Remember

Deuteronomy chapter 11. Moses in the book of Deuteronomy is doing two things. Number one, he keeps saying remember, remember, remember.

He's got a new generation there, brand new generation. They're about to go into the Holy Land and take their inheritance and he doesn't give them a map of the Holy Land. He doesn't give them a tour of the Holy Land verbally.

First he looks back, so I want you to remember something. Whenever you and I stop looking back and we forget the lessons of the past, we're in trouble. The past is not an anchor to drag us back.

The past is a rudder to guide us and I have watched more churches and more Christians go right into oblivion because they forgot the past. One of our famous philosophers, George Santayana, has said he who forgets the past, does not know the past, is compelled to repeat it and that's sad. That's sad.

Somehow, I think it was Henry Ford who said the one thing we learn from the past is that we don't learn from the past because we think we know everything. Well, Moses, number one, is saying to this new generation, remember the past, you know it, and don't make the same mistakes when you go into the land. Second thing he does is tell them what the land is like and how to conquer it.

And here's a part of that. Chapter 11, verse 10, for the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, kind of an irrigation thing, as a vegetable garden, but the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys which drinks water from the rain of heaven, a land for which the Lord your God cares. The eyes of the Lord your God are always on it from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year.

It took one night for the Lord God to get the Jews out of Egypt, and it took 40 years to get Egypt out of the Jews. Bible geography is inspired. You have only three locations, Egypt, wilderness, Canaan.

That's all. Egypt pictures the world bondage. The wilderness pictures unbelief wandering around.

Canaan pictures claiming my inheritance in Jesus Christ right now today. Please, please, Canaan does not picture heaven. My, oh my, these songs we sing about, I don't want to cross Jordan alone.

I don't want to cross Jordan at all. Now, I know these are great, great American songs, and I don't criticize people who sing them. I'm just saying they're not biblical.

If Canaan is like heaven, I don't want to go there. Warfare and all sorts of problems. No, no.

Canaan pictures the Christian life right now with its battles and its blessings, and that is why Moses said, when you were in Egypt, it was bland. It was neutral. It was flat.

It was boring. I've been to Egypt. I have no desire to go back.

Why the Jewish people wanted to go back there, I'll never know. If you gave me a free ticket, I wouldn't go back. Dull and bland, but I've been to the Holy Land, and that's beautiful.

And he says, now when you get into that land, you remember, it's a land of hill and valley. Now, I like the hills. I like mountaintop experiences.

I like to be up there in the mountain, getting closer to God. You got a vision. You can see.

Oh, I like, I like the mountains. I like the hill. I don't like the valleys, and you don't like the valleys.

I've talked to you folks, and as I've been walking around, some of you have been going through valleys. I know. Some of you are in the valleys right now.

And he said, look, when you get into the Holy Land, into Canaan, into your inheritance, just keep in mind, it's not going to be all mountaintop experiences. It's a land of hills and valleys. When you've trusted Christ as your Savior, if somebody said to you, boy, from now on you're on the mountaintop, it's not biblical.

It's a land of hills and valleys. Now, what I'd like to do in these evening meetings that the Lord gives to us, as he guides, is deal with some situations in the Bible where people came down from the mountain into the valley and what they found. Because I don't think churches today, by and large, understand valley experiences.

Churches go through valley experiences. Christians go through valley experiences. So let's turn to a very familiar passage, Luke chapter 9. Luke chapter 9. Our Lord Jesus took Peter and James and John, went up on the mountain, and there he revealed his glory, transfigured before them.

John wrote and said, we beheld his glory. The glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. What an experience.

And then suddenly Elijah was there. Moses was there. What a gathering.

And Jesus and Moses and Elijah talked about his decease, verse 31. It's the word exodus. His exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.

What an experience. And, of course, Peter and James and John were asleep. They woke up and saw the glory.

And Peter spoke up and said, you only ought to build three tabernacles and stay here. And from heaven, God the Father interrupted him. By the way, when you read your Bible, notice that Peter was interrupted three times.

He was interrupted on the Mount of Transfiguration by God the Father. And he was saying, let's build three tabernacles and from heaven the voice came and said, this is my beloved son. Listen to him.

That took care of that. Not too long after that, Peter had to answer a question and didn't know what to say. The tax collectors came up and said to him, does your master pay the temple tax? He said, yes.

And then Peter turned to go in the house and was figuring out, how are we going to pay the temple tax? And he opened his mouth to talk to Jesus. And my Bible says, and Jesus interrupted him and said, Peter do this and this and this and this. And it worked.

He went down, caught a fish, found the money in the fish's mouth. He was interrupted by God the Father. He was interrupted by God the Son.

Acts chapter 10, Peter went to the house of Cornelius. He's preaching away. And when he got to the verse that we have, whosoever believes on him shall receive eternal life, they believed.

And Peter opened his mouth to say the next sentence, but the Holy Spirit came down. He never finished the sermon. We need more of those interruptions.

He was interrupted by the Father and by the Son and by the Holy Spirit. They came down from the mountain. Verse 37, now it happened on the next day when they had come down from the mountain, that a great multitude met him.

Suddenly a man from the multitude cried out, saying, Teacher, I implore you, look on my son, for he is my only child. And behold, a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly cries out, and it convulses him so that he foams of the mouth, and it departs from him with great difficulty, bruising him. So I implored your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.

Now these next words from Jesus are so remarkable, if they weren't in the Bible, we wouldn't believe them. Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you and bear with you, literally put up with you? That sounds like the words of a kindergarten teacher looking at her class. Sounds like a drill sergeant looking at his raw recruits.

How long am I going to have to put up with you? But this is Jesus talking about his disciples. My Lord did not defend those nine disciples before their critics. Well he said, you know, they really haven't graduated from disciple school yet.

Now don't be too hard on them. No, no. He looked at them and said, how long am I going to put up with you? Now as we read this passage, and we're going to go on and read it further, we're going to find that Jesus is disappointed.

One event after another, he's disappointed. Remember he was human as well as divine. He wept and here his heart was broken.

How long must I put up with you? I wonder if he ever looks at me and says that. I'm sure he does. I'm sure he looks at me and says, how long must I put up with you? Now what were the disappointments that broke the heart of Jesus? The same disappointments that break his heart today.

Here's the first one. We just read about it. Our lack of power.

Our lack of power. You go back to the beginning of this chapter and you'll find in verse 1, he gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases. And he took Peter and James and John up on the mountain, left the other nine, and they had been given power and authority to cast out demons and to heal diseases.

And this man comes with his little boy, his only son, his future, in the hands of the devil. And they couldn't do anything. I think here is the first disappointment the Lord has with some of us.

Our lack of power. You know we preach about power. We sing about power.

And then there's something happens and we haven't got any power. And my Lord looks at me and says, well I'm disappointed. Now you can't tell from Luke's gospel, but if you go back to Matthew and Mark, you can find out why they had lost their power.

Matthew chapter 17 describes the same scene. And in verse 19, the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, why could we not cast the demon out? We always discuss our failures privately. You ever notice that? We discuss our successes publicly.

We want people to know about our successes, but we don't want them to know about our failures. And Jesus answered their question. Verse 20, Matthew 17, because of your unbelief, your little faith.

See in the Bible you have certain levels of faith. You have no faith. Why is it you have no faith? He said to his disciples.

You have faith, little faith. You have great faith. The two Gentiles in the four Gospels, a Gentile woman, a Gentile man, a centurion, both were commended for their great faith.

I know people who believe the weather report, but don't believe the Bible. Now if you're going to believe the weather report, that takes courage. In our home we have five sources of weather information and they never agree.

Jesus said, I'll tell you the first reason why you didn't have any power, you didn't have any faith. What is faith? Faith is confidence that God keeps his promises. That's all it is.

Faith is pinning my future on the promises of God. And when this man brought his son to the nine disciples, they should have said, well Jesus gave us the authority, let's exercise this authority by faith. But somehow they had begun to decline.

So Jesus added something. For assuredly as I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there. And it will move.

And nothing will be impossible for you. During the ten years that Betty and I served here so happily, Brother Montgomery would lead the choir every Sunday night when we broadcast from here, nothing is impossible when you put your trust in God. Nothing is impossible.

That's what Jesus said here. They had been given the gift, the power, the authority, they had the faith, but then something happened and their faith began to decline. Verse 21, however, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.

Ah, why did the disciples lose the power to cast out the demon? They stopped praying. Stopped praying. You see, when Jesus said faith was like a grain of mustard seed, he wasn't talking about size.

He was talking about power, life. You take that little mustard seed, one of the smallest, put it in the ground, and out comes this big bush. There's power in that little seed.

And if you have faith and cultivate that faith by prayer, then you can claim the promises of God. But he didn't stop with prayer. He also said fasting.

It's rather interesting, in the Bible you find prayer and fasting. They prayed and they fasted. They fasted and they prayed.

We have prayer breakfast. It's impossible for God's people to get together without eating. Now, I'm not against eating.

I'm not against eating. When I was here, I did a series of messages, I think, or it may have been Moody Church, but I did a series of messages on At the Table with Jesus. Our Lord would be invited to eat.

He'd sit down, eat with people. But if you want to cultivate your faith, you pray and you give some things up, because if you're going to have a consistent, meaningful prayer life, something has to go. You see, you can fast by giving up sleep.

Fasting isn't just giving up food. My, what did they say in the paper that, what, 40 million Americans are overweight? Those are round figures, of course. Did you ever give up a meal to pray? Did you ever give up sleep to pray? Ever give up going to an enjoyable event to pray? You know what the greatest need is in the church today? Prayer.

Prayer. Prayer. Prayer.

I heard A.W. Tozer say many years ago, if God took the Holy Spirit out of this world, most of what the church is doing would go right on and nobody'd know the difference. That's an indictment. How long must I put up with you, said Jesus, your lack of power? I've been teaching Ephesians to two friends of mine.

They come over on Thursday afternoon. We sit down at the table and we just, word by word, go through Ephesians. You know what that book's about? Power.

Power. It's first chapter, that power that you have because Jesus has been raised from the dead. Chapter 2, this unspeakable, unmeasurable power.

Chapter 3, unto him who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask, that's praying, or think, that's planning. Power. I wonder how many visitors ever go away from any of our church services, this includes where we attend, and say there's power in that place.

Power. Jesus says, how long must I put up with your lack of power? But it goes on and gets a lot more burdensome. Jesus healed the boy.

Verse 46, then a dispute arose among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest. They were always doing this. This was their chief indoor sport.

I wish somehow God could erase the word great out of the church vocabulary. Great preaching. I don't know what great preaching is.

Great singing. I don't know what great, only God is great. Every once in a while somebody will stop me and say, I pastor a small church, and I always interrupt them and say, hold on, there are no small churches and there are no big preachers.

Don't ever forget that. And they're arguing over who was the greatest. Now I know why.

Because Peter and James and John had gone up to the mountain. Now they didn't tell anybody what happened up there. But they were special.

They went with Jesus on a special assignment. And Matthew said, well why didn't we go? Who are they? Let's find out who the greatest is in this crowd. You know who the greatest person is in this auditorium tonight? Jesus.

And it's not my job or your job to keep elevating our reputation. It's our job to keep making Jesus look bigger and bigger. John the Baptist said, he must increase, I must decrease.

So here's the second disappointment our Lord has. Jesus perceiving the thought of their heart, took a little child and set him by them and said, whoever receives this little child in my name receives me. And whoever receives me receives him who sent me.

For he who is least among you all will be great. Lack of power, he's disappointed. Our lack of love.

You know, you'd think that God's people, all purchased by the blood of Jesus, all indwelt by the Holy Spirit, would so love one another there'd never be the question raised who's more important than somebody else. But I'll tell you, you list in the church bulletin and say thanks to the people who worked in VBS and you leave out two names, you'll have a church split. Very few people ever come and say thanks for leaving my name out.

My Lord looks at me and says, how long must I endure your lack of love? They didn't love one another. They came and said, Peter what happened up there? I can't tell you. Oh, you're gonna be special now, you're elite.

No, I just can't tell you. The Lord said don't tell anybody. They didn't love each other.

They were competing for who was great. Now look at 49 and 50. Now John answered and said, Master, we saw someone, didn't even know his name, we saw someone casting out demons in your name and we forbade him because he does not follow with us.

Not only do they not love one another, they didn't love the people outside their fellowship. And they criticized this man for doing what they couldn't do. They could not pass out, cast out the demon.

Oh, there's so much of this today. Very early in my ministry, I came to the conclusion that I was going to minister the Word of God to please God, not to please people. If people didn't want to invite me, that's fine.

They didn't want to listen to me, perfectly all right. I'm just gonna do what I thought God wanted me to do. I got in trouble.

Doors began to close because if you didn't belong to a certain group, they didn't want you. And then the doors began to open and Betty and I've had the privilege of knocking down walls and and fellowshipping with so many of God's people in so many different parts of the world and it's been wonderful. Now I am an ordained Baptist preacher, but I've never made baptism a test of my fellowship.

Spurgeon said there are too many Christians walking around with a revolver in their pocket, and that's true. And there are many Christians, first time they meet another Christian, they try to figure out how they disagree with each other instead of where they agree. And I got tired of that kind of stuff.

I just said, Lord, I want to be your servant. I can't please everybody, I'm not even gonna try. I just want to please you.

And Jesus said, how long must I put up with your lack of love for those outside your fellowship? Jesus said to them, do not forbid him, for he who is not against us is on our side. God's people everywhere can accomplish God's purposes. They don't have to ask me, get my approval.

Oh, I thank God for the people we have learned to know and love who are not in my immediate fellowship, but they're out there and we love them. And Jesus says, how long must I put up with your lack of love for each other and for those outside? But it gets even worse. Verse 51, Now it came to pass when the time had come for him to be received up, that he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before his face.

And as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans to prepare for him. But they did not receive him, because his face was set for the journey to Jerusalem. Now that, we understand that.

The Samaritans were half-breeds. They were part Jewish, part Gentile. And there there was no fellowship between the Samaritans and the Jews.

Samaritans had their own law, they had their own temple, they had their own Mount Gerizim, they had their own religion, and they didn't like the Jews. And so our Lord needed a place to stay. And his messengers says, Jesus is coming.

We don't want him here. He's going to Jerusalem. If he doesn't worship with us, we don't want him.

When his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, just as Elijah did? Isn't that a great way to solve problems? Anybody who gets in your way, cremate him. See, they had just seen Elijah up on the mountaintop, and they remembered that Elijah had prayed down fire from heaven that consumed the sacrifice. But consuming a sacrifice is a lot different from consuming a whole village full of people.

You ever feel like that? I have. I've had vengeance in my heart. I was chatting with a pastor one day, he said, well, how's it going? Well, he says, I'm having a problem with some of my officers.

That's part of the turf. Just pray. He said, I'm praying, I'm praying the imprecatory Psalms for them.

He said, those are biblical prayers, so I guess I can pray them. I said, yeah, what kind of heart have you got? Some time ago, my wife and I were attacked, assailed by a man who said he was our friend, and it was only by prayer and patience that God overcame what was going on. I'll not go into detail, but I pray for that man faithfully.

And I'm not praying the imprecatory Psalms. You know what I'm praying? Dear Lord, bless him. That's what Jesus said, pray for those who despitefully use you.

I said, Lord, bless him and bless him so much he'll come to a place of obedience. That's what I'm praying for. Oh, sometimes my flesh says, why don't you pray that he'll get some awful disease.

No, no, no, no, no. Jesus said, how long must I put up with your lack of love? You don't love each other, you don't love outsiders, and you don't love your enemies. He turned and rebuked them and said, you do not know what manner of spirit you are of.

You're not acting like me. Verse 56, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them, and they went to another village. I've got to ask myself, what would Jesus do? What did Jesus do? He said, let's just go someplace else.

As much as lies in you, said Paul, live peaceably with all men. You say, that's compromise. It's not compromise, that's courtesy.

That's Christian sanity. That's love. How long must I put up with your lack of love? How long must I put up with your lack of power? Now 57 through 62.

Now it happened as they journeyed on the road that someone said to him, Lord, I will follow you wherever you go. Jesus said to him, foxes have dens and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. At last you hear of that man.

Then he said to another, follow me. But he said, Lord, let me first go and bury my father. Jesus said to him, let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.

We don't hear from him again. And another also said, Lord, I will follow you, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house. Jesus said to him, no one having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.

Now here we have three wannabe disciples, and they all lack the same thing. Discipline. Discipline.

Let me first, let me first. Try that in the army, the Navy, the Marines, the Coast Guard, the Air Force. Me first.

It won't work. And so Jesus looks at these three men and says, how long must I put up with your lack of discipline? Now did you notice all three of them called him Lord? All three of them. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not the things I've told you to do? Now the first man was unwilling to deny himself when he found out he wouldn't get a palatial suite, no place to lay your head, no home, no address, no email.

He disappeared. He would not deny himself. The second man, when he said, let me go bury my father, his father wasn't dead.

If his father was dead, he wouldn't have been there. He said, my father's old and I want to be there when he dies, close his eyes, and put him in the grave. That's a noble thing to do.

Elisha did that, but Jesus said, no, no, if you want some death around, you die. The first man would not deny himself. The second man would not take up his cross and die.

Third man, let me go and say goodbye to those who are at my house, and Jesus said, no, no, you follow me. Anybody who starts to follow me and looks back, anybody who picks up the plow and starts to plow and looks back isn't fit for the kingdom of God. There's a right time to look back and learn from the past.

There's a wrong time to look back, and this was a wrong time, and Jesus said, see that man over there? He would not deny himself. This man here would not take up his cross, and this man here wouldn't follow me, couldn't keep his eyes on me, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, and Jesus said, how long must I put up with your lack of discipline? We're probably about to have a revolt on our grade school and high school campuses because the government wants to change the diet, and they'll strike. I mean, they're liable to do anything.

They've got to have their Twinkies, got to have their candy bars, got to have all this stuff. You see a lot of lack of discipline today. We have criticized certain communities of the Christian faith.

We say, well, they're legalistic. Well, some of them may be, but they're also disciplined. Some people can't discipline themselves just to read the Bible.

Some can't discipline themselves just to get up in the morning and pray. We live in Nebraska where we're known for touchdowns, football touchdowns, and tornado touchdowns, and there are people there who know more about the football statistics than they do their own Bibles. No discipline.

So here are three disappointments that must break the heart of Jesus. How long must I bear with your lack of power? I've given you prayer. I've given you the Holy Spirit.

I'm on the throne of the universe. All authority has been given to me, and you stumble around when there ought to be power. Your lack of love.

You don't love each other. You don't love people outside your fellowship. You don't love your enemies.

Your lack of discipline. You won't deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me. And so my Lord is heartbroken and disappointed.

Well, you say you've been very negative. Yes, I have. By the way, your car battery wouldn't run if there were not both positive and negative.

Is there an answer to this? There sure is. Paul gives it to us in 2nd Timothy, chapter 1, verse 6. Therefore, I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit, and that can be capitalized, of fear, but of power, and love, and a disciplined mind.

In other words, if you and I have the Holy Spirit dwelling within our spirit, there should be no fear about living the Christian life. What should we be afraid of? Should we be afraid of the world? Jesus said, I've overcome the world. Should we be afraid of the devil? Colossians says Jesus Christ made such a big embarrassment of the devil on the cross.

If I have God's Holy Spirit within me, then I should have a spirit of power. You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you, and you will be witnesses to me. You shall receive, you shall be.

You shall receive, you shall be. The spirit of power, the spirit of love, the fruit of the Spirit is love, and when the Holy Spirit of God fills our hearts with his love, then we love those who belong to our fellowship. We're not trying to compete for prizes.

We love those who are outside our fellowship, and by the grace of God, we even love our enemies. Pray for them. When the Holy Spirit is in control, we have a disciplined mind.

We don't say, Lord, Lord, and then not do it. Let me first. Really what the Lord is talking about here is revival.

Know what revival is? Getting back to reality. That's all revival is. It's just getting back to reality.

What is reality? Jesus. And we'll know that we're being revived when there's power. Now, maybe he'll never call on me to perform a miracle.

That's all right. I need power for other occupations as well, where there's love, where there's discipline. When Jesus started his ministry, he was baptized by John the Baptist, and when he came up out of the water, heaven was split open.

The Holy Spirit came down like a dove. I like to think that that dove had been flying around ever since the days of Noah. Remember that second dove he sent out? Never did come back.

And he's flying around. He said, well, I think I'll land on Abraham. No, can't do that.

He's a liar. I'll land on Isaac. Isaac's another liar.

Let's land on Jacob. No, not Jacob. Yeah, well, let's land on Moses.

Moses lost his temper, killed a man, hit the rock. No, no. He's flying, looking for someplace to land.

Jesus comes up out of the water. The dove says, praise God, I can land there. The dove came down, and the Father spoke from heaven.

Now, Jesus had not performed a miracle. He had not preached a sermon. He had not taught a lesson.

He'd been working in a carpenter's shop, and the Father said, this is my beloved son. I love him, and in him I'm well pleased, well pleased. On the Mount of Transfiguration, this is my beloved son.

Listen to him. When our Lord Jesus was in the garden and was praying to his father, recorded in John 17, oh, what a wonderful chapter. He said, and I told you this this morning, he said something that I want to be able to say when I stand before him.

God's not impressed by the books I've written. That doesn't impress him. He's written the only book worth reading.

He's not impressed by anything that other people may think they're impressed with. No, no, no. All I want to be able to say to him is, Father, I've glorified you on the earth.

I finished the work you gave me to do, and I want to hear him say, well done, well done. I have disappointed my wife, I'm sure. I've disappointed my children, I'm sure.

I know I've disappointed my publishers. I know I've disappointed some of the churches and the people, but I don't want to disappoint Jesus by my lack of power, my lack of love, my lack of discipline, and I don't think you want to disappoint Jesus either. Maybe tonight be a good night for some of us to make a new beginning, for God has not given to us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a disciplined mind.

Oh, Father, in the name of Jesus, we confess our sins. In the name of Jesus, we ask you, forgive us for disappointing you when you've given us so much, and may there be a difference in our lives from now on, I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.