over again. The whole thing. And a year later we move in and we are finally there, in our brand new house.

After we had lived there for two days, Mom and Dad called this family conference and, because of the tragedy that had occurred, they said “Ed and Ben, we want to prepare you for what to do in case of a fire.” So we went through the Young family fire drill. They said, “Ed, Ben, you have the second story, if you ever smell smoke you need to know we purchased a fire ladder, a chain-link ladder. Now don’t you worry about us. You put the chain-link ladder on the windowsill, don’t worry about us, and you shimmy down that ladder like Batman and Robin, (that really got us into it) then you walk across the roof, jump down into the yard and meet us by the basketball goal”. And we rehearsed this time and time again and I knew this fire drill and could do it in my sleep. I still know this fire drill.

And just take a look at our society because we love to prepare others for fire. It starts at a very young age. We give our toddlers fire trucks. Our kindergarten classes tour fire stations. In elementary school we have fire drills and we purchase fire extinguishers and smoke alarms. You go to a hotel. On the back of every door there is a sign which reads “What To Do In Case Of A Fire.”

Today we are going to discuss and look at this topic, fire. Fire. We are not going to talk about fires that destroy forests or homes or buildings, but fires that we face. I am talking about the personal fires, the day to day fires, maybe the fire of divorce, the fire of depression, the fire of sickness, the fire of death, the fire of a financial setback. What do you do when these great walls of fire seem to surround you and they seem like they are caving in? What do you do about it? I want us to look at three Biblical firemen today, and these firemen have some weird names; Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. And with names like that they should be strong, shouldn’t they? Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego fought a fire and through their lives they are going to give us five fireproof formulas on how to face the fire. Five fireproof formulas on how to face our daily fires.

Take out your scripture outlines. You will notice that the print is in red, fire red, and all of the scriptures are taken from Daniel 3 which is the fire passage. So take out your scripture outlines. If you don’t have one, raise your hand, someone will get you one, it is very important to follow along as we go through the scripture.

Let me set the stage and give you the background for this text, Daniel 3. In 605 BC, King Nebuchadnezzar took the reins of Babylon. And Nebuchadnezzar was an ego-maniac. The first thing he does since he wants to show his power, is to rushe to Palestine. He surrounds Palestine, and he picks the brightest, the most intelligent young men and women. He brings them back to Babylon, educates them in the Babylonian culture, and he puts them in top positions in his administration. Three of those young men were Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. King Nebuchadnezzar gave these young men, these young Jewish boys, administrative responsibility over the province of Babylon. And that sets the stage for some real action.

Look at the first verse, verse one. The Bible says, “King Nebuchadnezzar made a golden statue ninety feet high and nine feet wide.” This guy began to read his press clippings, didn’t he? “Hey, I am great, I am an unbelievable king, I am brilliant, I’m strong.” So he erects this 90-foot tall, golden statue, nine feet wide and he tells one of his yes men to announce to the entire kingdom, “Everyone must bow down and worship this statue of the handsome, articulate, dynamic King Nebuchadnezzar.” And the Bible says, when the band plays, everyone must fall flat on their face, and say, oh Nebuchadnezzar, we worship you. That was the situation. And sure enough, the band begins to play, and take a wild guess what happens. Everyone falls flat on their face and they worship this statue. And the scriptures reveal to us the penalty for not worshiping the statute was to be tossed into the fiery furnace. A little subtle pressure, wouldn’t you say?

But something happened. Something happened that happens to you and that happens to me. Some verbal flamethrowers sneak onto the scene. I am talking about verbal arsonists. You know what I am talking about. The Bible tells us in Daniel 3:8, “But some officials went to the king and accused some of the Jews of refusing to worship.” Verse 12. Here is what they said. “Ah, there are some Jews out there, just to mention some names, King N, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, you know the people you put in leadership, King, and they have defiled you, refusing to serve your god or to worship this beautiful, handsome statue that you have set up.” Verbal arsonists, always working behind your back. I often wonder as I read this section, why didn’t they come face to face with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego? They couldn’t, because that would take too much courage. So they kind of creep around and they set a little fire by talking to King Nebuchadnezzar and saying Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, will not bow down – a little gossip, a little tattle-taling. If you are in a position of leadership, get ready for the verbal arsonists, the verbal flamethrowers, because they are present in every arena of society. They are present. People dropping this comment, people saying that. That is why the Bible says in James 3:6 the tongue is a fire, not like a fire, the tongue is a fire.

What was the response of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego when they heard this talk? Well, King Nebuchadnezzar, he freaked. “I cannot believe it, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, these people I have trusted, these people I have trained, bring them to me.” That is what he says. Verse 13. “Then Nebuchadnezzar, in a terrible rage, ordered Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to be brought in before him.” And what was their response? Did Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego say, “Hey, give me the names, King Nebuchadnezzar, of the people who slandered me. I am going to file a suit against them, I’ll get back at them.” They didn’t say that. They were quiet. They listened to him. And finally in verses 14 and 15, King Nebuchadnezzar says, “Is it true that you are refusing to serve my gods or to worship the golden statue I set up…if you refuse, you will be thrown into the flaming furnace within the hour.” They demonstrate for us the first fire fighting formula. You have to rise above your verbal flamethrowers. If I am going to really fight these fires as they come into my life, as they come into your life, I am going to have rise above the verbal flamethrowers. Why, you ask, why did Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego have the reaction that they had? How did they rise above this? It was because they had the proper priorities. They were confident in who they were. And when your top priority is God, second family, and third is your business, you are confident. And you can stand and you can rise above the verbal flamethrowers.

I play a video game sometimes and the object of this game is to rescue the damsel in distress. But to get to the damsel in distress you have to get past this evil, wicked dragon that does this – (illustration of flame breathing) – a flame-throwing dragon. It took me about four months but I figured out how to do it. The way to get past this fire-breathing dragon is to push the up button and (dingggg) put the little man up high on the video screen, then the flames pass underneath him. Can you do that? The answer is yes. If you have the proper priorities you can rise above it. Because every time I have tried to return fire with fire, I have been disappointed. You jump down to the other person’s level. And it is human nature when we are struck when someone throws some fire on us, we want to return the fire like that. But if your priorities are straight, you will be confident, serene and secure in who you are and you can be like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

Let’s move now to the second fire fighting formula, the second fireproof formula. Develop a disposition of confidence. I just said the confidence word. Develop a disposition of confidence. Here is Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego waiting to be thrown into the fiery furnace, becaise they are not going to bow down to the statue. But they were confident. Where did that come from? Verses 16 and 17. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied, now check this response out, they replied, “We are not worried about what will happen to us. If we are thrown into the furnace, our God (circle the word our) our God is able to deliver us; and He will deliver us out of your hand.” What was the secret of this confidence? Hey, we are not worried about this. The Bible says, we are not to worry about what will happen to us. They had this confidence because of the little word “our”. Circle that. They did not say, it’s a god, or this god but our God, my God. They had an authentic personal relationship with God. And because they served a confident God, and they reflected the nature and character of God. They reflected the nature and character of confidence, not cockiness. I am talking about confidence, that they were standing on solid ground, exactly like the song we just sang. They had that confidence, that thing you can’t really buy, that thing you can’t really gain. And we try to spend so much money and large blocks of time and we think we can buy confidence or gain confidence through some glassy-eyed guru. Some people search for it in the Shinto shrine, or a new age crystal. The only confidence, true confidence, comes from the living Lord.

This past week our staff took a retreat about an hour and one-half outside of Dallas. We stayed on a farm for prayer and planning. And one afternoon we took a tour of an ostrich ranch, that’s right, an authentic, real deal ostrich ranch. A nice gentleman who runs the ranch took us on this tour. His name is John. And John walks us down this walkway where all of these giant birds, standing seven to eight feet tall, weighing 300 to 400 pounds, were hissing at us, walking right up to us and kind of stomping their feet. They can kill a man with one kick. The are the second fastest animal behind a cheetah, I didn’t realize that. And we watched these ostrich, and they are fascinating birds. But this man who told us that an ostrich can kill you like that, I watched him jump in a pen with a male and a female ostrich, 800 pounds of ostrich, and he was confident. He kind of patted the birds, he knew exactly where to move. And then he just climbed out of the pen. I said, “John, how did you do that? You were telling me all these horror stories about how ostrich kill people left and right, how did you do it?” He said, “Ed, it’s simple. I have a plan beforehand. I have a plan before I go into the pen.” Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, they were confident because they had a plan before this moment, before they hit the fiery furnace, before they faced Nebuchadnezzar. They didn’t say, “Oh boy, I better plan now, let me see what will I do, it’s getting difficult.” They didn’t. They were ready. Do you have, though, a disposition of confidence? Can you say that? Look back at your outline. They were not worried about what would happen to them. And they said, “If we are thrown into the flaming furnace, our God is able to deliver us and He will deliver us out of your hands.” Confidence when you face the fire.

That brings us to the third, the third fireproof formula. Don’t allow your circumstances to cause you to compromise. Don’t allow your circumstances to cause you to compromise. Verse 18 tells us this. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego continue to say in unison, “But, if He doesn’t, please understand, sir, that even then we will never under any circumstances serve your gods or worship the golden statue you have erected.” They were not going to do it. They were not going to let the circumstances cause them to compromise. What a word to you and me. A lot of times we get into certain circumstances and we compromise who we are. We have a vocabulary at the office and a vocabulary in church, we have things we do with our college friends and things we do with our church friends.

Last summer, Lisa and I took a couple of days and met my parents near a beach. And on this beach there are a lot of lizards called chameleons. You know those things? And I love to catch chameleons, because Lisa and my mom are scared of them. Chameleons are amazing reptiles because they change color to whatever matches their particular foundation. For instance, if they are on asphalt they turn black, if they are on a green leaf, if that is the foundation behind them, they turn green, or yellow, or whatever. They kind of blend in. And I know of too many Christians, too many chameleon Christians here, you are this way at church, and you are that way somewhere else. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego said I am not going to let the circumstances dictate who I am. I am going to stay true, I am going to follow God and that settles it.

And that brings us to the fourth fire fighting formula. Grasp God’s hand as you are walking through the fire. Grasp God’s hand as you are walking through the fire. That is the fourth fireproof principle, the fourth fireproof formula. And before we read this text, verses 24 and 25, jump back to the verses 19 and 20. Because Nebuchadnezzar, the Bible says, was filled with fury and his face became dark when they wouldn’t bow down. And this word dark literally means his attitude changed toward them. And he became angry. He commanded that the furnace be heated up seven times hotter than usual. When ungodly people persecute Christians they will turn up the heat, won’t they? And then he says for some of the strongest men in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and throw them into the fire. Literally he said, you are fired. And you have them bound with ropes and the strongest men in the army come right by the fiery furnace and toss them in. Now the Bible says the furnace was so hot the flames leaped out and killed the soldiers. Here is another principle for us, before we get into the fourth formula. The ungodly, if they don’t understand what it means to have a personal relationship with the Lord, when they get near the fire, they will get burned up and destroyed whereas those who follow the Lord will not get destroyed by the fire.

They got close and while Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego did not perish, the ungodly guards were gone.

Now let’s jump to the fourth formula. Grasp God’s hand as you are walking through the fire. Verses 24 and 25. “Suddenly, as he was watching,” circle that word watching. And why was he watching? Hey, the world watches you and the world watches me, especially when we go through the fire, don’t they? Why do they watch you and why do they watch me go through the fire? Because they want to see, does Christianity work, because they desperately want something to work in their fires. Because many of them are like the soldiers, they see the flames coming at them, they know it’s about over. But when they see a Christian and see this young man, this young lady, surviving in the fire, they say “That is something I want.” We are on the stage when we are going through a fire. So Nebuchadnezzar was watching, he couldn’t wait to see what would happen next. “Suddenly as he was watching, Nebuchadnezzar jumped up in amazement and exclaimed to his advisors, didn’t we throw three men into the furnace? Well, look, I see four men.” And can’t you picture Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego walking around in the fire with their Raybans on saying, “It’s cool in the furnace, baby.” But Nebuchadnezzar says there is a fourth man there. And most commentators believe, and I believe, this is an appearance of the pre-incarnate Christ. This was Jesus walking around with them in the fire. When we rely on the Lord, when we grasp his hand, when people look at this fire we are going through, they will see a fourth man in your life and my life and look what that can communicate to the world. Look how God can use that in a mighty powerful way. “I see four men, unbound.” Remember they were bound, now they are unbound, the fire burned off everything except Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. God allows fires in our lives in order to burn off the excess, sometimes to burn off things that bind you and me, to free us up for His purposes. Isn’t that great news? But it is not great news when you are in the fire. It’s tough when you are in the fire. But God will use it to say, I want to burn some ropes off Ed, I want to burn some ropes off Jill, I want to burn some ropes off David. And when we are in the fire we will watch the ropes slowly disintegrate. And “they were walking around in the fire and they weren’t even hurt by the flames. And the fourth one looks like a god.”

EJ is two years old. He is my son. And EJ, especially when he is trying to negotiate a steep flight of stairs as I am walking by his side, will grasp my hand. He knows I am there and he knows I will hold his hand and I’ll help him up a steep flight of stairs. Folks, if we know Jesus Christ, He is never going to leave you, He is never going to leave me, His hand is right there and all we have to do is reach out and grasp it and because we grasp His hand we can walk through and around the fire.

Then Nebuchadnezzar shouts, Come out, come out. And they stepped out of the fire. You know the Ed Young translation goes something like this, and I am kind of reading between the lines here. I think that maybe King Nebuchadnezzar, as he looked in and saw these four men walking around, he saw they were alive, he saw the Raybans, he saw them whistling, he saw them holding hands with the Lord, he said, “Boys bring me my piano,” and maybe he sang this song. “Bah, bah, bah, bong, you shake my crown and you rack my nerves, you make this ungodly king freak out; Oh Shadrach, Oh Meshach, Oh Abednego, Oh goodness gracious, great walls of fire, I can’t believe this what is happening, your God is the true God, what’s the deal, He’s for real.” He could have said that. (Laughter) What do you think? (Applause) If he lived in the 90’s, he could have said that.

You know what though. When I think about fire, when I think about a difficult circumstance, I think about an account I read years ago, about what a silversmith does. Every time you go through a difficult situation, I want you to think about a silversmith because a silversmith pours the silver into a vat and he turns the heat up. As he turns the heat up, the impurities rise to the top and he scrapes the impurities off and he knows the silver is ready when he sees his reflection in the silver. And that is precisely what the Lord does in all of our lives. Here’s Ed Young. I am going to turn the heat up on Ed because when the heat is turned up, the impurities will rise to the top and I will scrape them off and throw them away, those ropes, that old stuff, that rebellion, that attitude, that thought life, and I know that Ed is ready to really be My man when I can see My reflection in the silver. So maybe God right now has His hand on the control, on the knob, and He is turning it up seven times hotter in your life. And you think, God, I can’t take it any more. Just remember, the impurities are rising, He will scrape them off, He is waiting to see His image, and He wants to use you in a mighty, mighty way.

And that brings us now to verse 27. “Then the princes, governors, captains and counselors crowded around them and saw that the fire hadn’t touched them -not a hair on their heads were singed; their coats were unscorched, and they didn’t even smell like smoke!” Whoa! Is that strong, or what? The Bible promises me, if I walk and I grasp God’s hand when I go through the fire, I won’t even smell like smoke.

And that brings us to the fifth and final fireproof formula. Realize that God has a promotion for you. Realize that God has a promotion in store for you. That is the fifth fireproof formula. Verse 30. “Then the king gave promotions.” And this word promotion is not some prosperity-type thing. Don’t think, well I’m in the fire and God’s going to give me promotion, He’s going to take me from the fire, heal everyone in my life, I’ll never get sick again, and He’ll make me a multi-millionaire. Ed MacMahon will come to my doorstep and say, “You’ve won, ha, ha, ha.” It won’t happen that way because God’s promotion will happen in His timing, in His economy. And the ultimate promotion will take place when we get to heaven. But the promotion is coming. Then the king gave promotions to the three men with weird names so they prospered greatly there in the province of Babylon. They prospered greatly. God can promote you in a number of ways; spiritually, physically, emotionally, but the Bible promises us He will, if we apply these five fireproof formulas in our lives. You know what? This guy has learned more in the fire than I have on a float sipping Snapple in a swimming pool. I really have. I have learned more in the fire than I do in the easy times. And that is just the way God designed it. God is not some masochistic God. He is not some God with a giant baseball bat trying to trip you up, trying to trip me up. But He does tell us, part of My will is for you to go through the fire.

Are you ready to face, though, those great walls of fire?

A Few Good Men: Part 4 – Food for Thought: Transcript

A FEW GOOD MEN SERMON SERIES

FOOD FOR THOUGHT – DANIEL IN THE LION’S DEN

HOW TO DEVELOP COURAGE

ED YOUNG

JUNE 5, 1994

What do the following names have in common? Batman, Wonder Woman, Amelia Earhart, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, General Norman Schwartzkopf? You guessed it. They are men and women of courage. And that’s why we admire these folks. Courage seems to be a character that we all want but few of us really have. Are you a man, are you a woman, of courage? Most people cross their arms and say, “You know courage is something for the extraordinary people, Ed, those human mutations, not for a ordinary, well-adjusted, middle-class, metroplex, suburbanite like me.” That line of thinking, though, is false. Because the older I get the more I realize how much old-fashioned courage it takes just to live an average, normal, everyday life.

Choices come our way in rapid-fire succession. We have the opportunity to either stand for courage or to cower, to either say, “I’m going to make a difference” or “I’m going to retreat into my shell.” “I’m going to follow God’s leadings even though they seem illogical and countercultural” or “I’m going to take the easy way out”. Most of us make these decisions so quickly that we are oblivious to the process. We end up going with the flow, kind of floating downstream, acting like anybodies instead of somebodies. I have got a secret this morning and I am going to share this secret and I want you to be a part of it. So look at your neighbor, that’s right, just take a look at your neighbor. Don’t be embarrassed. Some of you might have to look across the aisle. And I want you to say these words. “Neighbor, I’ve got a secret that I am going to share and here it is.” God wants you, that’s right you, to be a person of courage.” God wants you, that’s right, everyday, ordinary you, everyday, ordinary me, God wants all of us to be people of courage.” How? How? How?

Daniel, in my opinion, was one of the most courageous individuals to ever walk the face of the earth. And we are so thankful that his biography was been written and recorded for us in the pages of scripture. Over the few moments that remain in the session, we are going to pick his biography apart, because Daniel is going to show you and show me what it really means to develop courage. Courage is not some one-dimensional character quality. It is not something that you wait for and then when the situation arises say where an infant is being swept downstream, you heroically jump into the stream, fight the currents, grab the infant by the left toenail and drag the infant to safely through a bed of water moccasins. That’s not it. Courage is multi-dimensional. It’s multi-dimensional. It should bleed over into every area, every slice of your life and my life. And Daniel demonstrates three dimensions of courage.

The first dimension of courage is spiritual courage. Take out your outlines. They are in the bulletin. We provided all the scripture verses for you. The blanks are there, fill them in. There is something about blanks we don’t like. And most people like to fill those blanks in, and you can save these outlines and refer back to them. Three dimensions of courage. The first dimension is spiritual courage. Let’s talk about the life of Daniel, 605 BC, Babylon. The Babylonians were really a bad people and they decided to boldly walk down to Jerusalem, surround Jerusalem and take back with them the best and the brightest young people from that city. And take a wild guess who was one of the best and the brightest. That’s right, our man, the Dan man himself, Daniel. They take Daniel back. He is sixteen years of age, he just finished his sophomore year at Jerusalem High School, they take him and deport him all the way back, 500 miles to Babylon, a very decedent, a very perverted culture. And Daniel is enrolled in a private school, and you are talking about elite, the king’s private school of Babylon. The schooling lasted three years and after Daniel graduated from this Babylon school, he was to be placed in a top position in the King’s administration. Oh, yea, Daniel would also take with him three of his friends. We talked about those guys last week, you know the faithful firemen, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. So they all hung tight. They were in Babylon together.

One of the benefits, one of the fringe little perks of being at this school was the fact that you got to dine at the king’s training table. Whoa, was that good. Here are these young, strong, adventuresome Hebrew lads, and then they are told “Hey, guys, eat whatever you want, here’s all this rich food, this wine, you have whatever, whenever. We cook it, it will make the Mansion look bad. Done, its your time to eat.” And sure enough, most of them would dive in like sharks in a feeding frenzy. And they had a cholesterol feast. Maybe they served some cancer-causing hot dogs or some popcorn prepared in coconut oil. I’m not sure. But the Bible says everyone, most people, dined on this rich food. And they were commanded to eat, to dine at the king’s training table. But, but our man Daniel, because Daniel followed God, because Daniel had a personal relationship with the Lord and he knew God had instructed him not to eat anything that had been sacrificed to gods, Daniel looked at his superior and said, “No.” He said, “No.” He began to reflect some true-to-life spiritual courage. Daniel 1:8. “Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine…”. He said, “No.” Then, you’re talking about a stand-up guy, he looked at his superior and said, “I’ll tell you what, for the next ten days I will do a deal with you. Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, we will eat to win, water and vegetables and you guys can eat what you want to, this rich, fat-saturated diet. Then we will kind of compare at the end of ten days which side is more intelligent, which side looks better physically, and then whichever side looks best, well, we will go with that.” So this administrator says, “This guy has a lot of courage, he is pretty faithful, we will go ahead and try.” And take a wild, wild guess what happened. Daniel’s side won. They looked the best. Spiritual courage.

We need people of spiritual courage these days, don’t we? And some of you are saying, well, this seems rather minute, kind of an afterthought. You’re telling me that is spiritual courage over just a small, little thing, like eating, come on, what’s the big deal here? If you are going to develop courage, it starts with the small meal, it starts in bite-sized chunks. The minute you take those bite-sized courage chunks, as the stakes get higher, as the opportunity becomes broader, then you are ready to really shine for courage. Spiritual courage. Five hundred miles away, he had every reason in the world to fall into this pagan culture, but he stood for the Lord. It takes courage, I’m talking about spiritual courage just to become a Christian, doesn’t it? You know what makes me mad? And I am kind of like Michael Jackson. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.” But what makes me almost fighting mad is when someone looks me in the eye and he goes, “You know, Ed, I’m not going to become a Christian because Christianity, it’s for weaklings, it’s for people who need a crutch, it’s for people who can’t really make it in this life, so you kind of got to have that thing over there, but you see, I don’t need it, because I can make it myself.” I say, “Oh, really?” It takes courage to become a Christian. Why? Because the first thing the Bible says you have to do is, you have to confess your sins before a holy God. You’ve got to come clean, you’ve got to say, “God, I have blown it. I am a failure relationally, morally, ethically, spiritually.” You’ve got to call sin what it is. So when someone says that to me, I want to say, “Well let me tell you something, young man, Christians have a lot more guts than you do, because you won’t even tell the truth about yourself. You are afraid of it.” So please, if you are thinking about that, don’t ever use that term or those lines in front of me. Because it’s a lie. Christians have more courage than you do if you are outside the family of God right now. Spiritual courage.

We also need courage to follow Christ. To be a fully devoted follower of Him, a full-court follower of Him, a four-quarter follower of Him. Many times God’s leading in my life seems to be so odd, like coming and accepting the pastorate of this church, as an example. It seems to be so unique and I have to step out though, in courage, in spiritual courage, because that is what God wants me to do. And it is hard to do it. It is hard for you to do it. If you are really growing in Christ don’t be astonished when you think something is so crazy, that you can’t believe you’re doing it, but you trust God, even if You have not been given me the answer or the outcome beforehand. Spiritual courage. Daniel had it.

There is another dimension of courage. You can’t miss. Ethical courage.

Let’s move the pages of history ahead about sixty years. The Dan Man is still there, he is hanging tough, he is still courageous. A new king is on the scene now, his name is Darius. And Darius loved Daniel, because he saw the difference in Daniel’s life. Daniel 6:3. “Daniel so distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps by his exceptional qualities”. Circle the phrase ‘exceptional qualities’. He distinguished himself by his exceptional qualities. Daniel 6:4 (Have your pen ready for this one.) “The administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent.” Doesn’t that sound relevant to us? What happens. We’re in the business world and we are among our peers and our supervisor taps our best friend, or our co-worker, on the shoulder for the promotion. Our first response is to try to find fault in his conduct, to try to say something or do something that will really mess him up and make him look stupid in front of our supervisor. It is human nature. How do you feel when someone around you gets that promotion? These folks right here felt exactly the way we do, if we are honest with ourselves. And they wanted to trap Daniel. They wanted to nail Daniel because, you see, he was someone from a different culture. He didn’t have the same background that they had. And they tried and they tried and they tried. But he was a man who exemplified true ethical conduct.

Let me give you a hint on scripture study. Look at Daniel 6:4 again. See the name Daniel in there? Substitute your name. Just write your name above Daniel and where it says in his conduct of government affairs, put your occupation whether it be a pastor, an attorney, a doctor, a salesperson, a teacher, a homemaker, and then read the verse this way. Here is how I would read it to myself, applying the scripture: “The administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Ed in his conduct pastoring the Fellowship of Las Colinas, but they were unable to do so.” Could someone say that about me? Could the people that work with me say that? Could they say that about you? Or would they say, “We were really able to find some major, moral problems and ethical foul-ups in this person’s life.” Ethical courage. We need ethical courage in the marketplace. You are talking to the client on the phone and you say, “It cost us $2,500.”, but in actuality you know you paid $1,800 for it. “The check is in the mail”, but the check hadn’t been cut. “Yeah, I talked to him yesterday about this,” and the truth is you hadn’t talked to this man in a year. Ethical courage. Do you have it? It’s time for us to stop this easy stuff, this jump in the raft, go with the flow type mentality, just who cares, what does it matter, just kind of throwing courage out and going along with the current. It is time for some of us to stop and say “I’m going to be someone who models ethical courage. How about ethical courage to stay sexually pure. I’m talking to junior high and high school students, I’m talking to single adults. I’m talking to those of us who are married who need to resist the greener grass syndrome. To say “I am going to remain sexually pure before the marriage bed.” Because God says in His Word time and time and time and time and time again we are to remain pure for one person of the opposite sex and we can have sexual intercourse once we say “I do” before God and make that covenant with Him. That is safe sex. Safe sex is Biblical sex. Young people, don’t believe these lies from the pits of hell about this ethical code that the world and the humanists and the new agers try to give to you and me. “Well if you really love the person, it’s OK.” You know, whatever is right for them, you can be a person, a standup person who stands, and will not be moved, for ethical courage. It is the way to live. God will give you the strength, the power, the ability if you are willing to say “I’m going to be the one, Ed, I’m going to be the one. From this day forward I am going to stand up for courage.” Will you be the one? Because we have too many people here at the Fellowship of Las Colinas, you are playing the game of Christianity, but you are not really on the court or in the field. You are on the sidelines. It is time for you to get in or get out. If you are not in, leave, go somewhere else, go to another church where they tickle your ears, go to another church where you kind of fit in with your lifestyle. Don’t come here. Because God says, you make Me sick. God says you are not truly being a follower of Mine.

Let me tell you why I know this. And it breaks my heart to say this. I know it because I have been there. I have been there. Don’t ever look at me and say “Oh this guy doesn’t know what he is talking about. This guy has never been tempted. This guy has never seen sin before.” I have. I have traveled around the country. I received a full basketball scholarship at Florida State University with twelve hell-raisers. I was the only Christian these guys had ever seen. Every day they kidded me, “What’s wrong with you, Ed, why don’t you have sex outside of marriage? What’s wrong with you, Ed, why don’t you do cocaine with us. What’s wrong with you, Ed, why don’t you smoke dope with us? What’s wrong with you, Ed, why don’t you go to the strip joints with us? Ed, what’s wrong, what’s wrong, what’s wrong.” And I’ll tell you the temptation was real. Have you ever seen the girls at Florida State? Four to one ratio, guys to girls. I mean Lisa and I were in love but there were some great looking babes there. I was a thousand miles away from home, man. No one would have ever known. I was making money on a full scholarship. My rent only cost $99.00 a month and full scholarship paid me $800.00 a month. You see where it has gotten Florida State now. It would have been easy. And I am a normal person. Have the same drives and desires of every man and woman here. But, I did something. I asked God for ethical, standup, moral courage and He gave it to me. So when I was married, I was married a virgin. You don’t have to have sex outside of marriage. That is a lie. And you young people say, “Well you know if you have sex outside of marriage, you know, you can kind of try it out and then you sex will be better in marriage.” I want to laugh. The best sex in the world, again, is Christian Biblical sex, one man, one woman in marriage. If you have failed sexually, you say today, I am going to confess my sins, turn from them and start to become a person with ethical courage.

I have never had a drink of alcohol in my life. And some persons will say, “Oh, here he goes. I knew it. Oh my goodness. Oh he has mentioned the alcohol thing. Let’s get up and leave. I’m taking my coat off. Oh my goodness, I cannot believe this. Oh, because I have one beer a week I guess I can’t come to church here anymore, oh man.” Let me tell you something about alcohol. If you drink, it is between you and God. Nowhere in the Bible does it say if you drink you are going to go to hell. Nowhere. And people ask me about drinking all the time. “Well, should I drink or not”. That is between you and God. I would tell you from personal opinion not to drink and let me tell you why. I have never met a person and I have counseled hundreds and hundreds of people who have been devastated by alcohol, I have never counseled a person who has told me, “Well you know what, when I took my first drink at fourteen I really wanted to be an alcoholic”. I have never met that person. If you are, please come up and tell me that after this. Please do that. But the reason I don’t drink is because I believe it causes a weaker brother or sister to stumble. And they look at my life as a Christian and they look at your life as a Christian. There are too many alternatives. “Well, Ed, I like the taste, you know”. Well, there is non-alcoholic wine and beer. But if you drink, I am not going to judge you. And I see people often times in restaurants when I come in, it is a mad dash to try to hide it and cover it. (Demonstration and audience laughter) I mean, I was born at night but not last night. Please. But I am saying to you, it’s time to make a stand and I would tell you to remain abstinent as far as drinking. I have never had a drop of alcohol and I know I have a better time than anyone who drinks. So it is between you and God. But again, I am talking about ethical courage here. You can do it if I can do it. Man, you can do it.

There is a final dimension of courage. It is called relational courage. We are going back to our man Daniel. Daniel 6:1-3. Relational courage. The Bible says “It pleased Darius to appoint 120 satraps to rule throughout the kingdom, with three administrators over them, one of whom was Daniel…the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom.” Again, Daniel was the man. But Daniel is going to exemplify some relational courage because he had a tight relationship with Darius, but even though the relationship was tight, he stood.

And this is what happened. Those administrators told Darius, you are so awesome, you are so great you ought to set forth an edict. For the next thirty days anyone who worships anything other than you should be thrown into the lion’s den. They should go to Food Lion. And sure enough Darius saya, “You know I am great and you know what, I’m going to do it. I can do that. I’m king.” And they said, “Right, Darius.” So he set forth an edict and he pops his seal on the edict, boom, there it is. I’m ready to go. But then these people, they snuck around, they knew Daniel, they knew he was a man of God, they knew he was a standup guy. And sure enough the Bible says, look at Daniel 6:10. Daniel began to pray, as he had done three times a day, circle that phrase ‘three times a day’, as he had always done. And they said Daniel, we got you man, we’ve got you. And they ran back to the King. “King, King, King, oh it breaks our hearts to tell you this, King. Oh it really hurts us, but Daniel, your man, he is praying to that Jehovah, to the God of Israel. Oh, no it hurts us.” And Darius, you’re talking about devastated, he was crushed, he was torn apart. And he had to throw Daniel into the lion’s den.

But something happened in the lion’s den because of Daniel’s faith and because God decided to deliver him, He shut the mouths of the lions and Daniel was delivered. But think about that relational courage, because Daniel had it. He stood up to someone he was close to named Darius. We need people of relational courage. How about in our marriages. Too many people are just throwing in the gloves and walking out of the ring and saying that’s it for this marriage, I’m going to get someone else. But it is time to put on the gloves and say to your spouse, “We’re going to fight for this thing, because every marriage has problems, every marriage has sticking points, every marriage has areas that need work on.” You’ve got to say, “We are going to work on it, we are going to take steps and we are going to take strides to really make it happen. We are going to talk to that marriage counselor, we are going to go on that couple’s retreat, because we want to have that God-inspired, Holy Spirit anointed marriage.” Relational courage.

We need relational courage in raising our children, don’t we? You know what’s funny? I see two and three year old children intimidating their parents. The other day I was in the grocery store, which is a rare thing, and I saw this big body-builder guy. He was walking with his wife, aAnd in the cart there was a little baby, a baby about two and a half years old. And this little baby started whimpering. ” What do you want? What do you need?” And then the baby began to whine…”candy, candy”. And this big body builder is running over and getting candy and running back. “What else do you need?” “You can ride the horsey when we leave”. They were afraid to discipline the child. The child was running the show. Because for some strange reason they had been reading this secular material which says you should climb into the playpen, sit down indian style and reason with the child. Parents, your children aren’t always going to love you. They are not. I really should say they are not always going to like you, they will always love you down deep, but they are not going to always like you. And they are going to whine and complain and moan because you have drawn the line in the sand. But there has to be consequences when children cross the line. Whether they sit out or whether they get popped. And I am not saying to turn into a mean-spirited dictator mom or dad. But we’ve got to stand up and say I’m going to have relational courage because I want my child to be a difference-maker. And parents when you show your children courage they will catch this courage thing. But at the time you are not going to win the popularity contest. Relational courage, raising our children.

We also need relational courage to build significant relationships, to build significant friendships, especially the men here. Men, all we do is talk about facts, most of the time. What do you do for a living? What is your handicap? How many kids? Where do you live? Where are you from? Women. They share feelings left and right. You go into a room of women, I’ve been in a room of forty or fifty all talking at the same time. But they are hearing something. Men, we need to get more in touch with our feelings and talk to that golfing buddy, who better be someone who knows Jesus Christ. It’s time we get past talking about the stock market and how many clients I have this month and we get to the real issues of life.

Spiritual courage. Ethical courage. Relational courage. We are cruising now. We are spurring the horse to the barn. It’s about time to conclude and I will after listing four ways, right now, that we can all develop courage. Four ways, four marks. First, you have got to eat spiritual food. You have got to eat spiritual food. And what is spiritual food? Spiritual food is the Word of God, spiritual food is talking to God in prayer. What did Daniel do? He prayed how many times a day? Three times a day, three square spiritual meals a day. He knew the physical diet was important and also that the spiritual diet was important. And he got in touch with God. Too many times in my life here is what I do. I kind of do a quick drive through type meal. “This is God, Ed, can I help you?” “Yes, God, I would like a MacBlessing and a MacGuided with cheese and french fries.” “Go to the first window and pay $7.25.” “Thanks, God.” Vroooom. I pay the money and then I am off, you know. That’s not it. Too many of us are picking appetizers instead of going for the full course meal, instead of a true entree. And that is what Daniel did, and that is what gave him courage. The Bible says in Joshua 1:8 “Do not let this Book of the Law depart from you mouth.” That means talk about it. “Meditate on it day and night.” That means think about it. “So that you may be careful to do…” That means apply it. “…everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.” Spiritual depth happens when you talk about it, when you think about it and when you do it. Great preaching, great bible study is not informational it is transformational. And a lot of people walk around saying “Ed, I am getting deep spiritually because I finally figured out the complex aqueduct system during the reign of Solomon. I finally figured out the eschatological ramifications of Daniel 9 compared to Revelation 18. I finally figured out I am a pre-millennial dispensationalist and not an amillennialist.” That’s deep? That’s doing God’s work. Those things are important, but that’s not it. You’ve got to know it but you also have to apply it. And when you apply it you eat it and the spiritual calories give you energy to do it.

That brings us to the second step found in Joshua 1:9. The Bible says “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous…” Circle that phrase, commanded you. It is not an option. Number two. Realize that courage is standard equipment. That is the second step. Realize that courage is standard equipment, it is not optional. “Well, I’ll take this, and maybe not that.” When you buy a car some things are standard. When you become a Christian courage is a standard, it is a basic, it is a given, it is a foundational principle. And that is why God told Joshua, “Have I not commanded you, be strong and courageous.” But most of us, what we do is, we kind of collapse courage. We have courage out when it is convenient to be courageous. But then when peer pressure begins to circle, when everyone else is doing it, when everyone else is going there, when everyone else is getting drunk, when everyone else is having sex outside of marriage. “Oh, I better fold this up and put it away and hide it. Man, no, no, no. I’ll just collapse courage.” And then after that temptation passes and you fall to it, then, “OK, now I will bring courage back. I’m around Christians now, I’ll be courageous, you see, I’m for God. I’m really a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Sound familiar?

Here’s the third one. Face your lions. Do the Gunther Gable Williams thing. Daniel 6:22. “My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions…” Daniel faces these snaggle-toothed, bad-breathed, 1200 pound king of the jungle type things breathing down his neck for hours, and hours, and hours, and hours. In Joshua 1:9 it says “Do not be terrified…” Do you know what courageous people are? Courageous people are ordinary people who face their fears, ordinary people who face the lions. That’s what courageous people are. Facing the lions, facing the music. They are simple people, but they are people who face them. Because if you don’t face your lions, let me tell you what will happen. If you don’t face them and cower and run from them, the lions will get bigger and bigger and bigger and one day they will take you apart. If you face the lions, which is tough, there will be tears, there will be sorrow, there will be victory, there will be defeat now and then. But if you rely on God, you face those fears, every battle you win, even those bite-sized chunks, will be like rungs on a ladder. You climb higher and higher upward on that courageous continuum. So face your lions.

And finally. Joshua 1:9. The Bible says “…do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” Number four. Limit your exposure to cowardly people. Limit your exposure to cowardly, spineless, gutless people. There is a lot of talk these days about limiting your exposure to the sun. You don’t want to get melanoma or skin cancer so you put on the sunblock. Well you need to limit your exposure to cowardly people. If you hang around with them too much their rays are damaging and they will cause those cowardly melanomas all over your body. So it is time to ask the Holy Spirit to put you with a super spiritual sunblock, hang around with strong, courageous people. That is why we have provided these outlines for you and have you read about these Biblical characters, these courageous people, so you can have an infusement of courage.

One question. Today we have learned, and we have had presented to us, food for thought. Are you going to eat it, or not?

A Few Good Men: Part 6 – Heir Conditioning: Transcript

A FEW GOOD MEN SERMON SERIES

HEIR CONDITIONING – ABRAHAM AND ISAAC

HOW TO BECOME THE ULTIMATE DAD

JUNE 19, 1994

ED YOUNG

Very often my daughter, Lee Beth, will rush up to me, look up at me with those big brown eyes and ask the following question. “Daddy, will you carry me on your shoulders?” Now what father can refuse a request like that? I say, “Sure honey.” I pick her up, put her on my shoulders and walk her around. After I get tired, I place her down. And the minute her feet hit the carpet, you guessed it, my two year old, EJ, comes running up and EJ asks me, “Daddy, up, Daddy, up”? That is his way of asking the same question. So I pick up EJ and carry him around for awhile. When I feel the weight of my children on my shoulders, Dads, I am reminded of the weighty responsibility I have being their father. They look up to me, they take their cues from me, they watch me. And while I am walking I am very conscious of the fact of making proper decisions in regard to footing, in regard to doorways and ceiling fans, because they are so precious to me. And your children, Dads, are precious to you.

Most of us don’t realize it, but decisions we make today affect the destiny of our children. Dads, when we are long gone our children will still be thinking about the kind of man their father was. What kind of a father was he? So it should be our agenda to be just like the Lord, because our children want to be just like us. Dads, I am a goal-oriented person and a goal oriented father. It is my desire to become what I call an ultimate father. I think every man here would echo that statement. And the great news is, God wants all fathers to become ultimate Dads and we can if we learn how to make the right decisions. If we learn, Dads, how to make the right decisions. God’s Word tells us precisely and in a very succinct manner how we can make the proper decisions.

There are six major decisions that every father faces. I want to encourage you, not discourage you. I also want to stand along side you instead of above you. Don’t think for a nanosecond that these are your problems, your decisions, your dilemmas and not mine. I am right there with you. I also want to challenge, motivate and stimulate you to be a better father, better than just normal, just average. I don’t want you just to blend into the scenery, I want you to stand up and become a difference maker.

Let’s jump right into the first decision we face. Presents vs Your Presence. Gifts vs time. Trinkets vs moments. It is so easy for us, fathers, to fall into this trap, to do the presents thing. It is too easy for us to spend large blocks of time, energy and effort in providing for our family so we can shower our children and our wives with the phenomenal, unbelievable, Neiman Marcus type gifts. And we justify our workaholism by saying that we are providing for our family in a mighty way. Dad, many of us take that mentality to an extreme. I have never met a family that was better off because of the gifts they have received. I am not saying gifts are bad. Gifts are great. But when they become the substitute, when presents become the substitute, Dad, for giving your children what they really want, your presence, then it really messes things up. That’s why the Bible boldly proclaims in Ephesians 5:15-16, “Be very careful, then, how you live…” There is something sinister occurring and it involves the market place vs the home. Fathers, we have got to make a choice. We have got to make a call today, because the marketplace screams for our attention. “Ah ha, ah ha, come this way because if you follow the marketplace you will have parties, perks and promotions. And you will get raises and you will be able to climb the corporate ladder and you will be able to really be someone.” The marketplace screams for our attention. And most men because we get our self-esteem from the marketplace, we just kind of inch our way closer and closer to the marketplace and then we just dive in. Being a great father, being a difference-maker dad, does not provide one with any parties, perks and promotions. But I am going to tell you something, your reward and awards here are perishable. Being a difference maker dad, that is imperishable, it lasts for eternity. And that is what I am talking about when I say heir conditioning.

The Bible continues…”Be very careful, then, how you live….making the most of every opportunity…” There is nothing, nothing, Dad, that you can substitute for you. There is nothing there except you. You are it. I remember back in school, when a teacher couldn’t come to school, they would bring in a substitute. And substitutes were never, ever the same. You can’t have a substitute play this role for you. So give your children what they want, what they need, what they desire. It is you. Here is your homework. State, “I will give each child a present of my time this week.” That is your homework. I will give each child a present of my time this week. Take each child and do something with them. Enter their world. You see, we mess up, Fathers, when we say this. “I am spending quality time with my son,” but then we drag him to the driving range. That is what we want to do. He wants to go to Chuckie Cheese and we want to go to the driving range. “Son, sit over here and play with your Chuckle Cheese doll and watch what Daddy is doing now with this new Big Bertha iron.” Whoosh. “Back up, you might get hit.” Whoosh. “Yeah, retrieve two or three of those balls for me.” It is great, it is great to teach your children, Dads, how to play golf, how to hunt, how to fish, how to enjoy the Rangers, all those things, but do enter their world, too.

Recently one evening I called some close friends. I talked briefly to the wife and then asked what her husband was doing since I wanted to speak with him. Let me tell you what she said. She said, “Ed, he is drawing hot air balloons with his oldest daughter.” And this guy weighs 235 pounds, and is 6’4″. You see, he was entering her world, spending time doing what she wanted to do.

When I look back on my life, I don’t remember the cool vacation spots that Dad took us to, or the nice gifts. But I do remember where he sat in the bleachers every time I played athletics. Or I remember his laugh, or I remember those long conversations we would have almost every night at mealtime. I remember his passion for Jesus. That is what I remember. The presence, the presence of my father. Dads, are you going to give presents, material things, or give what they need?

Let’s go to the next dilemma, the next decision that we face. A Morsel vs A Meal. A morsel vs a meal. I’ll tell you something I don’t like. Now I enjoy parties, but, when I go to a party and they just have little finger food, hors d’oeuvres and little morsels, I want more than that. “Let me have about 32 of those please.” Finger food, morsels don’t really satisfy the hunger pangs, do they? They make my stomach growl louder. “More, Ed, more food.” I want something substantial. I want something big when I eat. I want a meal. Dads, we only have a certain amount of emotional energy. And most of us as we dive into the marketplace, where we are leaders, creative and innovative, and we are difference makers. And after we have given our best, after we have fed those people we work with the meal, we drag home about 5:30 or 6:00. “Where is the lazy boy and where is my Snapple, honey, I’m just going to sit back and chill.” It is then that we give our children finger food, little morsels, little tidbits of Dad. And a lot of us have our children and our wives on about 1,500 parental calorie diet meals a day, just giving out a little bit. Dads, what I want to challenge you to do is, yes, give your best at work but put in as much effort, as much energy, as much creativity, as much humor, as much fun into your family at home. There is nothing that can replace that masculine touch. Watch your children and your wives come alive when you do this, when you begin to give them something nourishing, a full meal. The Bible says in Proverbs 24:3-4 “By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established: through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures.” Those are the big three; wisdom, understanding and knowledge. Here is your homework, Dads. Say, I will plan one innovative and creative activity a month for my family. That’s right. I will plan one innovative and creative activity a month for my family. Have these activities goal oriented. What do you want your family to do because of this activity? Let me explain. Call the church office and speak to the person in charge of missions. Ask to be assigned a needy family to personally assist. If you want to show your children how to help people in need, to obey what the Bible says, take a Saturday or a Sunday afternoon, figure out something creative and innovative to do with this needy family. Buy them things they need, help with repairs.

Maybe you would like to show your children that materialism is a joke, a wasted effort, and that pursuing materialism puts one on treadmill. So you think, let’s see, we have Christmas coming up, I know what we will do that is creative. This Christmas we won’t spend any money on trinkets or toys we are going to make something for each other. The best Christmas that Lisa and I have ever had was about three years ago when we did that. We did not spend anything on the typical trinkets and toys, but we went out and we made gifts for our family. I know it sounds weird, I know it sounds unAmerican, counter-cultural. We were experiencing creativity and helping one another.

Maybe your goal is spiritual. Talk about some different scripture verses and get your family members to research each one and to present them in their own way. I don’t know what it is, but plan it and ask God for the creativity. God created everything, look at His genius and if we know Him, we know the Creator. Everyone is creative. So don’t ever say, “I’m just not creative, man, I’m just not.” If you know Christ you are. The power is there.

Let’s move now to a third decision we face. Lecture vs Listening. Lecture vs Listening. I love this one because it is my inclination to lecture. I make my living talking. I want to come home and just lecture. Lisa, don’t cloud me with the facts let me just lecture. And I will lecture away at her and LeeBeth and EJ. Usually when I lecture first, I discover the facts and I say, “Oh oh. If I only would have listened first.” To lecture or to listen. Here is what the scripture says about lecturing, James 1:19-20. I encourage you to read James 1 this afternoon. It is a chapter written directly to men. James 1:19-20 “…be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.” I define listening as placing great importance on what other people say. Nowhere in the Bible do you find the home defined as an extension of the office. Nowhere in the Bible does it say your wife and your children are your employees and that you are the CEO. We have this corporate hat on at the office. We get into a frenzy, blowing and going, rocking and rolling. Then we come home and we don’t want to take it off. We think we should run our family and our home like that. Learn how to listen. That is why the Bible says man has two ears and one mouth. We are to listen more than we are to speak. Here is your homework assignment. Say, “I will approach every family member with two big ears and one small mouth.” James 1:19. “Be quick to listen..” I like that.

What does it mean to really listen to someone? How do you hear your children? I sometimes us an acrostic, the word ear. E stands for, establish eye contact. If you are really going to listen, establish eye contact. Don’t be what I call a Nolan Ryan listener. Remember Nolan Ryan, don’t you? He was a baseball player. Nolan, when he would pitch, if he had someone on first, which was a rarity, he would kind of, you know, look them off. Take a couple of glances. Fathers, have you ever found yourselves trying to listen to your kids like that? You may be reading about the terrible situation with OJ Simpson while your son and daughter are vying for your attention. Do you kind of look them off? LeeBeth the other night told me how she felt when she spoke to me. She said, “Daddy, you know every time I tell you a story, here is what you say” She imitated me saying, “That’s great LeeBeth. That’s great, LeeBeth.” She wants, instead, to feel listened to. So E means establish eye contact. A, become aware of body language. Yeah, listen to them but also watch them. What is the body saying? If you listen to your children when they are kneehigh they will talk to you, parents, when they are treehigh. R means to respond by summarizing. When your children are talking to you, let them know you are understanding and comprehending what they are saying by summarizing what they say in language they understand, in short, succinct sentences. That’s how you listen, Dads. Do that and watch the change take place.

There is a fourth area of decision. Perfection vs Promotion. We have a lot of perfectionist dads here always expecting the best. ” My kids only do the best. My wife has to look and act and respond perfectly.” If they don’t, something is wrong. Perfectionists overreact. Either something is the best, the greatest, incredible, unbelievable, and you have got to experience it or it is the worst, the sorriest and no good. A perfectionist doesn’t give anyone room to fail, to stumble, to fall. Most of us sit at the feet of those hall of fame baseball players. “Wow, what great men. Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, wow. If I can only be a hall of fame baseball player.” But when we look at their averages we find they were 311, 272, 297. That means, men, that when they bat ten times, about seven times they are out, either a strike out, a fly out or a ground out. But they are the best, even though they get a hit about three out of ten times. When your children strike out, when your children miss that pop up, do you still promote them, do you still treat them like a hall of fame baseball player? God says in His word, in Ephesians 6:4, “Fathers, do not exasperate your children…” Let me give you three definitions of exasperate. A major way to exasperate is to say one thing and do another. You talk to psychologists and they will tell you one of the biggest self-esteem negative licks a child can take, is for a father to promise them something and not to come through. “Yeah, we will go camping next month. I’ll promise you.” “Well I am busy now, how about next spring.” Also, to exasperate means you always blame, always blame, always point the finger, always emphasize the negative. Another way to exasperate is to be inconsistent with discipline. Kind of like a NBA ref. Talk about subjective. The New York Knicks have a great basketball team, don’t they? But they can call a foul anytime they want to. I don’t really like the way the NBA is going, I don’t watch very much of it, but what I have seen is this. You can just kill someone on the court and there will be no foul, and the next time, FOUL. Fathers, have you ever done that before? Your kid did something just horrible, commits treason, and you say, kind of like Ward Cleaver, “Beaver come on into the study. Now Beaver you shouldn’t have burned the garage down. We know we shouldn’t play with matches now. You will have to go to your room and miss supper just tonight. OK? Thank you. You are a great kid.” And then the next time, the little Beaver would just do something like making a 99 on a spelling test, “Beaver, what did you do? This is terrible.” You see that? You recognize that? The Bible tells us, “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” I met a first grade teacher one time and here is how she would grade papers. Instead of grading a 70 paper as -3, she would call it a +7. I like that. Here is your homework, Dads. Say, “I will encourage my child and my family one time a day for the next week.” Find something good, find something you can promote about their lives. Then stand back and take a view of what can occur.

The next decision is, Sensuality vs Sensibility. Men, the greatest need in our marriages that the woman must fulfill is for sexual companionship. Read anything about marriage, a man’s number one desire is sexual fulfillment. And ladies, he has chosen you as the person to fulfill these needs. On the other hand, men, the number one need that women have is emotional fulfillment, I am talking about meaningful conversation. We have got to work on both of those things. And the Bible tells us in James, “Don’t say when you are tempted.” And by the way, if any man thinks he can sit with his arms crossed, tapping his foot, and say, “Well, this one is not for me. There is no way I will ever have an affair or I will ever cheat on my wife. No way, not me.”, then he is not very smart. Because James says we will all be tempted. When you are tempted, not if you are tempted. This section of scripture is written for men. It says “When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me’…” “God is the one who led me to this hotel, God is the one that gave me that job and put that co-worker who is really attractive in my life.” “…For God cannot be tempted by evil. Nor does He tempt anyone, but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.” The word enticed is a game term. I am talking about big game hunting or fishing. Entice means to lure an animal from safety into an area of vulnerability and then the animal is trapped. Dads, the evil one wants to take you out and one of the best ways he does it is by getting you out from a place of safety, monogamy, being a one-woman man, out into a place of vulnerability, into an affair. I come in contact with too many marriages, too many people, too many children who have been devastated and torn apart by this sin. If you have had an affair, do what the Bible says, make it right, get away from it, cut the relationship off. But, be sure, it is something that our adversary uses to take us. It really is, and he can use it to rip apart your family. The book of James continues and it says, “…Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin: and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”

Now, I want to share with you a plan, that is just going to blow you away, men. I am going to tell you how you can affair-proof your marriage by doing one thing. It is the application point. Say, “I will carry around a photograph of my family with me.” If you are on a road trip on business and you feel temptation, take out your wallet and begin to show this person, this member of the opposite sex, a picture of your family. ” That’s my lovely wife. That is my seven year old daughter, my two year old son.” And watch the temptation subside. Put these pictures in your office, because many times temptations occur at the marketplace. Make sure you have those pictures. Take the pictures with you when you travel. I encourage you to put the picture of your family on your nightstand. It will keep you off the X-rated stuff, offered in almost every hotel room. And when your children call you when you are on the road and they ask you, “Dad, what are watching?” you can say, before God, the Brady Bunch, CNN or the Andy Griffith Show and not something else. Because, men, if you fail sexually outside the marriage bed, you are going to have to look your children in the eye and tell them why. For me, I would have to face my wife, Lisa. and she says she would carry a bayonet. And I won’t tell you what she would want to do with the bayonet. I will carry a picture of my family around. That will take care of this sensuality thing. The sixth decision. Lackadaisical vs Leadership. Am I going to be lackadaisical, am I going to kind of go with the flow, or am I going to be a leader? Think of the individual athletes we have seen fall from the pedestal, Magic Johnson, Pete Rose, OJ Simpson, just to name a few. And it shows us again, that if we put our confidence in man, in the things of the world, in fame, it is useless. It is nothing. But again, as that popular song so beautifully says, our prayer should be, I want to be like you, God, because I know my children want to be like me. So our role models need to be, of course, the Lord, and men of God, not the people who sign 55 million dollar contracts, who endorse Reebocks and Nike and Gatoraid and everything else, but men of God. We have many single parents here, and single parents, and I am talking to females, make sure you expose your children to men of integrity, men of authenticity, men of leadership who take their cues not from OJ Simpson or Magic but from God. And again, watch what happens. So being lackadaisical vs being a leader. Genesis 18:19. “..he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just…” I am talking about spiritual leadership here. Men, what would happen if you died right now? What would happen? What kind of spiritual void would be left in your family? You want to watch your wife and your children come alive? You begin to initiate spiritual things. Begin to initiate prayer. It needs to be your idea to take them to church. Wow. They are begging for it, they want it. To see a man who has a heart for God. We can look throughout the pages of scripture and see how fathers have failed. I think about Eli who spent so much time at the office that he messed up with his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas. I think about David, the king, the articulate one. He gave presents instead of his time. Look what happened to Absalom. I think about Jacob, that Hebrew hillbilly, who showed favoritism to his son, Joseph. And again look what happened.

Let me conclude by talking to you about a man named old father Abraham. Remember that song, “Father Abraham”? I love that song. As I read the Bible one time I asked myself this question, why did God choose Abraham? Why Abraham? Why not somebody else? Why the A man? And I wondered, and I wondered and I wondered. And have you ever been reading the Bible, and you are reading along and all of a sudden a verse will jump out like a pit viper and bite you on the nose. That happened this week to me. I was wondering, “God, why did you choose the A man?” And I read Genesis 18:19. “For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what He has promised him.” Boom. I thought, “Ed, can you apply this to your life?” Maybe you could insert your name for Abraham’s name, and play this game with me. This is how to apply scripture. “For I have chosen Ed, (a first round draft choice in the daddy draft) so that Ed will direct (as director of player personnel in my family) his children and his household after him (they will take their cues from me) so that the Lord will bring about for Ed what He has promised him.” There are thousands and thousands of promises in the Bible, men, and God will give you amazing things if you follow these cues and these decisions and understand what it means to be a parental heir conditioner.

Virtuous Reality: Part 3 – Pay Back or Pull Back: Transcript

VIRTUOUS REALITY SERMON SERIES

PAY BACK OR PULL BACK? – DAVID AND SAUL

ED YOUNG

OCTOBER 8, 1995

What is at the forefront of every person’s mind in this audience this morning? The Verdict, the most watched, live television event in history. Throughout the nine months of the OJ Simpson trial, one family captured the attention of millions of Americans as we witnessed their agony, pain and grief. I am referring to the Goldman family. On Tuesday morning they sat in a packed L.A. courtroom and heard the words, not guilty. When those words echoed around the courtroom, the Goldman’s didn’t just stand up, gather their things and say, “It’s over, that’s it.” No. The Goldmans are seeking revenge. They want to pay back injury for injury, insult for insult, heartbreak for heartbreak. Revenge effects us all, not only in tragic situations like the Goldmans are experiencing but in our everyday lives as well. That spouse who moved out unexpectedly. That business associate who ripped you off. That son or daughter who routinely rages all over you. What do you do, what do I do when those opportunities for revenge present themselves? Do we pull back or do we pay back?

Today I am continuing a series on the life of the Biblical character, David. David dealt with revenge. He had many, many opportunities to seek revenge and over the next few moments his life is going to show us what we should do when we are tempted to seek revenge. Briefly let me set the context of David’s life. King Saul, that schizophrenic man from Israel had one agenda, one mission in his life, and that was to kill David. Saul wanted to rub David out, so he hired 3,000 of the best trained soldiers in the world to go after David. Now it is one thing to have a contract out on you, it is another thing to have the most powerful man, backed up by the most powerful military in the world, hunting you down day after day after day. This is what occurred in the life of David. It is staggering to realize that only a few years earlier David had saved the day for the nation of Israel. He had killed Goliath, he had single-handedly delivered the Israelites over their archenemies the Philistines. Saul had hired him as a military leader, everything he touched was successful. Even the old soldiers loved David. He was the man, the toast of the town, the most popular man in Israel. Saul got jealous. He looked at David with that eye of envy and jealousy turned to bitterness, bitterness to rage and rage turned into motivation to murder God’s man. With one snap of his fingers Saul knocked all the props out from the life of David. Have you ever felt like all the props have been knocked out in your life? Saul took away David’s wife and his rank. David lost his relationship with his spiritual mentor, Samuel and also his intimate friendship with Jonathan. He lost it all. It was so bad for David you could write a Country and Western song about his plight, that is how bad it was. David was on the run, he was a fugitive.

The Bible says that David was hiding in a region known as En Gedi which is near the Dead Sea. I have been there. And in that area there are literally thousands of caves. One afternoon it was really, really hot and David plus about four hundred renegade men he had collected while being a fugitive decided to hide in a cave. Saul was after them. He was in high speed pursuit with three thousand troops. He was searching for David and he knew David and some men were in the vicinity, when something very ordinary happened to Saul, something very natural. You won’t believe what happened. Look at the first verse on your outline. Before I read this text don’t ever say or don’t ever let a person say that the Bible is just not realistic. If you don’t think the Bible is realistic you listen to my words very, very carefully. I Samuel 24:3. “A cave was there and Saul went in to relieve himself. David and his men were far back in the cave.” The Living Bible says Saul went in the cave to go to the bathroom. We might say that Mother Nature tapped him on the shoulder. Get the snapshot, the most powerful man in the world walking into a Biblical rest stop, a cave, and the cave that Saul picks happens to be the same cave that David and all of his renegade men are in.

What do you think they said when they saw Saul coming in? The Bible says the men told David that God had delivered Saul into his hands. They told David to take him, that he was in a most vulnerable position. And read the whole story this afternoon. I did not list all the scripture verses on your outline, but David began to sneak up on Saul. And can’t you see that sword in his hand? And I am sure rushing through David’s mind were thoughts like, “With one thrust of my sword I could be King of Israel. No more running. No more sunburn. No more goat burgers. I can do it.” And he probably thought about what Saul had done to him, totally abused him. All of the charges brought against him had been unrealistic, they were from la la land. David was loyal to Saul. Right before David could kill Saul, he did something that was so counter-cultural, so unique, yet so Holy Spirit driven. David, instead of seeking revenge, pulls back and cuts a piece of Saul’s robe off and takes it with him far back in the shadows. Then Saul exits the cave.

A cave was there and Saul went in to relieve himself. David and his men were far back in the cave. What a chance for revenge and he didn’t take it. Here is the first principle I want you to grasp in thinking about the temptation of revenge. Prepare for the snare. Prepare for the snare, because the snare for revenge, the snare to pay someone back is real and it is going to be there and oftentimes God will deliver your Saul, that person who has really abused you, that person who has taken advantage of you, that person who has really messed you around, God, oftentimes will deliver them to your cave and you will have a chance, an opportunity, to really get back at them. Prepare for the snare. You have got to prepare before you get into the situation where you will be enticed to get that person back. And Jesus tells us how to prepare for the snare. Before I read this next verse, I want you to say this word with me. Ouch. Ouch. Because this verse hurts. This is a verse that is not popular, this verse hurts me, this verse hurts you because it really cuts to the quick. Matthew 5:44. Jesus said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Jesus has given us two things to do in order to prepare for the snare, love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. David did that. Study the life of David. David was a man of prayer, a man who knew how to talk to God. I believe that when someone hurts us or takes advantage of us, the first thing we should do is start praying for them. Write their name out in our prayer journal and begin to pray. If we don’t, if we wait, if we let it fester, if we let it churn, then when that person is delivered to us we are going to jump on them and nail them because we have waited too long to prepare. We have waited too long to prepare if we wait until the opportunity for revenge presents itself. We have got to start preparing the moment the person has hurt us. We have to start saying, “God, I don’t want to love this person. I don’t even want to like this person. In fact, God, this person makes me sick, but Your word has told me I should pray for them.” And when you start praying for the person, God will give you an infusion over time of supernatural love and you’ll begin to love your enemy and that will help you prepare for the snare. Pray about it, then the love will come. And for many of us we are going to have to act like we love the person, because it is much easier to act your way into a feeling than to feel your way into an action. We act our way into the feeling because it is right. It doesn’t feel right but it is right. Prepare for the snare.

Every time I see the word snare I think about a couple of years ago when we had a mouse problem in our house. We had a serious mouse problem. The mice were everywhere. One of my closest friends is paranoid about mice so I won’t call his name out, he is here in this service. Mice are kind of weird and spooky creatures, aren’t they. They have little beady eyes, little teeth, little paws. They were eating up all of my oat bran cereal. I got mad at them. I went to Tom Thumb and bought three mouse traps and I did what a typical mouse hunter would do. I put cheese on the traps. For three straight nights I set the traps with the cheese, woke up the next morning and looked in the pantry. The cheese was gone, oat bran was gone, these things were making me hot. So I began to talk to some people, some other mouse hunters and they told me that I needed peanut butter. They told me to put the peanut butter on the trap, which they love and which is rather sticky and chewy and will keep them at the trap. I even went one step further since we live in Texas and I love Mexican food. I put a little bit of tortilla

along with the peanut butter on the mouse traps. So I made three mouse fajitas on the three mouse traps and left them side by side. We had been in bed twenty minutes when we heard three loud bangs, the greatest sound in the world for a mouse hunter, I ran in and sure enough there were three of them. Kind of gross. What happened? They could not resist it. And because it was so chewy, and that Peter Pan peanut butter tasted so good, they couldn’t get away from it. And the traps nailed them. When that snare is there to really seek revenge, to really go after someone, it looks inviting so most of us rush into it and we chew the person out, we just get into it and we get into it too much. Revenge becomes part of us and bitterness and rage takes over. It is a matter of time before that giant trap will come down and get us. And we are wondering what is holding us back, and why we feel like we are dragging all this stuff around in our lives. It is because of the revenge factor. Prepare for the snare.

Number two. Show the way, don’t repay. That is what David did. I Samuel 24:6-8. “He said to his men, (David said to those 400 men renegade men with him after he had returned from cutting off a piece of Saul’s robe) the Lord forbid that I should … lift my hand against him; for he is the anointed of the Lord.” David did not respect Saul as a person, he did, however, respect his position. David was loyal to Saul. God often puts someone in His chain of command over us, it could be the tyrant at work, it could be the unfair teacher, it could be the coach who is a jerk, it could be the parent who seems like they are out to Mars, whatever it is, God puts this person in our chain of command to teach us some things. He is going to see if we tear apart the person and the position or whether we respect the position. Do we respect God’s chain of command? Are we loyal in this realm? David was loyal to Saul. Even though we would say he should have taken him out. He was loyal to Saul. With these words David rebuked his men and did not allow them to attack Saul. Then David went out of the cave. What a great opportunity to teach and David seized it. The men had told him to take Saul out, but David doesn’t, he comes back and he models to the men some true authenticity. He models to his men how to handle the urge to seek revenge. He models to his men how to pull back instead of pay back.

The Apostle Paul puts it this way in Romans 12:17, “Do not repay anyone evil for evil.” Have you ever thought about this? What if God said this? What if God said, “You know what, I’m going to start repaying evil for evil. None of us would be here, not one because any sin, any little white lie, any little off day is abhorrent in the eyes of God and sin demands a punishment and if God had not sent Jesus Christ, He would have had to punish us for it and we wouldn’t be here. God did not repay evil for evil, he repaid evil with good by sending Jesus Christ to take the punishment on the cross for all of our sins. “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.” We have many, many people who are believers here, and some who are not, and if you are a believer this is the place for you and if you are a seeker, this is the place for you, but we pray that you will come into a personal relationship with Jesus. But let me talk to Christians for a second. If you are a Christian, you have people who are watching you. You have scores and scores of people who are watching your every more, your every word, where you go, what you say, what you do, what you don’t do, if you pay back or if you pull back. Parents are you teaching your children how to handle revenge properly? Are you modeling to them pulling back instead of paying back? I do not mean we are not to stand up for what we believe in. I do not mean that we should cower or back into the shadows and never confront anybody. Instead, I am talking about that selfishness, that one-upmanship, that revenge factor that infiltrates all of our lives. Are you teaching your kids how to deal with it?

As I read this verse this past week in studying for this message, I thought about how many, many times I have blown it as a Christian in my life. I have been around a lot of people who don’t know Christ, someone has hurt me and they have seen that I have been hurt and most of the time I have fallen into the temptation of slandering them, agreeing with them, laughing with them about this person instead of saying, not in some pietistic, super-spiritual tone, but in saying that we should love this guy or this girl. They matter to God too. I want to help them and I want to encourage them. How are you doing with that?

Romans 12:20. I want to prepare you for something here. Romans 12:20 freaked me out this week, because I had totally misinterpreted this verse. Let me read it. “If your enemy is hungry, feed him, if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Throughout my Christian life, and I have gone to seminary, have my master’s degree, studied Hebrew and Greek, I though that this verse meant that if someone has been mean to you, you are nice to them back, you feed them and give them something to drink and when you do that you are burning them up. You are taking hot coals and putting them on their head and you are just burning them up. And it is eating their lunch that you are being so nice to them. That is what I thought about that verse. How many in here thought about that verse in the same way? Well we are all wrong. Let me tell you what this text means.

This is a picture of a mid-eastern family whose fire has gone out. A fire was very, very important to those folks who lived thousands of years ago. If your fire had gone out back in Biblical times, you would often walk to a neighbor’s house, knock on the door and say that your fire had gone out. And if you had a really good neighbor, the good neighbor would pour some of their coals in an extra pot that they had, heat the coals for you, put a pad on your head, lift the pot of hot coals onto you head and your would carry the pot home. And everyone in the neighborhood would look at you carrying that pot of burning coals and they would know that you had a really great neighbor. “Their neighbors have really helped them by putting hot, burning coals on their head.” So you see when we return good for evil we are helping people, we are giving a Christ-like example, we’re showing people, we are heaping hot, helpful, burning coals on their heads.

Number three. Step back and let God act. That is what David did. Step back and let God act. When David walked out of the cave, listen to this, he had the piece of robe in his hand. Saul had gone a short way and he called out to him. I am sure Saul turned around astonished. The Bible says, “Saul said, Is that you, David, my son?” David turned and said, “Hey, Saul, see this piece of your robe?” And this evidence was not planted. And he began to talk to Saul. He began to share with Saul. And he shows respect to Saul. Do you know what Saul did? Saul begins to cry. He confesses, claims David as he son and begs forgiveness. He promises to never go after David again. If you study the life of Saul, he confessed his sin more than any other character in the Bible. Saul confessed his sin more than any other character in the Bible. More than Paul, yes. More than John, yes. More than Matthew, yes. More than Jonah, yes. Saul did. In fact, you skip over a couple of chapters to I Samuel 26, David had another chance to kill Saul. Saul and his men were asleep. He sneaks through the camp. Saul has a giant spear right by his head in the sand and David could have easily taken the spear and pinned Saul to the sand. He didn’t do it, though. The Bible says that he backed off and he let God act. He let God deal with him. David called to Saul again saying that once more he had had a chance to kill him, but had not done it. And Saul cried again in I Samuel 26 that he was so sorry. Saul confessed his sins, he felt sorry for his sins but, here is the kicker, he never repented. You can cry all day long, you can do the Saul thing week after week after week. You can confess your sins to God but unless you turn from your sins and repent, make an about-face, freedom will never occur. Purpose will never occur. A clean conscience will never occur. Negative behavior patterns will never be broken. You have got to confess it, turn from it, repent and then go the opposite way.

David said in I Samuel 24:12, “…may the Lord avenge the wrongs you have done to me, but my hand will not touch you.” Saul is the king of confession, but it never happened for him.

Romans 12:19. “Do not take revenge, but leave room for God’s wrath.” Don’t you like that one? Leave room for God’s wrath. Right now we are painting the interior of our home. As we prepared to paint the interior of our home we, well mostly Lisa to be honest, moved the furniture away from the walls and took down the pictures to make room for the painters. You don’t leave everything in place and have the painters paint around it. You have to make room for them. When we get into a situation where we want to really pay someone back, back off and leave room and let God deal it. “..for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord.” The basic problem is, we don’t wait on God, do we? We don’t wait on Him. Here is the principle. Every time we don’t wait on God, it will cause gaping holes in our lives. Did you hear that? Every time we don’t wait on God, it will cause gaping holes in our lives.

When I was thirteen years old I wanted one thing for Christmas; a boat. And my parents went down to K Mart and they purchased a boat for me, a 12-foot, aluminum john boat. We lived out in the country, fifteen miles from town. My father and I on Christmas morning carried this boat down our driveway, across the newly paved street, about 500 yards through some woods, put it in the lake. I fished, had a wonderful time. This went on for about three weeks. But you see a plain john boat was not enough for me. I like some flash, I’m kind of an artsy guy. I watch fishing shows a lot. I saw their boats were all painted up with these leaping bass on the side. I decided that I was going to paint my boat up like I was a professional fisherman. That way I knew my fishing would be improved, that I would catch bigger bass. So I told my father and he though the idea was great, he encouraged me and told me it was a creative thing to do. He promised that he would come home from work and help me carry the boat from the lake up to the house. He said he would arrive about 6 PM. I promised that I would wait. I had the paint out, the brushes ready to do. I started waiting for him early. When he didn’t arrive and didn’t arrive I decided to get the boat myself. I go down to the lake and pick the boat up by the handle on the front and drag it through the woods and across the street. Now when I am dragging this boat across the street I look back and I see sparks flying up. I think, no big deal. I drag it up our driveway, and we had a big, old, long driveway. Finally, my little arms are about to die, I take the boat and put it in the grass. I had the stencil and was painting and look up to see my Dad driving in. “Hi, Dad, how are you doing?” “Great. How did you get the boat up here by yourself?” “Dad, I pulled it.” He began to look at the artwork that I was creating, then walked to the back of the boat. He looked down and said, “Son, what is this hole doing back here in the boat? Come back here and look.” I looked and saw a gaping hole in the bottom of my brand new, K Mart, 12-foot aluminum john boat. I had ruined it. I had to buy some stuff to fill in the hole and it never worked. We had to sell the boat. It was horrible. What happened? I went before my father. I went before him. I didn’t listen to him. I waited for awhile and then I couldn’t stand it any more and I put it in my own hands, took care of it my own way, and it resulted in a gaping hole in my craft.

We all do the same thing when we go before God, instead of stepping back and letting God act.

Briefly just thumb through the photo albums of your mind. Look at those snapshots of people that you want to seek revenge on, those people you want to pay back. Do you have a good picture? Who is it? Who is it? Because God is going to deliver that person to you, He is going to give you a chance either to pay back or pull back. It is going to be a test, and if we pass the test, if we pull back, if we pray, if we love our enemy, it will build great character into our lives. If we don’t, we will end up dragging a trap around for the rest of our lives. Pay back or pull back. Revenge or reconciliation. The choice is up to you.

Virtuous Reality: Part 4 – Windows ’95: Transcript

VIRTUOUS REALITY SERMON SERIES

WINDOWS ’95 – DAVID & BATHSHEBA

ED YOUNG

OCTOBER 15, 1995

The world watched as media mogul, Bill Gates, unveiled Windows ’95, the most intensive and extensive computer program organizer to date. It caused quite a stir in the computer industry. Today I am going to unveil a new version of Windows ’95. It is called Windows 995. 995 BC. Today this new version of Windows, I promise you, will cause quite a stir in your life as well.

We have been looking at the Biblical character of David for the last few weeks. David is going to make a mistake in this excerpt of scripture that we are going to look at. This mistake almost cost him his entire career. We have seen David through some great moments, how he handled opposition, his response to true friendship, his response to revenge. Today, though, we see him at a weak moment. We are going to see how to respond to sexual temptation. How do we respond to sexual temptation? And we are going to learn, not by following David’s example, we are going to learn from his example. We are going to see several responses that we need to apply in our lives when we are faced with sexual temptation. I didn’t say if we are faced with sexual temptation but when we are faced with it. I don’t care who you are, we all deal with this temptation.

Let’s jump right in. If you want to respond properly to sexual temptation, the first thing you are going to have to do is beware of boredom. Beware of boredom. Boredom gives the evil one a great opportunity to tempt us in the realm. The Bible says in II Samuel 11:1. “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war….” The spring was a beautiful time in Palestine, it was a time when people got into battles because the roads were dry, the rainy season was over. At the time David had been on the throne for about two decades, he was in his early 50s, at the peak of his career, spiritually a man after God’s own heart. Politically he had brought the twelve tribes together, they were focused as a nation. The man was worth millions and millions of dollars. He was number one, riding the crest of the waves. “David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army.” Here is where he got into trouble, though. “…but David remained in Jerusalem.”

An idle mind is a dangerous mind. David should have been on the battlefields, but he abandoned his purpose and he kind of put his mind into neutral. A couple of years ago I was fishing with a friend of mine in Port O’Connor, TX. We were fishing in a ship channel. We would cruise up near some rocks, put the boat in neutral and the engine would idle. He told me to keep a look out for the giant ships coming through the channel because, if I didn’t notice a ship early enough, the wake thrown up from the ship could knock us into the treacherous rocks. I am going to tell you something. If you hang out, if you just become stagnant, if you always are bored, that situation is going to give Satan an opportunity to get at you. David, the Bible says, remained in Jerusalem. He was probably thinking about the past, all the victories, all of his successes. Maybe he spent time in his trophy room looking at all those great physical things that he had brought back from battle, Goliath’s sword and things of that nature. On afternoon David was bored and fell asleep. When he got up he walked around the top of the palace, which obviously was the tallest building in Jerusalem at the time. And David, I’m sure, was taking in the sights of Jerusalem. He was thinking to himself that he was the man that brought all of it together. He began to pat himself on the back and this is where the temptation hammered David.

Number two. After we are aware and watchful of being bored, we have to turn from temptation. David was not able to do this, turn from temptation. The Bible says this in II Samuel 11:2-4. “From the roof he saw a woman bathing.” Now some of you are saying, “Hey wait a minute. What is this girl doing taking a bath on top of a roof where people could see her. Give me a break. Was she doing some nude sunbathing as well? That is kind of odd, isn’t it? There are not very many people who take baths on their roof tops.” It was common in Biblical times for women to take baths on top of the roof in the afternoon, because most of the men were either in battle or they were in the fields. Cisterns were located on the rooftop to catch rainwater which the afternoon sun would warm. It was like taking a hot bath. David should have been in battle. And the Bible says that he saw a woman bathing. The temptation was just beginning to crystalize itself. David hadn’t messed up here. He just saw a woman. And we see many members of the opposite sex who are attractive. That is not the sin. Here is where the sin began to occur.

“The woman was very beautiful.” This word beautiful in the Hebrew is a very interesting word. It comes from two Anglo-Saxon words which are rendered Sharon Stone. Just kidding. This word beautiful, honestly, is an intensive Hebrew word. It is found only this one time in the entire Bible. The woman was very beautiful. And here is where David started getting into trouble. He saw her. He should have turned from the temptation but he looked again and saw she was very beautiful. He began to paint pictures in his mind of this woman, then of this woman and King David getting together sexually. That is when the sin began to occur, in the mind. She was beautiful. “And David sent someone to find out about her.” He could have stopped at any stage here but he played with it, he thought about it, he focused on it.

We have twins who are fifteen months and they play in our driveway constantly. The driveway slants and if they don’t watch out, the twins playing in their little cars could start going down the hill, and while they can stop at the top of the hill pretty easily, further down the hill they would get in trouble. We have to run and grab the car so that the car will not go out in the alley where either one might get hurt.

When sexual temptation starts, the best time to stop is when it begins. It is to turn away from the temptation. It is not good to entertain it, to focus on it, to play with it, to send it on down the hill and then when you are half-way there declare that you need to stop. More often than not things are going too fast, and it is difficult to stop. David sent someone to find out about her and he found out her name was Bathsheba, and he found out that her husband was named Uriah. Uriah was one of David’s main men, one of his hand-chosen thirty five, a man who had been in every battle with David. Uriah was a man who loved David, who was loyal to him, a man who was, at that very moment, on the battlefield. Then David sent messengers to get her and he slept with her. You read the life of David. David prayed about everything, he prayed before he walked into battle, he prayed before he developed a friendship, he prayed before he established a capital city, he prayed before he chose a leader. He didn’t pray about one area of his life and this area took him down, his relationship with women. In all of David’s writings, in all of the Psalms, you read about him throughout the Old Testament, he never prayed about his relationship with the opposite sex. When I first read this I thought why didn’t Bathsheba say no. She was married, she could have said no that she was not going to go to bed with him. She could have spun on her heels and walked home. But, back in Biblical times, if Bathsheba would have said no, David could have killed her on the spot. Dead. Thus, she slept with David.

Look at II Corinthians 10:5. You saw the drama today. “We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” Do you do that? Do you take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ. Satan is a master painter. He paints pictures in our minds and the pictures he paints in our minds are not evil. The pictures he paints in our minds are not sin. It is what we do with the pictures that turns it evil or into sin. If we look at that picture and realize what he is doing, and we take it captive, rip it apart, see who is actually painting it and throw it out, that is what the Bible says we should do. Conversely, if we take that picture and say it is a pretty good looking picture, Satan, here is some more oil paint, here are a few more brushes, make it a little bit more detailed, put a little music with it. It is a matter of time before we actually are putting flesh on the canvas and then we are living it out. So we have two options, either to rip up Satan’s canvas or to give him some more supplies.

I Corinthians 10:13. “And God is faithful, He will never let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” That is a comforting verse, isn’t it? To stand up under it. If we get into a tempting situation, God will make an escape route available to us. The problem is, we get into these situations and we see the escape route and say no, no, no. Men, you can’t go to a topless club, women, you can’t read romance novels day in and day out. You can’t go to those R rated movies with explicit sex scenes and wonder why you fall into sexual sin. It seems like just one day, wham it happened. It doesn’t happen like that. David didn’t get up and say, “Today I am going to commit adultery, I’m going to ruin my life, I’m going to have sex with Bathsheba.” It was a slow thing. You see, Satan does not move us by yards, or by feet, he inches us along. Just let down you morals a little bit, Ed, just watch that show just for a second. Just a little bit. And one day you were in one place and you wake up way over there, and you are committing sexual sin. Turn from temptation.

Number three. Confess and come clean. David’s worse nightmare became a reality because in a couple of months Bathsheba sent him a little E mail and it said, “David, I am pregnant. Hugs and kisses, Bathsheba.” Oh, oh, watch out King David. David was brilliant though. Remember he had the musical capability of an Elton John, the poetic giftedness of Shakespeare. Name anyone who was gifted in the arts and David was that good. Even athletically, he was an artist plus a great athlete, he could split a hair at 30 feet with either hand with a sling shot. He killed and bear and a lion with his bare hands. This man had it all. He was smart. He decided to do the Watergate thing, to cover it up. So David sent word to Joab, the general, to send Uriah to him. He brings Uriah in and sits him down for a talk. After the talk he tells Uriah that it is getting late and that he needs a second honeymoon with his spouse, Bathsheba. “Go home for the night and let everything take it course.” He thought he had the perfect plan, he thought he had covered it up. Uriah, though, was so loyal he didn’t go home. Uriah slept outside with David’s servants because he said that he could not think about making love with his wife when all of his men were out in the field fighting for Israel. David couldn’t believe it, he wondered where Uriah had learned such loyalty. Of course, Uriah had learned loyalty from David.

David moves to Plan B. He invited Uriah over to eat and got him drunk. He ordered his servants to help Uriah home. Regardless of being drunk, Uriah still would not approach Bathsheba and slept outside with David’s servants again. Uriah drunk was better than David sober.

Then it says in II Samuel 10:14-15 something that is staggering to read. “In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. In it he wrote, ‘Put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.” That is exactly what happened. Uriah, and many of David’s other men were killed because David had to rub Uriah out. It was making him look bad. There is always something true about sexual sin. Sexual sin effects and harms and destroys, always, the innocent bystander. Always, always. You can’t have pre-marital sex and have it be just a sexual thing. You can’t commit adultery and have it be just a sexual thing. I have talked to too many couples, too many singles, too many high school students and they all tell me the same thing. “Ed, if I could only turn back the clock, man, I wouldn’t do it. My children, my spouse, this girl I dated back in high school or in college, or I am with now. I wish, I hadn’t done it.”

After I am aware of my boredom, I am turning from temptation, I need to confess my sin and come clean. David should have confessed his sin. The Bible says in I John 1:9, “If we confess out sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us for all unrighteousness.” You see David sinned greatly before God and God wanted to forgive him greatly. Later on he did. David should have come clean. He should have confessed his sin, but he didn’t, he kept it a secret. He committed adultery with Bathsheba, Uriah was dead, he married her and for twelve months he thought he had gotten away with the perfect crime. Until one day David’s close friend, Nathan, walked into his office and asked if David had heard the story about the little sheep. He knew that would get David’s attention because David loved sheep, he was a shepherd for years and years. He told David that there was a rich man with a bunch of sheep, and a poor man who had one little ewe lamb. The little ewe was the pet of the family, slept with the children, was fed out of a bottle. One day the rich man had an important business associate come to town and he invited him over and instead of killing one of his lambs for a meal, he took the little ewe lamb from the poor man and killed it. David became violently angry. He said that man should pay the poor man four times over, or even be killed for his action. Then David locked eyes with Nathan. Nathan took his hand and pointed to David and said, “You are that man. You are that man, you committed adultery and you have killed Uriah the Hittite.” You talk about really being rattled and rocked and brought to your knees. David experienced that. Confess and come clean.

Number four, consider the consequences. You see when David was tempted, he should have thought about the consequences, he should have looked past the temptation to what was going to happen, the coverup and then those consequences that never left his house. God will forgive sin, but He will not remove the consequences of sin. Here is what happened because of David’s sin. The Bible says in II Samuel 12:10, “Therefore, the sword will never depart from your house.” Let me tell you what that meant to David. God cleansed him and forgave him and forgot his sin, but the child born to David and Bathsheba died at three months of age, David’s son Amnon raped his half sister, then Absalom, another of David’s sons killed Amnon and to top that off, Absalom tried to take the throne from his father and he was killed in battle. “The sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.”

II Samuel 12:13. “Then David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.'” Do you see that? Every time you sin, no matter what it is but especially sexually, you sin against the Lord. So when you have sex outside the marriage bed there are always three people involved, you, the person you are having sex with and the Lord. He is always there. And when you think about that, when you think about putting Jesus with you in the bed of adultery, when you think about putting Jesus with you into the bed of premarital sex or homosexuality or lesbianism, that will change entirely the way we live.

David said, I have sinned against the Lord. Then Nathan replied, “The Lord has taken away your sin.” The Lord easily at this point could have turned his back on David but He didn’t and this is the grace and the beauty of God. Four points, four responses to sexual temptation.

Now let’s bring this whole message down to the practical side of life, let’s bring it down to where we live. I want to give you some guidelines, some specific guidelines, concerning sexual temptation. First, monitor your media intake. One movie that has an explicit sexual scene can feed lustful thoughts for weeks. “But the movie was so good. I love Michael Douglas. Sharon Stone has something else about her. I really don’t think about it. I’m married.” Who are you trying to fool? I was born at night, but not last night. God knows. How about the channel surfing? Different talk shows, the made for TV movies, Showtime, HBO, Cinemax. Any exposure to pornographic materials is like throwing a lighted match into a pool of gasoline. Romance novels? Monitor your media intake.

Secondly, choose your friends carefully. The first place where adultery begins is usually with close friends. The second place adultery and sexual sin begins is usually in the work place, since everyone is dressed up, looking nice, often with expense accounts. The third place adultery happens is usually with the relatives of the spouse. Choose your friends carefully.

The third and final suggestion, set some guidelines that will keep you away from much of the temptation that Satan will bring up in your life. Now I want to share with you very candidly and carefully some of the guidelines I have set up. I have shared these with you before and I will share them with you again. One. I will never meet another woman privately or publicly unless she is my wife. I will never go out to lunch with another woman. I never counsel a woman alone in my office. Never, ever, ever. Two. I never ride alone in a car with a woman. Three. I don’t travel alone. These are some guidelines that I have set up in my life because I want to remove myself from any area that could cause temptation, any area that could give Satan a chance to get a toe hold. And if we keep ourselves out of those situations, we have knocked away most, not all, most of his artillery. I have been faithful to my wife, Lisa, since we were married and I plan on being faithful by God’s grace until I go to be with the Lord. Both of us were virgins when we got married. There are people who say there is no way you can be a virgin. That is a bunch of junk. Because if I can do it, and I am a normal man being involved in a very secular world like I was and am involved in, you can do it too, but only though God’s grace.

You see, committing adultery and sexual sin really scares me and it scares me because I love Jesus Christ so much. I really do. I love God. Another reason that committing adultery frightens me is because I don’t want to do anything to hurt my relationship with Lisa nor with all of my children. I shudder at the thought of being able to look at them and confess that I sinned sexually. A third reason that I am really frightened is because I fear God. I fear Him. Now a lot of people, myself included, we love to memorize positive scripture verses about God, the forgiveness, the grace, the love, the compassion, the mercy. But how about this one I put down on your outline. Hebrews 10:31. “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of God. That is talking about the wrath of God. That is talking about the judgment of God. Because God is a God who is fair. If I got involved in sexual sin, I am not sure what God would do to my ministry, to my family, to my life. Just read through the Old Testament. Moses took all this garbage from the children of Israel for forty years and he got mad at God, struck the rock and God said that He would not permit him to enter into the promised land. David had a one night stand with Bathsheba, killed her husband. The sword never left his household. A couple of other people were irreverent and He struck them dead. I am not sure what God will do. And it always scares me when people say, “Well I know what God will do and what God will not do. Well my loving and forgiving God would never, ever do anything like that. Plus, I know someone at work, Ed, this guy jumps from sack to sack to sack, he is making money, he is doing well, he even drives a Mercedes.” You know God doesn’t always settle His account in seven days or thirty days or forty days or five years or ten years. Sometimes he waits until the throne to settle His account. You see I don’t want your blood on my hands. I don’t want you to stand before a holy God and have God say, “You mean you were not taught? Yes, you were taught I was loving, that I was forgiving but you were not taught I was a God of wrath, too, a God of judgement too?” I don’t want your blood on my hands. I want to look at God one day and say, “God, I taught them, I told them, here it is.” This is not my most popular sermon, this is not my favorite thing to talk about but this stuff is real. The great news is, don’t miss it. I don’t care if you are the most spectacular violator of sexual sin, the great news is, if you confess your sin, if you come clean, if you consider the consequences and turn from those sins, I don’t care where you are, God will forgive you and forget your sins and He will change your life. But, He is not going to remove the consequences.

The choice is up to you. The choice is up to me. Sexual temptation is there. Will we abide by these principles and precepts? Will we respond like God wants us to respond? Will we take every thought captive? Or will we feed those mind pictures and let Satan inch us and inch us and inch us. Hey, let me tell you something, twenty minutes, an hour worth of passion is not worth a lifetime of misery.

Virtuous Reality: Part 5 – The Parent Trap: Transcript

VIRTUOUS REALITY SERMON SERIES

THE PARENT TRAP – DAVID AND ABSALOM

ED YOUNG

OCTOBER 22, 1995

The eyes of our nation are focused on men these days, from Promise Keepers conferences to Million Men Marches in Washington, DC, from men’s tribal retreats to the militia movement. Everyone is talking about men. Men want to make a difference. We want role models who model to us authenticity, integrity and compassion. Years ago, the eyes of an entire nation were focused on one man and this one man was the sole role model of the nation of Israel. His name was David. We have been talking about David for the last couple of weeks. All the Israelites looked to David for an example and they wanted David to model authenticity, integrity and compassion. And in many areas he did model these great character qualities, however, in some areas he failed miserably.

Today we are going to look at an area where David messed up, where he fumbled the ball. We have called this message, The Parent Trap. We are going to learn from David, not by following his example but by learning from his example. King David, the parent, was the major problem. We have three goals in today’s message. First of all I want to encourage you, not discourage you. Secondly, I want to stand along side you, not above you. I am a fellow struggler with this whole parental thing. And thirdly, I want to challenge you and motivate you and stimulate you, especially the men here, to be the kind of parents that God wants you to be. I know we have many, many singles who are listening to my voice. Most of your single men will one day be married and ultimately you will become parents. Now is the time to learn, now is the time to start this whole process in your mind, so you can be a great Dad, a great leader in your family. So sit back and relax and listen to the story of David and his children. David’s kids would give Beeves and Buthead a run for their money, if you know what I mean.

In I Samuel 13, David’s oldest son, Amnon, was playing a trick that is ancient, he faked illness. Amnon had a sexual drive that was out of control. He called his father into his bedroom and said, “Dad, I am really feeling bad and there is only one person who can make me feel better, who can cook for me and care for me and that is my half-sister, Tamar.” And Tamar was probably Jr. Miss Palestine. David promised he would send Tamar to nurse him back to health. She walked into Amnon’s room. Amnon raped his half-sister, Tamar. David found out about it and he didn’t do one thing. The Bible says that he got angry but he didn’t slap him on the wrist, he didn’t put him on restriction, he didn’t take care of the situation, he just backed off.

The next to the oldest son was Absalom. The Bible says that he was handsome in form and appearance. I am sure Absalom had some great abs, the guy was ripped. Absalom wanted attention from his father badly. He wanted his dad to notice him and when he found out about the rape he was hacked. He was angry and he waited for his father to do something. Two years go by, nothing happens. So Absalom throws this giant family reunion party, the central theme being sheep shearing. That was a big thing back in Biblical times. He invited his father. David, God’s man, made excuses that he was too busy to attend. Amnon showed up and Absalom gets Amnon drunk and then has him killed. David finds out about the murder in his family, and again, God’s man, this person who is supposed to be modeling true masculinity, does nothing. A soft male, a male who didn’t want to rock the parental boat. And Absalom flees to a place called Gesher and he stays there for three years hoping that his father would call for his return. One day David’s right hand man by the name of Joab, knowing that David wanted to be in community with his son, went to Gesher to bring Absalom back to Jerusalem. Despite living in the same city, in the same palace, Absalom and David still did not speak for two years. Absalom is about to die. He does something else to get his father’s attention, he asks Joab if he could arrange a meeting of the two. Joab does not return his calls, he does not check his voice mail. Finally, Absalom has had enough and he burns down the fields of Joab just so his father would notice him. They did have a brief meeting, but after the meeting Absalom goes crazy. He is trying to say, “Dad, look at me, notice me, love me.” And all children desperately need our attention, Dads. Absalom gets in his mind that he can overtake the throne. You see when people walked into David’s presence they had to bow to him. Absalom declared that if he became king, he would welcome just a high five or a shake of the hand. He promoted himself as a candidate for the people. A lot of people began to say, “Absalom, Absalom, he’s our man, if he can’t do it, no one can.” And Absalom becomes such an egomaniac that he builds a giant monument to himself. He didn’t have any sons and since he was the man, he wanted to leave a giant marker for his life and his contributions to the nation of Israel.

He was almost successful in trying to overtake the throne. One day, though, he was riding his mule through a forest being chased by Joab. Absalom’s hair, the Bible tells us, weighed over three pounds. As he is riding, his hair is flowing in the wind and gets caught in the limb of an oak tree. The mule keeps going and Absalom remains hanging in the tree, caught by his hair. Well Joab arrives, takes his spear and kills Absalom and throws him in a pit. See the parallel? Absalom planned a great monument as a tomb but he ended up in a pit, a graveyard for dogs. David was informed. The Bible says that David was heartbroken. He mourned the death of his son. He went into his bedroom and cried and cried. Here is an interesting point. David was lamenting the death of his son in the same place the sin began years and years ago when David had sex outside the marriage bed with Bathsheba. Is that a wild account, or what? That is the reason I love the Bible, because the Bible not only talks about the strengths of individuals but also recounts their weaknesses. And that is something that we can all identify with. And you thought soap operas were exciting. This stuff here is unbelievable.

I thought about this, this week. What if we could bring David up on this stage, what if he had a chance to review his life. What do you think he would tell us? Specifically now, the men here. What would he say to us? I think that David would tell us three things that he learned about parenting, three basic principles concerning parenting. They are listed for you on your outline, but I did give you some blanks to keep the interest up.

I believe he would say that the private habits of parents oftentimes become the public habits of children. Did you catch that one? The private habits of parents oftentimes become the public habits of children. Where did Amnon get that lustful eye? He got the lustful eye from watching the eyes of his father undress the Biblical babes as they paraded by his house. Where did Absalom get the notion that he could get his brother drunk and then have him killed? He got it from his father because he watched his father years ago rub out Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, the Hittite. He watched his father get Uriah drunk. In a real sense, parents, our children mimic and model the values that we live. I like what James Dobson says, “If you want your child to accept your values when he reaches his teen years, you must be worthy of respect during his younger years.”

Now behind me you will see an array of instruments. You have heard from a wonderful band this morning, as always. I call our band the Holy Smoke Band. This is a guitar. I don’t pretend to play the guitar. I have messed around with the drums a little bit. This guitar is an electric guitar because it has a cord hooked into it and it runs all the way to this amplifier behind me. When one of our band members strums this guitar, it sounds loud. You know why? It is amplified. If I unplug it and then strum it, you could hardly hear it. Parents, your sons and your daughters are amplifiers. When you strum a habit, when you strum a lifestyle, when you strum a character quality, they are going to amplify it. If it is materialism, wow. If it is a forgiving spirit, wow. If it is someone who really loves God, wow. That is a scary thing. And men, we have got to take the leadership, we have got to become the role models, we have got to become the person who strums beautiful music so our children can see those habits and live them out.

What if you have some children and they are exemplifying and amplifying some negative character qualities that you can see in yourself? What do you do? Well, you don’t lead them by edict, Dad, you lead them by example. In the marketplace we are led by edict. Have that report in by Thursday at noon. It is my way or the highway. Your numbers are up. Your numbers are down. See the bell curve. Everything is chop, chop. And then, Dads, we go home and we try to lead our families like we are led in the marketplace. Have that bed made up by 12 noon. Is that report in? Take care of it. It is either my way or the highway. Do this. Do that. That is not the Biblical model, Dad. The Biblical model is not by edict but by example. What would happen, Dads, future Dads, if you looked into the eyes of your son or daughter and you said, “Do as I do.” “Love your Mom like I love your Mom.” “Forgive others like I forgive others.” “Treat others like I treat others.” “Give to the poor like I give to the poor.” What would happen, Dads, if we did that? I’ll tell you what would happen. A revolution would take place because we would be modeling true masculinity and we would escape this parent trap.

The second thing that David would tell us if he had a chance to review his life on this stage is simply this, there is no substitute for time spent with your children. Dads, you can’t delegate this one, you can’t option this off, you can’t explain it away. You can’t do like David did and give it to the nannies or one of his many, many wives. You have to do it. Our children are with us in those impressionable years for just the blink of an eye. Make sure you seize the moment when the clay is soft, when you can really mark them in a beautiful way. The Bible says this in II Samuel 13:6-7, “And when the King came to see him, Amnon asked him for a favor, that his sister, Tamar, be permitted to come and cook a little something for him to eat, and David agreed.” Circle that phrase, David agreed. David did not spend time with his children and because he didn’t spend time with them, he didn’t know his children. David was the one who set up the entire situation that ended in tragedy. David didn’t know his kids. David was the one that sent Amnon to the family reunion. And Absalom had him killed. David did that. He didn’t know his children. Dads, do you know your children? Do you really know who they are?

There is no such thing as quality time. That is a fallacy, a pipe dream, that is a farce. That whole premise was made up by one minute manager wantabes. “OK, honey, I will schedule you in for one hour on Friday and we will have some quality time.” Quality time, Dads, emerges from quantity time. You have got to set aside large blocks of time where you let their agenda become your agenda and then those precious “Kodak moments” will emerge from those large blocks of time. But you see, there is an evil plot going on. When Dad is young, the career has got to be happening, he has got to be making money to provide for the family. He is at work using his creativity and energy and leadership. And oftentimes he walks through the doors of his home and declares time out, with the kids out of his sight. He just wants to relax in his lazyboy and watch another football game. Dads, I want to challenge you to save some of your leadership, your creativity, your ingenuity for the home because whenever a home is bored, I always want to talk to the father. There is something about that masculine touch you can’t even articulate, it is so powerful. It marks kids in such a profound way. Dads, are you there? I mean are you really there? Not only in body but in spirit too, leading, seizing the moment with your children.

This has been a struggle for me. When I go to work I have to spend at least twenty hours a week by myself studying, alone in my office. However, when I want to go into the coffee room and get a hot cup of java, I can do it. When I want to go to lunch with someone, I can go to lunch. When I want to go to the men’s room, I can go to the men’s room. There is soft music in the background. Everyone is dressed nice. A church office. And in a lot of ways it is run like a corporate office because there is a business side to church. You have to be organized. I love it. And I am into this mentality and oftentimes I drive up our driveway, walk through the garage, dodging about 400 toys, go inside and expect tranquility. And we have four children, twins who are fifteen months, a three year old son like me who is into everything and then a nine year old daughter. I have got Laurie and Landra coming up to me, while I am still dressed well, with Oreo cookies mashed on their faces, in their hair and on their hands, giving me big hugs. I have EJ watching yet another episode of Thomas the Tank. I have LeeBeth arguing about some homework assignment. It is a zoo to me. And sometimes I say, “Lisa, I have had a tough day, I’ve been hammered. I am drained. I have got to go somewhere for thirty minutes to chill.” And, men, we need this but what seems to be chaos and dissonance from our perspective, in God’s perspective it is harmony and beauty. And we have got to realize that what I just described is life. Wake up and join the real world or one day we risk looking back and seeing that we missed it. Take care of those precious moments now. Spend time with your children. Capture those defining moments.

Very quickly let me list some defining moments in a kid’s life. Number one, I would say, would be the bedtime. There is something so precious and so sweet about helping your children get to bed, reading them books, praying with them, asking them questions and letting them elaborate on how they feel. Another time would be meals. I try to have at least four nightly meals a week with my family. Make the meals creative. Talk to them if you are in a restaurant or wherever about their feelings. For instance, ask if they could be any animal, what they would choose. What is your favorite thing to do? What is your favorite color? If you could buy anything, what would it be? Get the conversation flowing and you will be blessed in so many ways. I am talking to Dads now. And here is some extra credit, Dads. Turn off the television! I think it is fine that we watch sports and that we want to know what is going on from the news. Turn it off though. My children remind me when I should turn the television off.

My oldest daughter, LeeBeth, preached one of the best sermons to me about a year ago. I was watching TV. We have one of those big screen TVs in our den. It is kind of funny, the den is the TV. I’m doing the channel surfing thing, watching thirteen shows in about thirty minutes and LeeBeth is talking to me. I’m going, “Yeah, uh huh.” Finally, here is what she did. She walked in front of the television and said, “Dad, you are not listening to me.” I assured her I was, that I heard her talk about what happened at recess. She said yes, but that I wasn’t listening to her. She answered that for the last five times this is what I said, “That’s great, LeeBeth.” “That’s great, LeeBeth.” “That’s great, LeeBeth.” And I thought, wow. So turn the television off.

Now briefly let me say a word to single parents, particularly females. You have one of the most challenging jobs known to man and we take our hats off to you, we support you, we want to be your cheerleaders. I want to tell you something, Moms, make sure that you expose your children to some excellent Christian role models. That is why we encourage you and challenge you to expose your children to leaders in this church or if God leads you somewhere else, in another church. Bible teachers, pastors, people who work in the small groups ministry, athletics. Make sure, Moms, that you are doing that. And my prayer for you is that God will multiply your time in a mighty way. The Bible says that when you pray and really seek the mind and face of God, I am talking again to Christian Mom single parents here. God has a way of multiplying your time and bringing in some male role models that will mark them in a mighty, mighty way. And if you want to talk to some other people about it, talk to Pastor Mac Richard, our singles pastor. His Dad left their home when Mac was in the fifth grade, and God gave me and some other men in our church in Houston the ability to step in and do this process for Mac. And Mac is a great guy, not because of me but because of the mighty, mighty grace of God that ambushed him.

Now let’s go to number three. We have David standing up here. He is reviewing his life. He is thinking about parenthood. Here is number three. Failure to discipline your child will always lead to a broken heart. Remember, David didn’t do a thing and this text II Samuel 13:37-39 says that “David longed day after day for fellowship with his son, Absalom.” Then skip down to II Samuel 18:33. “Once David heard the news of Absalom’s death he said, ‘Oh my son, Absalom, my son, my son, Absalom, if only I could have died for you. Oh Absalom, my son, my son.'” You see, parents, we oftentimes think of discipline as something negative. It always blows me away how we compliment adults for having a disciplined life. We think that is good. But then we think about disciplining our children and we think that is bad. Discipline is not punishment. Discipline, parents, is not punishment. We must discipline our children, because if it is good enough for God who started the whole disciplinary process, it better be good enough for me. I have got to keep the ball rolling. God disciplines His children out of love. He disciplines you, He disciplines me. We, in turn, must discipline our children in love. We don’t punish, we discipline. Christ took the punishment for all the sins of the world 2000 years ago. God never punishes, God disciplines. Do you discipline? Don’t be afraid of it. Kids are crying out for it. Little toddlers fold their arms defiantly while still in their playpens. They look around the house, they case the joint and they say to themselves that they are going to take over. Dad looks weak, so does Mom, I’m going to throw a tantrum right now and I can do it. But really that toddler is screaming for discipline. That toddler wants to see the limits. He wants to know where the ceiling is. He wants it. And if we step back and give them whatever they want, the kids rule and run the show. And in too many of our households, the kids are calling the shots. You see, God is a God of order and we as parents must be parents of order. We must discipline our children.

I define discipline as setting boundaries that produce growth. And, men, I want to give you some helpful hints on discipline. I have related this to the word picture of a football field. That is something we can all relate to. When in doubt, use sports. Right? First, line off the field. When the Cowboys or a Pop Warner team takes the field, the field is lined off. Either it is painted or it is chalked. And everyone knows what it means to step out of bounds and what it means to cross the goal line. Set those perimeters. Make sure they are very clear and obvious to every child that you are bringing up. Number two. Read them the rules. Say, if you step out of bounds, here are the consequences. Or I am going to throw the flag on this one. Or it will be time out. Or restrictions will apply. What would happen next weekend if Emmett Smith is running and he steps out of bounds but comes back in and the ref tells him not to worry about it as he goes by. You are Emmett Smith, all pro, I know you didn’t mean it. OK, touchdown, Cowboys. It is tempting for parents because our kids are part of us to say, I know you didn’t mean to step out of bounds. It’s OK. Parents, we have got to stop and say, remember the rules, remember the guidelines? I have got to be honest, if you are out of bounds, you are out of bounds, if you clip, you clip. There will be consequences, there will be penalties.

There are too many are etch-a-sketch parents. You draw a line with one knob, you don’t like the line, you shake it up and the line disappears. We draw a line and say that is the line, but when our children step out of bounds nothing happens. The lines keep changing. Fourthly, present a unified front in the disciplinary process. Don’t you hate it when you are watching football and the refs are arguing, when they are not in agreement. We have got to agree together to present a unified front.

Friday is my day off. Friday afternoon I was keeping three of our children, the twins and EJ. We were in the garage playing with all the toys and EJ said that he was hungry. He has really poor eating habits. I don’t know why, growing up in the home of a health nut, but he does. I told EJ that he couldn’t eat right then because in about an hour we would be having dinner. He said, “OK.” He leaves and is gone for about five minutes. It gets kind of quiet. He walks up to me and he is holding a Kudos granola chocolate chip candy bar and he said, “Daddy, can I have this.” I said, “EJ, I have just told you, put the candy bar back. You cannot have it. If you eat it Daddy will discipline you.” He leaves and now ten minutes roll by. I am thinking, “Surely, not.!” I start to walk into the kitchen and while crossing the living room I discover the wrapper for a Kudos chocolate chip candy bar. I get to the kitchen and there is EJ, with chocolate drool coming from the corners of his mouth. He gave an exaggerated swallow which was so funny to see, I started to laugh. I said, “EJ, you ate that candy bar.” He just looked at me. I said, “EJ, you ate that candy bar.” He wouldn’t say either yes or no. I said, “EJ, did you eat this candy bar. Open your mouth. Did you eat this candy bar? Yes or no. He said, “Yes or no.” I said, “EJ, wait a minute. Did you eat this candy bar, yes or no?” Then he started walking over to the steps where he has time out and he sat down. He finally admitted that he had eaten the candy bar. So, EJ had to suffer the consequences of being disciplined. Now after I disciplined him, and I must say I was very tempted to back off because he was so cute, we had an excellent time of communication. This happens so often. You see, I want my children to grow up and to call me blessed.

And that is my prayer, men, precisely for you, that your children will rise up and call you blessed. So Dads, stay away from this parent trap. Let me quote from Maltbie Davenport Babcock, “Be strong! We are not here to play, to dream, to drift. We have hard work to do and loads to lift. Shun not the struggle, face it, ’tis God’s gift. Be strong! Say not, ‘The days are evil. Who’s to blame?’ And fold the hands and acquiesce – oh shame! Stand up, speak out and bravely, in God’s name. Be strong! It matters not how deep entrenched the wrong, how hard the battle goes, the day how long. Faint not, fight on! Tomorrow, men, comes the song.”

Single Minded: Part 1 – Party of One: Transcript

Single Minded: Part 1 Party of One: Transcript

SINGLE MINDED SERIES

PARTY OF ONE – BEING CONTENT WITH BEING SINGLE

ED YOUNG

JULY 24, 1994

I hold in my hand this morning’s top ten list from the home office in Sioux City, Iowa, top ten things not to say to single adults. Number ten, before you find someone wonderful you have to be someone wonderful. Number nine, the minute you stop looking God will bring someone special into your life. Number eight, you are so lucky you are still single. Number seven, you’re not married yet, why not? Number six, God has someone special for you, you just need to wait on His timing. Number five, always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Number four, it must be God’s will that you are not married yet. Number three, do you have a special someone in your life? Number two, your biological clock is ticking. And, number one, you are such a neat person, why aren’t you married?

Let’s face it, our society puts enormous pressure on single adults to get married. Let’s take, for an example, the typical American female. By the time she is a toddler she has already been dragged to a wedding, and after the wedding, well-meaning relatives come up and grab her cheeks with a vise grip-like pull and they say, “Honey, one day you will make a beautiful bride.” And the little typical American female toddles home. As she grows up she buys Barbie and Ken dolls, then well-meaning grandparents give her Barbie and Ken wedding outfits. Years roll by, she reads stories of handsome princes marrying beautiful maidens and they ride off in the sunset living happily ever after. When college hits, the pressure intensifies because the typical American female’s friend bolts into dorm rooms with her left hand extended showing the beautiful engagement ring and the not- so-excited-as-they-seem friends wonder down deep, am I next? And a subtle form of competition starts. Then the typical American female walks into a grocery store and as she ventures past the magazine racks those bridal magazines begin to sing, “What’s wrong with you, what’s wrong with you” (demonstrated to the tune of Here Comes the Bride) “your life won’t have any meaning, until you say, I do.”

You find yourself at wedding receptions jockeying for position like Michael Irvin catching a pass so you can catch that elusive bouquet. And then there are the terrible, rude comments that relatives make, and well-meaning friends make. And you put all this together and you’ve got some serious pressure to deal with. The Word of God, though, tells us some encouraging news, single adults, I’m talking about some great news, some life-changing news. It tells us how to be content with being single. Because God wants the best for your life and for my life. And if you are single, He wants the best for you in your single life. Forty-two percent of our church is single and over one half of the population of the metroplex is single, so I thought it was fitting to do a series on single adults. It is called Single Minded. For the next three weeks this series will run. Today we are going to talk about being content with being single. Next week, visions and values for dating and the final week, dealing with divorce.

I know what some of you married folks are thinking though. “Ha, ha, I picked the wrong Sunday and the wrong series to attend the Fellowship of Las Colinas. That gives me a free pass and I can go ahead and play golf for the next couple of weeks Sunday morning, yea.” Don’t make those tee times too quickly because, if you are a parent, you have the awesome responsibility of helping your children learn the decision making process. You will need to teach them how to date, and how to find the ulti-mate. So if you are a parent, this series is for you. If you are in the marketplace and you are married and you have to deal or relate with any single adults, guess what, this series is for you. If you know someone who is divorced, or maybe you are divorced, this series is for you. If you are not in one of those three categories, you can play golf, but I think all of us are in one of those three categories.

It is amazing, but our society gives those who are unmarried a lie, and we give them a marriage myth. We say, if you are married that will complete a life that is incomplete. If you are married it is like finding the missing ingredient in a recipe. And singles walk around feeling they are a bowl of Rick Krispies without that snap, crackle and pop. If I could only get married, that will do the job. And you believe that because of all the lies, all of the trash people give you.

Having said that, I want to stop and give you, right now, a relational pop test. I know school hasn’t started yet, but here is a relational pop test. Look in your bulletin and you will see a card, entitled Party of One, Being Content With Being Single, Relational Pop Test. I still get a lump in my throat when I hear those words pop test. So take out a pen, or pencil and this is the test. I want you to be honest, if you are married, take the test, if you are single, take the test. We are going to see how smart you are relationally. Put your name on your paper, Owen Goff, our assosiate pastor, will take the papers up and give you a grade, we’ll have the results next week and they will be posted in the lobby. (laughter)

Here is the first true or false question. You have got to fill the blank in to know if it is true or false. Here we go. When I get married (see it there) when I get married I will never be lonely again. True or false. When I get married I will never be lonely again. It is false. But so many single adults believe that. Do you believe that? You see some of the loneliest people I know are those people who are married. And the most miserable people I know are not unmarried people who wish they were married, they are married people who wish they were single because they married the wrong person. Loneliness is something that many unmarried folks and married folks deal with. Why? Listen to me very carefully because I am going to say some things that might be a little bit complicated, but stay with me and you will get the gist of it.

God has created us, He has made you, He has made me, He has wired us up for two types of relational yearnings. We have got to have two levels of companionship so to speak. The first level is something that most of us are conscious of. It is the level on which we yearn to have a deep friendship or a marriage or someone we are really close with. And that is something we are conscious of, that is why we have friends, that is why God said after he made Adam, it is not good for man to be alone. So He created other people so we can relate to them. God is a relational God, we are relational creatures. That is the first level. The second level though is deeper than the first. The second level is relational yearning we have that can only be satisfied with a personal encounter and a personal friendship with Jesus Christ. You see, we all have a hole in our heart that can only be satisfied by Him. You take level one yearning and level two yearning and you put them into a single’s life, you stir them up a little bit and, man, you have someone who is obsessed with finding Mr. or Ms. Right. They are on a spouse hunt and they will do anything just to get involved and to meet the right person, because they think it will cure their loneliness. “I am lonely now, if I marry this person, it will do it, I will never be lonely again.” So they meet this person, and the level one needs are getting satisfied and before they know it they are walking down the aisle saying, I will, I do. Off to the honeymoon, and after about six months they start looking at each other and they start saying, “Wait a minute. I am still lonely, I was lonely before the marriage, and now I am lonely.” And they start putting unrealistic expectations on their spouse because they think their spouse can meet these supernatural needs that only Jesus Christ can meet. And most unmarried people are unaware of this, they are unconscious of this second level, thus they are expecting a human being to meet those second level needs. And then they put stipulations on their spouse, demands on them, cutting them down. And then that relationship ends up in a train wreck and then they leap from that relationship like a giant frog, ribbit, ribbit, to another relationship.

Three weeks ago, as you know, my wife and I had twins. And during the three weeks I was off, I took care of the twins, of course along with Lisa. I was there assisting her, at her every call. And my two year old son, EJ, got a little bored a couple of times, he would try to hug them a little too tightly. So I ended up taking EJ down to a little pond close to our house at least thirty-four times in a matter of three weeks. And EJ wanted to see the frogs. Daddy, I want to see the frogs, the frogs, the frogs. And after we would see the frogs, we would go home. And as I was putting him to bed he would say, “Dad, tell me about it, tell me about the frogs.” Well these frogs are amazing, I have never seen frogs like this. I hate to get off on a Discovery Channel thing but the frogs have a yellow belly and a bright green top and they are monsters. They are hugh. Ribbit. (demonstration) Real deep like that, and they can jump like ten feet. When we get into a relationship, and level two needs aren’t being met but we don’t why, ribbit, we jump to another relationship and surely this person can meet the ultimate needs, this person can cure my loneliness. It doesn’t work, break that off, ribbit, into another one. Here is what Jesus says about that. Jesus says, look here on your outline John 14:27 “Peace is what I leave with you; it is my own peace that I give you…”(if you are married). Is that what He says? NO, no, no, no, there are no stipulations here. There are no stipulations here. Jesus says, peace is what I leave with you, not your spouse, not your lover, I am the source of peace. Look at John 10:10. “I have come in order that you might have life – and have life in all of its fullness”. The word fullness in the Greek it means overflowing. Even if you are unmarried. Hebrews 13:5. Jesus said, talking to lonely people, “…I will never leave you; I will never (ever) abandon you”. You are not married and you are lonely and you think, a spouse will do it. What is the solution? Explore the depths of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Until he fills that hole in your heart, until he meets that level two, your life will never, ever come together. That is why there is so much divorce, that is why there is so much relational trouble, is because of this level two thing.

Let’s now look at the second question. True or false. Marriage will repair my brokenness. That’s right, if I get married it will repair my brokenness. A lot of people have a compound fracture of the heart. You come from broken homes, divorce, alcoholism, emotional abuse, and you think, boy, a spouse can do it. And you look at a spouse like a orthopedic surgeon. If I marry him, or her, she can put a giant cast around our relationship and she can heal me. Man, I know she can do it, I know he can do it. Some people call this the Humpty-dumpty syndrome. You remember that? Humpty-dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty-dumpty had a great fall, all the king’s horses, all the king’s men could not put our man Humpty back together again. So you are asking a human being, single adults, to do what all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t even do in a nursery rhyme. It is not going to happen. A person cannot cure your loneliness, a person cannot heal your brokenness. And that is why our Lord said in Psalm 147:3, “He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds.” He does, the Lord, God does. So if you are broken, again it points to Jesus Christ. Matthew 9:12. “…Jesus said, It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick…” You are spinning your wheels if you think a person can be the solution. So the second question, I hate to rain on your parade here, is false. It is false. So the application is, go to Jesus. Go to Jesus, go to Christ for your healing, period. Single adults, go to Jesus and let Him do what He wants to do. And one of the main things He will do when He sees you in His operating room, He’ll give you a pill and it is called the “relax pill”. He will say, “Take the pill and relax.” Put God at the top of the list, make Jesus Christ the Lord of your singleness because He will say, “I have you single for a specific reason. You can do things now because you are single that you could not do if you are married.” And He wants you to be content and to relax and to rejoice in whatever station of life you are in. Whether you have four children like me, or you are a single adult. And I highly recommend both. Whatever God calls you to do.

Let’s jump now to the third question. True or false. Once I get married I will live happily ever after. Once I get married I will live happily ever after, no more problems for me, no arguments, no difficulties, I will just live happily ever after. That’s right. That’s it. Well take, for example again, the best Christian marriage here. The best. If you are talking to this couple and they are honest with you, here is what they will say. If you are married you have got to say thousands of times, honey, I was wrong, will you forgive me? You have got to say thousands and thousands of times, I submit to you. Husband to wife, wife to husband. You also have to stay up many evenings until the wee hours of the morning getting something right. Take again the best Christian marriage here and look at the spiritual struggles. The wife, she wants to go to the Single Minded series. The husband says go, I can play golf this series. The husband isn’t really into tithing, the wife, though, wants to give ten percent of their income to the house of worship, which the Bible talks about. That is a spiritual struggle. How about a relational struggle? He wants to go out with his buddies, his college friends, she wants to go out with the cute couple she met down the street. How about sexual struggles? It is not that often that you both feel romantic at the same moment, at the same time. How about that? How about child rearing struggles? She wants to do the June Cleaver thing and kind of reason with the Beaver, while the husband wants to put the little one on restriction for life. Struggles. Marriage takes work, blood, sweat and tears, and most unmarried people underestimate this. I highly recommend marriage. And God calls most people to be married. However, the Bible specifically says He gives some the gift of singleness. And too many singles concentrate on what they don’t have instead of what they do have. And if you are not content with where you are now, you are not going to be content when you get married.

That is why, my final application point, Capitalize on your singleness. Look up I Corinthians 7. This is one of the most misinterpreted texts in the Bible.

I Corinthians 7. The apostle Paul is talking. I have heard people say, well Paul here is saying you should never get married. Paul here is really saying, marriage is not the deal. That is false. Let me give you the context of this text. Every time you read a verse or a chapter make sure you understand the background, the context. The recipients of this letter, I Corinthians 7, verses 18, 32 and 35, the recipients were really messing up. They were getting drunk during communion, they were involved in idol worship, and all this immorality, and Paul was saying to those guys and girls, hey, the last thing you need to worry about is getting married. You have all these problems, hey, put marriage on the back burner for awhile, get those straightened out. And here is what the apostle Paul tells them, and he would say the same thing to anyone here who is not married, and to those who are married. Listen to I Corinthians 7:28, you talk about a hilarious verse, a true verse, “…those who marry will face many troubles in this life…” Do you agree with that? Those who aren’t agreeing, you are not married. Those who are married will face many troubles and the Living Bible interprets this as extra problems. I will never forget the first two weeks in algebra class. Miss Kazoo taught me algebra and the first two weeks, no problem, I was cruising. But it became complicated when they started adding other things into the equation, other factors, and then I started making the C-s and D+s. That complicated the thing. You see if you are single, if you are not married, it is not as complicated as if you are married.

For example, when I was studying for this message this past week I knew even though I was on a roll, writing the message, oh, it is six o’clock. I had to be home, I had my responsibilities to my wife and to our four children. You see, extra problems. And they are problems I am called to meet and they are problems you are called to meet if you are married, but if you aren’t, think about the freedom. He goes on, Paul says in verse 32, “I would like for you to be free from concern.” And I Corinthians 7:35, “I am saying this because I want to help you. I am not trying to put restrictions on you. Instead, I want you to do what is right and proper and to give yourselves completely to the Lord’s service without any reservation.” That’s why I say capitalize, single adults, capitalize on your singleness. “How? How do you do it, Ed? How do I capitalize on my singleness?” The first blank. Time. Write the word time. Capitalize on your time. Time is a gift from God. That is why the Bible says in Philippines 1:27, “Whatever happens, make sure that your everyday life is worthy of Christ.” If we didn’t have singles here, our church could not function. You should have seen this place about four hours ago. Singles running around helping, the sound, the lighting, the technicians, the praise team , the praise band, the people running all this computer generated stuff. Single adults, giving up their time. If these folks were married, ha, ha, ha. It is a pipedream that this service would come off. And they are using their time for the glory of God. So, are you capitalizing, singles, on your time or are you just spinning your wheels saying, well, I’m just going to kind of veg out here until I meet the right person, then my life will really start happening, then I can use time, but right now I’ll just kind of waste time, kind of flounder around.

Number two. We need to capitalize on attitude. Look at Philippines 4:12. Attitude. The big attitude. Paul said, “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation.” A friend of mine has said, paranoia will destroia. And there are singles I know who are paranoid about getting married. And because they are single, it is easy for them to become self-absorbed. That is why I encourage you to give of yourself, to thank God for your singleness, to ask Jesus Christ to work on your attitude.

The third thing that we have to capitalize on is ministry. See that, ministry. The Bible says in Romans 14:19, “So let us concentrate on the things that make for harmony and the growth of our fellowship together.” The growth of our fellowship together. And this is one of the main stumbling blocks I see in the singles community. The church I came from has the largest singles ministry in the world, of any church. And this church has one of the largest singles ministry in the metroplex. But here is what I have seen in single’s lives over the last twelve years. Here is what I see them do. I see them kind of coming in and they will hang out for a couple of months, check out everything, I am talking about the opposite sex, and then when they have kind of dated four or five, they will go to the next church. “Oh, all right man, have you seen her?” “Now here is another church, OK”, and do that. And what happens is, they miss out on God’s specific calling, His great church in the metroplex, great singles ministry. This church is not for every single. Find out where God is leading you. Join that church, single adults, stay there, plant your roots and say, “I’m going to be a part of this”. And as you let yourself grow in your relationship with the Lord, as you explore the depths of that thing, He will give you a specific ministry in that Body of Christ, and, if He has given you the desire to be married, at the right time He will bring someone into your life. But you need to get off this church hopping, shopping and bopping thing. You end up getting bits and pieces and never really settling down. So be like a Psalm 1 person, be like a tree firmly planted. And if God wants you to plant your membership here, great. If it is somewhere else, great. But make sure you find it. Please do that. Put God in control of finding a mate.

Finally, capitalize on your relationships, singles, on your relationships. Proverbs 18:24, “…there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” If you are single you can have many more deeper relationships that I can have, cause you’ve got more time. I can have maybe one or two, you could have ten. And the Bible talks about relationships that are closer than marriages in terms of communication. Are you building those relationships, singles, are you really doing that?

So again, I would tell you if you are not married, rejoice. Relax. Reverse all the energy you are using to try to find a mate, reverse that energy and give it to God and then you watch because people will step back and say, whoa there goes a Jesus-controlled, Holy Spirit filled man or woman of God. Wow, look what they are doing. And if God does lead you into marriage, great, but make sure you rejoice in your content with being single.