What new thing is Christ calling you to?
Where is God saying to go?
Where in your life are you telling God “No!”?
What new territory is Christ calling this church to?
The principle of “accelerated blessing.” = “The faster you trust and obey, the faster you will receive God’s blessing.”
In Thursday’s reading, Deuteronomy 1:2 Moses says, “Normally it takes only 11 days to travel from Mt. Sinai to Kadesh-barnea.
Kadesh-barnea was the threshold of promise. It was the desert entry point to the promised land. It was the place from where they sent the 12 spies to spy out the land.
Some of you have been wandering around the desert and are now at the threshold of promise.
This church is at it’s own Kadesh-barnea – waiting to enter into the promised land of revival.
So, it makes sense that we should study the Israelites at Kadesh-barnea and learn something from their mistakes.
On the 12th day the Children of Israel could have possessed the promised land. But, instead, they made a fatal faith killing mistake. (Pause) They stopped relying on God’s leading and leaned on their own understanding instead.
Listen, if you are trying to be in charge of your life, If you are relying on your own intellect, your own talent and strength to get through life, you are making a HUGE mistake!
God loves it when you trust and obey Him! God loves it when you rely on Him to take you though life’s journey. He rewards faith, and the quicker you trust and obey, the sooner you’ll reap the benefit of His blessing. It’s the principle of “accelerated blessing.”
We often become inpatient and want God to do something for us right now, but we forget about God’s purposes and God’s timing. We don’t understand why it’s taking God so long to answer our prayers. (Pause)
Listen to me now, if you are completely trusting and obeying God, your prayers will have top priority and they will be answered in the fastest possible time according to God’s plan. That plan may require you to wait 4 years for an answer to prayer. But if you are not trusting and being obedient, then the answer might not come for 40 years. Which would you rather have a 4 year wait or a 40 year wait?
God is moving you – God is moving us into something new, a new, fresh and deeper relationship with Him. A more dynamic walk with Christ. A new adventure in the Holy Spirit. We are about to enter this promised land and capture souls for Christ as we march under new orders from God. Let’s not make the same mistakes that the Children of Israel did at Kadesh-barnea.
We’re in Deuteronomy Chapter 1, verse 6&7. “When we were at Mount Sinai, the Lord our God said to us, ‘You have stayed at this mountain long enough. It is time to break camp and move on…”
If you haven’t noticed, God is beginning to move here. We’ve been at this mountain long enough. If you’ve been a Christian for any length of time you’ve become trained in the Word and you should be prepared for battle. You should be ready for service in His Kingdom. You should already have your black-belt in spiritual warfare. Each one of you should be able to operate in the gifts He has assigned you. Each one of you should be at a level of maturity in Christ that you are ready for the next move of God!
Are you ready for God’s next move in your life?
God is moving us from where we’ve been camped for so long into His promise.
Church, it’s time to break camp and move on!
Verse 8: “I am giving all this land to you! Go in and occupy it…”
God is calling us to possess the land. What is the land He is calling us to possess?
On the personal level it could be: 1. A right relationship with Him. 2. A right relationship with your spouse. 3 A right relationship with your family. 4. A right relationship with your church. 5. A right relationship with your work. 6. A right relationship with your government.
It could be that God is calling you to occupy the ideal job. One that gives you adequate pay and benefits, job satisfaction and time off to serve God and your family.
God may be calling you to a deeper prayer life, to greater effectiveness in sharing your faith, to higher levels of operation in your spiritual gifts.
God may be calling you to do a job or several jobs in this church. By the way, every job in the church is vitally important to God. There is no job more important than any other. From taking out the trash to preaching in the pulpit – every job is important to God. If you teach a Sunday School class or are asked to teach a Sunday School class, do it as if you were doing if for Jesus Himself. If your job is a greeter, then greet everyone as if he or she were a visiting dignitary. If your job is ushering, then usher as if you were serving Jesus Himself. If your job is to host a youth group event at your house, then do it as if a King were coming – because you know what? A King is coming, so whatever you do, no matter how insignificant you might think the task is, do it as unto the Lord, and He will bless you and us for it.
On the Church level, God is calling us to a higher plane of maturity. He is taking us through a transition period where He is preparing us to conserve the results of revival. God told me that He was not going to send a revival to us until we are prepared to disciple all the new converts He sends us.
Church, we are going to occupy Klamath Falls. We are going in! We are not going to make the same mistake Israel did when they failed to trust God.
Before God moved the Children of Israel into position to capture the promised land, he first prepared them by establishing a chain of command – an orderly system of government to promote an effective and efficient running of the community.
Verse 15. “So I took the wise and respected men you had selected from your tribes and appointed them to serve as judges and officials over you. Some were responsible for a thousand people, some for a hundred, some for fifty, and some for ten.”
God has set up an order and structure in this church. If you are going to be all God wants you to be, you need to fall in line and find your place of service. For instance, Doug Anderson is our new Director of Christian Education and he will be asking many of you to be Sunday School Teachers and Sunday School Teacher Assistants. If he asks you to do the job, then you better say “yes!” If you start making excuses for why you can’t do it, then you are out of line and are going to miss the boat when it comes to receiving God’s blessing.
The Children of Israel made a good start, Verse 19, “Then, just as the Lord our God directed us, we left Mount Sinai….(skipping to the end of the verse)… When we arrived at Kadesh-barnea, 20. I said to you, “You have now reached the land that the Lord our God is giving us. 21. Look! He has placed it in front of you. Go and occupy it as the Lord, the God or your ancestors, has promised you. Don’t be afraid! Don’t be discourages!” Hey, that’s good preaching Moses!
Listen, the Children of Israel made a good start believing that God was now going to lead them into the promised land.
What happened? (Pause) As they traveled, they had 11 days to think about it. When they were at the mountain top, they were all pumped up and ready to go. Had they been able to go immediately into the promised land they probably would have. But during that 11 day trip to the front door of the promised land doubt began to creep in.
How many of you have ever gone on a trip to a place where you’ve never been before?
What do you think about while you are traveling to visit that new place?
If you are like me, you try to imagine how it looks, what the people are like, what the food is like, what the culture is like. Then when you get there it’s nothing at all like you imagined.
I’m sure that during the 11 day journey the Children of Israel imagined what the promised land looked like, what their lives would be like once they were settled there. They imagined their children playing around their new homes. They imagined rich farm land with plenty of water for their flocks and herds. But they also began to imagine something else. They imagined having to fight many battles to drive the existing people out of the land. They imagined that they might die in battle, that their kids might be captured in battle and sold as slaves. Their doubts and fears began to multiply.
So, inspite of some great preaching by Moses, they hesitated to go directly into the promised land. Instead they camped at the border. Verse 22. “But you responded, ‘first, let’s send out scouts to explore the land for us. They will advise us on the best route to take and decide which towns we should capture.’ This seemed like a good idea to me, so I chose twelve scouts, one from each of your tribes. They crossed into the hills and came to the valley of Eschol and explored it.”
Leaders make mistakes. Moses looking back on the incident, admitted it “seemed like a good idea” at the time. But it wasn’t a good idea. You see the problem here is that they quit relying on God in faith and began to rely on their own wisdom. Instead of relying of God to tell them the best route to take and which towns to capture, they were relying on their own talent. THAT’S A DANGEROUS THING!
Verse 25 and following: “They picked some of its fruit and brought it back to us. And they reported that the land the Lord our God had given us was indeed a good land. But you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God and refused to go in. You murmured and complained in your tents and said ‘The Lord must hate us, bringing us here from Egypt to be slaughtered by these Amorites. How can we go on. Our scouts have demoralized us with their report. They say that the people of the land are taller and more powerful than we are, and that the walls of their towns rise high into the sky! They have even seen giants there – the descendants of Anak!”
Listen, church let’s not make a good start and then fall down at the border. It’s a fact, we are going to hear demoralizing reports, we are going to be faced with fear of the unknown. But when the demoralizing reports come, we’ve got to be like Joshua and Caleb and declare with unwavering faith that God is with us and we can take the land.
When the newspaper says “Crime is up,” when the checkbook says, “There’s not enough,” when the pink slip says, “your job is gone,” When your spouse says, “I’m leaving you,” when the Dr. says, “I’ve got bad news,” Don’t look down, LOOK UP – for Jesus Christ your savior is near. The report may be true, but it doesn’t matter, because God is with you and you will prevail over the enemy and conquer the land.
In verse 29-31 Moses preaches to them again reminding them of the great and mighty acts of God and that they had absolutely no reason to be afraid.
Yet in verse 32 we read, “But even after all He did, you refused to trust the Lord your God,”
They missed the principle of accelerated blessing. They could have entered the promised land on the 12th day. Instead they were punished by their lack of faith. Verse 35, “Not one of you from this entire wicked generation will live to see the good land I swore to give your ancestors…(then in verse 39)… I will give the land to your innocent children. You were afraid they would be captured, but they will be the ones who occupy it. As for you, turn around now and go on back through the wilderness toward the Red Sea.”
So, they wondered in the desert for 40 years and that generation was buried there. They missed their chance. They refused to trust the Lord by relying on their own wisdom and giving in to their fears.
Listen, it’s OK to be afraid. God wired us with the emotion of fear so that we would be respectful of things that could harm us. However, when we rely on our emotions over what the Word of God says, we commit the sin of faithlessness.
Verse 41, they came to their senses and confessed, “We have sinned against the Lord! We will go into the land and fight for it, as the Lord our God has told us.’ So your men strapped on their weapons, thinking it would be easy to conquer the hill country. But the Lord said to me, ‘Tell them not to attack, for I will not go with them. If they do, they will be crushed by their enemies.’ This is what I told you, but you would not listen. Instead, you again rebelled against the Lord’s command and arrogantly went into the hill country to fight. But the Amorites who lived there came out against you like a swarm of bees. They chased and battered you all the way from Seir to Hormah. Then you returned and wept before the Lord, but he refused to listen. So you stayed there at Kadesh for a long time.” They stayed there looking over the border at what might have been.
They had their chance, they had their second chance, but they refused to trust and obey. They missed their opportunity and died in the desert because of their lack of faith.
You may be standing at the door to the promised land today, but for some reason you haven’t entered in. It may be fear, it may be something else, but God is calling you. Will you answer and go in – or – will you ignore His call. At the end of the service I will ask those of you who do not know Jesus to pray the prayer of faith to ask Jesus into your hearts. Don’t miss out, don’t say, “Well, maybe next time.” Because there may not be a “next time.” You might die today and spend eternity in the wilderness – the wilderness of hell. Yes, hell is a real place and it is for eternity. Heaven is a real place and it also is for eternity. The decision you make today has eternal consequences. Decide for Christ and enter into His blessing.
Church, this is for you. In Thursday’s New Testament reading, Luke 5:33ff we find Jesus being criticized for the way he was doing ministry. They tried to demoralize Him. They complained, “John the Baptist’s disciples always fast and pray and so do the disciples of the Pharisees. Why are your disciples always feasting?” In other words, they were saying that Jesus wasn’t doing things right. but Jesus refused to be effected by their criticism. Jesus was doing a new thing – he wasn’t going to be hemmed in by a “church as usual” mentality. This is what he said in Verse 36ff, “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and uses it to patch an old garment. For then the new garment would be torn, and the patch wouldn’t even match the old garment. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. The new wine would burst the old skins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine must be put into new wineskins. But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the fresh and the new. ‘The old is better,’ they say.”
As God begins to do new things here, some will not enter in, they will stop at the border instead. They are so used to the old wine, the old traditions, the old ways, that they don’t even want the fresh and the new wine of the Holy Spirit. They will say, “The old ways are better.” But God is saying, “You have stayed at this mountain long enough. It is time to break camp and move on.”
As a church we are like the Children of Israel – we are breaking camp and beginning our journey toward the promised land of revival. We haven’t arrived yet, but we will. It won’t be very long until we are camped at the border of revival. How we handle our thought life during the journey is critical. If you are fasting and praying, reading the Bible and seeking the face of God, you will enter in. If on the other hand, you dwell on doubt and fear you will never enter in. We are on a journey, a faith journey, and we are all travel companions. So help each other out along the way. Be an encourager, a helper, a friend to each other. Lift each other up in prayer. Trust God with all your heart mind and soul and obey him with all your strength and we will enter into God’s blessings together.
Invitation
