I Don't Believe It's Over

I'm going to say some things here today that you might have to think about. Let me start by saying the battles, the struggles, the warfare that you see and experience in the world today, it's not really about us fighting the devil. It is really about two super powers fighting it out.

I don't even like to give the devil the status of a super power, but he is a supernatural being, and he is the ruler of all the dark hosts, as God is the ruler of all the forces of heaven.

So everything ultimately is about worship. The battle is over the hearts of men... who will you worship, and who will you serve? Because you will serve whoever you worship.

God must be worshipped intentionally, acknowledging him and honoring him as your supreme king, and serving him out of a heart of love.

Satan on the other hand does not demand or require that same love and devotion and intentionality in your worship or your service.

Fear, doubt, worry, confusion, resentment, criticism, hate, jealousy, bitterness, and hopelessness are all received by him as worship.

So the devil will create conditions, circumstances, problems, hardships, sickness, loss etc. In order to get your attention and your affection away from God.

And almost any reaction that you have outside of intentionally, worshipping, glorifying, and magnifying God, the devil will steal for himself and identify it as worship.

So the devil will will create circumstances, to produce feelings of negativity, such as fear and frustration and confusion and ultimately hopelessness, and dispair, and he will take that to himself as worship.

So here we go let's get into this message... Have you ever looked at a situation that had "done, finished, the end, hopeless, give up" written all over it? I think if we'll be honest about it, we've all been there at least once, or more.

When we look at this story in the Bible, we see "the end, hopeless, terminal, forget it" written all over it.

Mary and Martha watched their brother Lazarus as he became sick, and they watched as the life drained from his body. As the sickness worsened and he became weaker and weaker, their hope began to slip away. But they had one last hope, we must send for Jesus, Jesus can heal him. Jesus can stop the plague of death.

So they sent for Jesus, but he didn't come. Let's be honest, we have all been in that same situation, and some are there right now. You've been praying and praying, believing for a change, and all that has happened is, it has gotten worse. In other words Jesus hasn't showed up, he hasn't come through for you.

Now I admit this is where this story causes some confusion. Jesus has gotten the message. So now he knows Lazarus is terminally ill. Jesus knows that all their hopes are that he will come before Lazarus dies, and he will heal him. But Jesus waits deliberately until he knows Lazarus has died, then he says to his disciples, our friend Lazarus is asleep, I must go and wake him up.

I think we could rightly assume that in Jesus humanity, he wanted to rush to Lazarus the moment he heard he was sick.

But Jesus said of himself... I only speak what I hear my father speak, and I only do what I see my father do. So now we can understand that Jesus reluctance to rush to Lazarus side came from his acting in obedience and in harmony with the Fathers will.

I personally believe that it was very hard on Jesus humanity, to not drop everything he was doing, and run to the aid of his dear friend Lazarus.

So why the delay? The delay is for the greater glory. If Jesus would have rushed to Lazarus and kept him from dying, so many of the unbelieving Jews would have said, well he wasn't really that sick, he just recovered, it was just coincidental that Jesus prayed for him before his recovery.

Here is something we rarely recognize... When we are crying out for a miracle, a healing, a breakthrough, a restoration, a deliverance. Our attention, and our intensity, and focus are all centered upon that particular need, and we assume that since that is what has our full attention, that must be where God is focusing his attention too.

Of course God cares about your need. Of course God feels your pain and your sorrow. But what we must recognize is that God is a multitasker. You want his full attention on meeting your need. "Hold on tight, we're going to hit some turbulance here." God's ultimate desire is to...

*Grow us up.

*To reveal himself more fully to us.

*To mature our faith.