June 29.2008
Sermon #738
How God Gets Our Attention
Psalm 37:23 - 26 (NKJV) 23The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, And He delights in his way. 24Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; For the Lord upholds him with His hand. 25I have been young, and now am old; Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, Nor his descendants begging bread. 26 He is ever merciful, and lends; And his descendants are blessed.
Introduction: Last Sunday we studied how a person hears from God. Today I want us to see the methods God uses to get our attention. Sometimes we are so busy or so hardheaded that we do not listen to hear His voice. When I was a young boy, we had to alarms that would get our attention, the fire bell, and the alarm bell for an enemy attack. When I was studying in Oklahoma, they had a tornado alarm. Believe me these things get your attention. God has some methods as well.
A restless spirit
Esther 6:1 - 10 (NKJV) 1That night the king could not sleep. So one was commanded to bring the book of the records of the chronicles; and they were read before the king. 2And it was found written that Mordecai had told of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs, the doorkeepers who had sought to lay hands on King Ahasuerus. 3Then the king said, “What honor or dignity has been bestowed on Mordecai for this?” And the king’s servants who attended him said, “Nothing has been done for him.” 4So the king said, “Who is in the court?” Now Haman had just entered the outer court of the king’s palace to suggest that the king hang Mordecai on the gallows that he had prepared for him. 5The king’s servants said to him, “Haman is there, standing in the court.” And the king said, “Let him come in.”
6So Haman came in, and the king asked him, “What shall be done for the man whom the king delights to honor?” Now Haman thought in his heart, “Whom would the king delight to honor more than me?” 7And Haman answered the king, “For the man whom the king delights to honor, 8let a royal robe be brought which the king has worn, and a horse on which the king has ridden, which has a royal crest placed on its head. 9Then let this robe and horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king’s most noble princes, that he may array the man whom the king delights to honor. Then parade him on horseback through the city square, and proclaim before him: ‘Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor!’” 10Then the king said to Haman, “Hurry, take the robe and the horse, as you have suggested, and do so for Mordecai the Jew who sits within the king’s gate! Leave nothing undone of all that you have spoken.”
Something was happening in the land that the king, Ahasuerus, had no knowledge about but he had a restless spirit and could not sleep
Haman was a counselor to the king but had decided to kill Mordecai and the Jews
God arranged to have the king read the records of the chronicles – nothing that boring could be read and not put him to sleep!
God arranged to have the chronicle read where Mordecai was the hero
God arranged to have Haman there so that he thinking that he was going to be honored could have Mordecai blessed
Have you ever been so restless you could not sleep or could not be at ease? Maybe God is trying to get your attention.
ILL: My wife has learned to pay attention to my restless spirit – it always comes before we have moved or taken on a new assignment. Discontentment can be God’s push to attract you to His pull!
A word from others
2 Samuel 12:1 - 12 (NKJV) 1Then the Lord sent Nathan to David. And he came to him, and said to him: “There were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor. 2The rich man had exceedingly many flocks and herds. 3But the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb which he had bought and nourished; and it grew up together with him and with his children. It ate of his own food and drank from his own cup and lay in his bosom; and it was like a daughter to him. 4And a traveler came to the rich man, who refused to take from his own flock and from his own herd to prepare one for the wayfaring man who had come to him; but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.” 5So David’s anger was greatly aroused against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this shall surely die! 6And he shall restore fourfold for the lamb, because he did this thing and because he had no pity.”
7Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. 8I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your keeping, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I also would have given you much more! 9Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon. 10Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ 11Thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, I will raise up adversity against you from your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. 12For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, before the sun.’”
Talk about getting David’s attention!
Be careful about the qualifications of the person who brings you the word!
ILL: When I need to hear from the Lord about ministry, I have other ministers who have been serving the ministry a long time and successively – these I will hear.
ILL: Nearly every Friday Larry Jones and I play golf. Last week I had a score of 86 and Larry had 84. Larry will tell me, “Pastor open the face of the club to make that shot” or “ Pastor you are standing too far forward on the ball to make that shot.” I do what he tells me – that is why I am now getting close to his score.
ILL: My Dad had a very close friend that would tell him “Paul, you need to buy such and such stock or Paul you need to sell such and such stock.” My father lost tens of thousands of dollars on the market. One day I asked him, “Dad is your friend rich? Does he make a lot of money on the stock market?” “No!” he said, “He doesn’t have money to invest.” “And, neither will you” I told him, “if you keep listening to a man that has no success in what he is telling you.”
Blessings
Romans 2:4 (NKJV) 4Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?
ILL: I love it when God gets my attention this way. It’s called serendipity – sudden spiritual or material blessings that you were not expecting. Mary and I were vacationing in the Bahamas and I looked at a gold bracelet in a window. “Isn’t that beautiful,” I remember telling her. A few weeks later, a paper bag was on my desk and in the desk, I found the bracelet. No! Mary did not buy it or tell anyone that I admired it – God had someone get it for me just to show me that he was pleased with me. In the same way, I was given a Rolex watch as an earnest of a greater financial blessing that is to come. These tokens of God’s blessings lead to faith!
Financial Need
Judges 6:1 - 10 (NKJV) 1Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years, 2and the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel. Because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made for themselves the dens, the caves, and the strongholds which are in the mountains. 3So it was, whenever Israel had sown, Midianites would come up; also Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them. 4Then they would encamp against them and destroy the produce of the earth as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor donkey. 5For they would come up with their livestock and their tents, coming in as numerous as locusts; both they and their camels were without number; and they would enter the land to destroy it.
6So Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord. 7And it came to pass, when the children of Israel cried out to the Lord because of the Midianites, 8that the Lord sent a prophet to the children of Israel, who said to them, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘I brought you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of bondage; 9and I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you and gave you their land. 10Also I said to you, “I am the Lord your God; do not fear the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell.” But you have not obeyed My voice.’”
ILL: This is just the opposite as God’s blessings but both are designed to get our attention. I tithe, God has promised to bless me, if the financial blessings start to cease I start to check where I might be in sin or where I have failed to obey his instructions. Moreover, I do it quickly!
Unanswered Prayer
James 4:1 - 4 (NKJV) 1Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? 2You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. 3You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
1 John 3:18 - 23 (NKJV) 18My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. 19And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him. 20For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. 21Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. 22And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. 23And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment.
1 John 5:14 - 15 (NKJV) 14Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.
1 Peter 3:7 (NKJV) 7Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.
ILL: Check it out if you see no results from your prayer life – maybe something is wrong in your life!
VI. Disappointment
Numbers 14:39 - 45 (NKJV) 39Then Moses told these words to all the children of Israel, and the people mourned greatly. 40And they rose early in the morning and went up to the top of the mountain, saying, “Here we are, and we will go up to the place which the Lord has promised, for we have sinned!” 41And Moses said, “Now why do you transgress the command of the Lord? For this will not succeed. 42Do not go up, lest you be defeated by your enemies, for the Lord is not among you. 43For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and you shall fall by the sword; because you have turned away from the Lord, the Lord will not be with you.” 44But they presumed to go up to the mountaintop. Nevertheless, neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord nor Moses departed from the camp. 45Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who dwelt in that mountain came down and attacked them, and drove them back as far as Hormah.
The people had listened to the 10 spies and did not go and take the land that was promised – now when they decided to go God said NO – what a disappointment!
VII. Signs and wonders
Exodus 3:1 - 3 (NKJV) 1Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. 3Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.”
ILL: The burning bush was a sign that made Moses wonder – he had no scripture for it but that did not mean that it wasn’t God getting his attention. He still uses “signs that make us wonder.”
Romans 15:18 - 19 (NKJV) 18For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not accomplished through me, in word and deed, to make the Gentiles obedient— 19in mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and round about to Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.
2 Corinthians 12:12 - 13 (NKJV) 12Truly the signs of an apostle were accomplished among you with all perseverance, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds. 13For what is it in which you were inferior to other churches, except that I myself was not burdensome to you? Forgive me this wrong!
Hebrews 2:4 (NKJV) 4God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will?
Be careful, however, signs and wonders can come from Satan
2 Thessalonians 2:9 - 12 (NKJV) 9The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, 10and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, 12that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Revelation 13: 13-14 (NKJV) 13He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. 14And he deceives £those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived.
ILL: Check it out with the elders in the church.
1 Corinthians 14:26 - 33 (NKJV) 26How is it then, brethren? Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification. 27If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be two or at the most three, each in turn, and let one interpret. 28But if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in church, and let him speak to himself and to God. 29Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge. 30But if anything is revealed to another who sits by, let the first keep silent. 31For you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be encouraged. 32And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. 33For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.
Conclusion: All of these ways God can use to get our attention but be careful about the word you believe after He has your attention!
Does it agree with Scripture
Is it moral and ethical
Does it appeal to the spirit or to the flesh
Is it God’s wisdom or human wisdom
Does it require courage and faith?
