STANDING AT MY WATCH
In 2005, the Lord worked in many lives in a variety of ways.
God keeps us all busy while He is working on us.
How many know that it is never dull about being a Christian?
God always has something going on. Some of us have sensed God challenging you to press on to a higher calling.
There may be those who thought that now wasn’t a convenient time for the Lord to be dealing with their heart.
Spiritual changes often take place during our difficulties and crisis’.
How many know that God doesn’t wait around until we are in a better mood before He will to talk to us?
See if this makes sense to you:
It seems whenever a trial or tribulation is taking place, we have a hard time communicating with the Lord. Let’s face it, we may not feel like praying very much. And, sometimes we can’t seem to focus on trying to hear a sovereign, “Thus sayeth the Lord…”
You may or may not be able to hear God today but He is speaking to each of us. I want us find a better signal from God’s transmitters. For some of us, our digital/cable television screen that God gives us for our spiritual lives may be flickering, may be getting blurry or snowy, and you can’t seem to fix it. Let’s try to get a better connection and see and hear what the Lord is saying.
Text: Habakkuk 2:1 - 3 (KJV - UPON THE TOWER)
Prayer:
STANDING AT MY WATCH
Each of us need a tower in our lives to go and stand upon…it will be there that we will see things much better from God’s perspective…
Not too far from where Marjorie and I once lived in southern Georgia is one of the most important monuments of W.W. II. Oddly enough, you won’t find this monument listed with the other great monuments.
You know - Washington’s Monument or Lincoln Square.
Just a quiet overlook on a hillside in Roosevelt State Park...
Just an hour and an half outside of Atlanta…commonly known to the locals as Dowdells Knob. To an occasional backpacker, it is a great place to take a moment and rest from a long hike through the mountains of southern Georgia . But for Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt it was his tower to stand watch during WWII. It was a summit of peace while the rest of world was at war with itself. The Nazi Regime was killing the Europeans while the Japanese were killing our American Service men and women.
As some of you know, President Roosevelt (FDR) was stricken with polio and was not a well man. This forefather, of ours, carried the weight of the world on his shoulders even though he was confined to a wheelchair. Due to his illness, the President often visited the Little White House, in Warm Springs, GA.
(He choose this location for the therapeutic treatment of the warm spring water baths.)
It was there that the President was given daily reports of the mass destruction of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Each day President Roosevelt was also treated for his polio, and after a long day the President would often go to this overlook, Dowdells Knob. There, he would try and find peace from the stress of the war in hopes that he could solve the world’s problems.
In spite of his debilitating illness of polio, Pres. Roosevelt had to STAND AT HIS WATCH for the rest of the world. I have stood and knelt at this historic location numerous times, and contemplated that the fate of many lives was decided on that tranquil overlook. With the decisions that had to be made by the President, some of our young men and women would live while others would have to sacrifice their lives. The decisions made there were never easy. They were often painful and regretful.
Listen. We may not be faced with a debilitating disease like Polio.
We may not ever have to decide the fate of lives around the world, but each of us has needs that can seem just as heavy on our shoulders.
This morning - Remember that Jesus once went to the Garden of Gethsemane to contemplate what His Father would have to tell Him.
Likewise, no matter what you and I are faced with this day, we have to STAND AT OUR WATCH. We must find a summit of peace, a Tower of Refuge we can go to.
There, we will find:
• Peace when our world is in turmoil and chaos.
• A Savior whose name is above every name.
• Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God.
Out of the stress of our day, we can STAND AT OUR WATCH, and we may even cry out as the Psalmist did:
Psalms 5:1-3
1 Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation.
2 Give heed to the voice of my cry, my King and my God, for to You I will pray.
3 My voice You shall hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning I will direct it to You, and I will look up.
God’s ears are not dull of hearing.
He’ll hear your heart’s cry when you STAND AT YOUR WATCH. My beloved, God will speak to you in your time of troubles, and that is why He has promised...
Psalms 85:8
I will hear what God the LORD will speak, for He will speak peace to His people and to His saints...
We must cry out to our God when we need His counsel, but we cannot expect to STAND AT OUR WATCH if we are always sitting in front of the television set.
As well, we must not be surprised by what we hear God say.
It may not be what we expected. We may think that the answer to life’s problems should be obvious to God. More often than not, the Lord will speak to you in ways you don’t want to hear.
Transition:
2006 is a very important year for the future of this church, and we must be ready to hear what the Lord has to say. In spite of the pressure you are faced with in your day to day life, you need to hear from God!
I have had many people tell me they cannot hear the voice of the Lord even though I know God has answered their cry for help.
Oftentimes, God will not speak the words we want to hear.
We may:
• Do as the Prophet Habakkuk has spoken.
• Find our tower to run to and hear from God.
• Even cry out for something, such as, healing of our body, our soul, or our spirit.
Certainly we want our healing and the relief from the pain of our illness. As an example, there will be times that the Lord may treat your physical illness by correcting you on what you are eating, drinking, or how you are taking care of your body.
It is then that we may not want to hear God’s voice. God may whisper correction in your ear, or He may even have to shout His word of correction into your heart.
Regardless, my Bible tells me that when I STAND AT MY WATCH, I will hear His voice. I will hear it so clearly that I will have time to write down every word He speaks to me.
Verse 2 says,
…the LORD answered me and said: "Write the vision and make it plain on tablets...
I will write it down and make it:
1. Plain for me to understand.
2. So I won’t forget what He said and how important it is for my life.
You will know that the Lord is speaking to you when He compels you to keep a journal of what is going on in your life.
Consider this.
Isn’t it funny how when anything important comes our way we look for something to write with? Or, something to write on?
We are seldom ready to write down something important.
• Oh, get that telephone number!
• Oh, that was cute. I have tell so and so about that!
• Let me add that to my list for the store!
• Oh yeah, I don’t want to forget to get that taken care of!
• I had better write that down!
This all has to do with those things that are important to us.
Well, where does God fit into our lives of importance?
How often do you find yourself writing down things that are from God? Things you know God wants you to do for Him?
I wonder if the Lord feels insulted sometimes at how we respond to His voice when He does speak to us? Sometimes all we have to say to Him is, “Okay…uh…well I am busy right now…” And then it is forgotten.
I find it interesting how we don’t ever have to list all of our problems.
We always know what our problems are.
We don’t seem to ever forget about our problems .
Some of us couldn’t forget our problems even if we wanted to.
And yet, there are times, when we cannot remember what the Lord did for us just last Sunday.
It is important that we take God more seriously when He speaks.
Consider this:
Our text also tells us in verse 3 that the “vision/revelation” God has given us is for an “appointed time”.
But we seldom ever know when that “appointed time” is.
It may not be this afternoon, or next week, or even next year.
This is why we can easily become discouraged when nothing seems to happen. But god says that what He speaks is for an “appointed time”.
We ask ourselves questions like:
“Did God change His mind? Did He forget about me?
Is He no longer concerned about what He promised me?”
"Write the vision and make it plain on tablets…”
Listen church, we would be in trouble this morning if the great men of the Bible were anything like some of us. What if Moses didn’t think to take notes when the Lord was speaking to him?
What if the Apostle John was busy with something else when Nicodemus showed up late one night to see Jesus. We would find ourselves trying to remember – “What was it that Jesus said about being born again? Let me think now…“For God so loved the world that He…”.
When God speaks – we must listen! Part of our problem may be that we interrupt God when He is speaking, or we are sitting near someone else who interrupts when God is speaking. You might want to sit somewhere else so you can clearly hear what the Lord is saying to you…
Illustration:
Someone recently told me that they have been known to take shorthand of what the preacher is saying at the rate of over 100 words per minute. If you are not able to do that, may I suggest our tape ministry?
When God has something to say to us, we are to stop talking and start writing. I must STAND AT MY WATCH!
We must be able to understand exactly what He is saying.
We must not let ourselves forget how important it was to Him.
We all have old habits that we need to understand are bad habits that are interfering with what the Lord is trying to say to us.
For example, some of us are trying to remember to bring our Bible to church. Most of what you will ever hear from God (in this lifetime) is already written down for you. All of these words are for an “appointed time”. These words from God will “not lie…(we must) wait for it…it will surely come (to past)…”
In 2006, we all will need to start some new Godly habits in hearing God.
Here is another example of how important it is to do what our passage is telling us. We may write something important about the Lord…
A note here and a note there. Just jiblets of papers.
These fragments of God’s Word may not be able to discipline us into becoming what He wants of us.
We may misplace these scratches of paper.
What the Lord spoke to you last week may not have made sense to you at the time. But it will make perfect sense when the “appointed time” finally arrives. Verse 3 says this,
“…at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.
When you begin to STAND AT YOUR WATCH, you will find a new faith in what the Lord is doing. You will not be tempted to find your hope in other things. Your life is not determined by winds of fate.
Your life is determined by the Word of God when it speaks to you.
When you STAND AT YOUR WATCH, it is not just so you can think more clearly. It is so you can hear more loudly the Word of the Lord.
What is interesting about the Prophet Habakkuk is that he heard from the Lord while the nation of Israel was falling apart.
But he did not hear any easy answers to fix their problems.
God told Habakkuk to remain faithful and true to God. Historians tell us that the cities of Judah were burned to the ground and all hope was lost (in the people).
So when Habakkuk went to STAND HIS WATCH, he was only told to live a righteous life and remain faithful to God.
And that is exactly what the prophet did.
Close: Habakkuk 3:17 - 19
