Qualities Needed to Accomplish the Work of God

Introduction: Elisha's Final Prophecy and its Relevance

0:04 I would encourage you to follow in your own Bibles as I read from 2 Kings, chapter 13, 2 Kings, chapter 13, verses 14 through 19, and then skipping over to verse 22 and reading to the end of the chapter.

0:31 When Elisha became sick with the illness of which he was to die, Joash, the king of Israel, came down to him and wept over him and said, My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen. And Elisha said to him, Take a bow and arrows. So he took a bow and arrows. Then he said to the king of Israel, Put your hand on the bow.

0:59 And he put his hand on it. Then Elisha laid his hands on the king's hands. And he said, Open the window. And he put his hand on the window toward the east.

1:10 And he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot. And he shot. And he said, The Lord's arrow of victory, even the arrow of victory over Syria.

1:23 For you shall defeat the Syrians at Aphek until you have destroyed them. Then he said, Take the arrows. And he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, Strike the ground, or better translated, Strike to the ground.

1:40 That is, shoot arrows into the ground. And he struck three times and stopped. So the man of God was angry with him and said, You should have struck five or six times. Then you would have struck Syria until you would have destroyed it.

1:58 But now you shall strike Syria only three times. Verse 22. Now Hazel, king of Syria, had oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz. But the Lord was gracious to them and had compassion on them and turned to them because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and would not destroy them or cast them from his presence until now.

2:26 When Hazel, king of Syria, died, Ben-Hadad, his son, became king in his place. Then Jehoash, the son of Jehoahaz, took again from the hand of Ben-Hadad, the son of Hazel, the cities which he had taken in war from the hand of Jehoahaz, his father. Three times Jehoash defeated him and recovered the cities of Israel.

2:55 We come this evening to our final study in this present series of studies in the life and ministry of the man of God, Elisha. For those of you who have only been with us for part of this study, if my numbering system is correct, and occasionally I check it with Mr. Philbrook to make sure it is, I believe this final study is the thirty-third in the life and ministry of this great man of God. And in the providence of God there is much in the portion read in your hearing which will constitute our final study that has peculiar relevance to our situation as a church, both with respect to the special gathering of this afternoon when we broke ground for our new building, and also in conjunction with the forthcoming ministry in which I will find myself engaged some many thousands of miles away in South Africa beginning tomorrow. And I am amazed in this kind of consecutive opening up of the scriptures of how again and again in the providence of God a specific passage is tailor-made for a set of circumstances which we could never have anticipated if we were mapping out the future.

A General Survey of the Narrative Facts

4:11 And what I suggest tonight as we come to this portion of the word of God is that we concentrate on this incident with respect to Elisha, the dying man of God, and our attention was focused on him last week, and tonight instead our attention will be focused upon the king, and in particular those qualities which were so necessary for him to be the king of Israel. And I am amazed in this kind of succession which will be tailor-made for a set of circumstances which we will find ourselves engaged some many thousands of miles away in South Africa beginning tomorrow. And I am amazed in this kind of succession which will be tailor-made for a set of circumstances which will be tailor-made for a set of circumstances in doing the work of God in Israel, which this king obviously lacked, and for which not only did he suffer, but the entire nation of Israel as well. And as we attempt to think through this portion of the word of God, consider with me first of all a general survey of the facts of the narrative. Some of them are familiar to you because of our study last week, but there are certain facts upon which we will concentrate. The man of God is obviously in a dying state. He is in what we would call a condition with terminal illness, and in that condition the king, being apprised of it, comes to visit him and expresses his conviction as well as his grief that the true defender as well as the true conqueror in Israel was not its armies,

5:40 but this man of God. Who, by his influence and his prayers, was used of God to deliver Israel from her many enemies. But the work of the man of God is not yet done. In the great prophecy to which we have made reference again and again as we have seen the life and ministry of Elisha unfold, the prophecy of 1 Kings 19, one of the things that was prophesied was this, and I read now from 1 Kings 19 and verse 19.

6:11 1 Kings 19, verse 17. And it shall come about that the one who escapes from the sword of Haziel, Jehu shall put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall put to death. And though we have seen in the unfolding of this prophecy, the ministry of Elisha in conjunction with the anointing of Haziel. Subsequently, the anointing of Jehu.

6:41 as Elisha commissions one of the young sons of the prophets to anoint him king in Israel and then his entire wiping away of the seed of Ahab and also Baal worship, there's a sense in which we have yet to see Elisha in any way connected with this matter of judgment coming upon those who escape from Hazel, those who escape from Jehu. And in this particular incident, there is a sense in which that prophecy comes to one of its most pointed fulfillments. As the king comes into the presence of Elisha, the man of God, the man of God dying, the king recognizing his impending death, it's as though the Lord speaking through Elisha is assuring the king that though God may bury his men, he is still the living God able to fulfill his promises and to carry on his work among his people. And so a word from God is addressed to the king through the prophet Elisha. And that word comes, first of all, in what we might call symbolic action. He commands the king, according to verse 15, to lay hold of both...

8:10 And we can just picture the king taking the bow in one hand and his arrows in the other, or placing a quiver upon his shoulder. And then the prophet does a strange thing. He tells the king to put his hand upon the bow, and no sooner has the king placed his hand upon the bow but what the prophet lays both of his hands upon the king's hand. And in that symbolic gesture, he was saying, in essence, the authority...

8:40 The authority of my office as prophet, and more than that, the authority and the power of the God who has placed me in this office, the God before whom I stand, the God on whose behalf I speak, the God whose representative I am in Israel, it is that God who is bound up with the activity of your bow, O king of Israel. I've told you to take bow and arrow. And though you regard that bow and that set of arrows as yours, from this point on, O king, you are to regard that bow and those arrows as the instruments of the living God to accomplish the will and the purpose of God. And you must never lay your hand upon that bow and place in it an arrow and draw back upon the string without remembering that my hands, as the prophet said, the hands of God in Israel were placed upon your bow hand. You do not act alone. You do not act in your own strength.

9:48 You do not act in your own authority. But you act in the authority and strength of the God of Israel. Now that symbolic action having taken place, we read in verse 17, And he said, that is Elisha, Open the window toward the east, that is, in the direction of Syria. And after the king opens it, Elisha commands him to shoot an arrow.

10:14 And the king, obedient to the prophet, places an arrow in the bow, draws back on the string and releases it. And the moment he does so, the prophet then gives an interpretive word to all of this symbolic action. Up until now, there has been no interpretive word, just commands and physical actions. But now an interpretive word comes from the prophet.

10:40 The Lord's arrow of victory, even the arrow of victory over Syria. And then from that interpretive word, there is a plain and explicit promise of victory. For you shall defeat the Syrians at Aphek until you have destroyed them. So notice the progression.

11:05 From symbolic action to an interpretive word, to an explicit promise, and woven into that promise is a tremendous encouragement from the history of Israel. When the prophet said to the king, you shall defeat the Syrians at Aphek, that would have brought immediately to the mind of the king the incident recorded in 1 Kings chapter 20, which occurred at this place called Aphek. 1 Kings chapter 20, and beginning with verse 26.

11:43 So it came about at the turn of the year that Ben-Hadad mustered the Syrians and went up to Aphek to fight against Israel. And the sons of Israel were mustered and were provisioned and went to meet them. And the sons of Israel camped before them like two little flocks of goats. But the Syrians filled the country.

12:06 Then a man of God came near and spoke to the king of Israel and said, Thus says the Lord, because the Syrians have said, The Lord is a God of the mountains, but he is not a God of the valleys. Therefore I will give you all this great multitude into your hand, and ye shall know that I am the Lord. So they camped one over against the other seven days. And it came about on the seventh day the battle was joined, and the sons of Israel killed of the Syrians

12:37 100,000 foot soldiers, in one day. But the rest fled to Aphek into the city, and the wall fell on the 27,000 men that were left. And Ben-Hadad fled and came into the city, into an inner chamber. And so you see the progression in the words of the prophet.

12:59 Symbolic action saying to the king, You do not act on your own, but you act in the authority and power and under the blessing of the God of Israel. Then it is followed, with an interpretive word concerning the arrow that was shot out of the window in the direction of Syria. You will have a mighty conquest. And then it is buttressed by the remembrance that God not only makes promises, He performs mighty deeds.

13:25 And it was at Aphek where a little handful of Israelite soldiers put to rout and slew 100,000 footmen in one day. And those that remained and fled into the city, God caused the wall to fall, to fall upon them, and to bring them to destruction. Now, in that situation, where God has, through the word of the prophet, promised deliverance by the hand of this king who is called, and it's the same king in both instances, he's called, I keep wanting to call him Jehoash instead of Jehoahaz or Joash. It's Joash or Jehoash.

14:08 And we get all the Jehoahaz's and the Jehoash's, so I've got to look at my notes or I'm sure I'll get fouled up with them. It's Joash or Jehoash, one and the same king. Now, with those thoughts filling his mind, the prophet then asked him to do what on the surface seems to be a strange thing, but it's a very reasonable thing. If you had just been told that you were to be God's instrument for the defeat of God's enemies, you had been given an explicit promise, the promise, had been buttressed with a remembrance of a historical place where God had bared his arm, if you had anything of the proper spirit of zeal and faith for the glory of the God of Israel burning in your breast, and someone said to you, now take the rest of your arrows and shoot them into the ground, what should have characterized the reaction of the king? Why, filled with confidence in the promise and the promise of the king, and filled with a sense of zeal that he should have been appointed by the Lord to carry out this conquest of the enemies of God and the nation of God, he should have taken those arrows, the man of God says, and not in apparently a spirit of indifference and a lackadaisical manner shoot three into the ground,

15:33 but the prophet becomes angry when he does this, and this is his word.

15:42 In verse, we'll get back to chapter 13, verse 19, so the man of God was angry with him and said, you should have struck five or six times, then you would have struck Syria until you would have destroyed it, but now you shall strike Syria only three times. And the prophet whose spirit is agitated with the absence of those attitudes which should have characterized the king, expresses his anger, and then interprets the very action of the king, and then in the verses read in your hearing, verses 22 to 25, we see the fulfillment in history of the prophecy of the man of God who though now dead, his word yet lives because it is the word of the living God. Well, those briefly are the facts of this narrative. Now, what does this passage, say to us? Since it is part of that portion of the word of God which is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, what in the world does this incident between a prophet and a king in Israel have to do with us?

Burning Zeal: An Essential Quality for God's Work

17:06 What does it have to say to us? Well, let me suggest that the message of this passage to my heart and I trust to your hearts, tonight, particularly in the light of our present circumstances, is just this. There are two great spiritual qualities which are essential to the accomplishment of the work of God. And those two qualities are a burning zeal and an aggressive faith.

17:39 Notice, first of all, that burning zeal is an essential quality in the accomplishment, of the work of God.

17:51 The Syrians were the enemies of the people of God and therefore of God Himself. As I have reminded you again and again in reading Old Testament history, you must not read it as though you were reading the history of modern times. When God had made Israel His people and the theocracy existed in which God Himself was Israel's king and dwelt in Israel, dwelt in their midst and they were His peculiar nation. The enemies of the nation of Israel were the enemies of Jehovah God as well.

18:28 And therefore the Syrians were God's enemies. And if the heart of this king had any sympathy with the heart of God, being buttressed by the tremendous symbolic action of the king, the explicit promise of triumph over the Syrians, the encouragement from history, should have fired him with such zeal that when the prophet said to him, shoot your arrows into the ground, he should have reached into his quiver, shot all his arrows, and then said to the prophet, are there not yet more arrows with which to pin the enemies of God to the earth? And he is rebuked for the absence of this burning zeal and therefore becomes a monument to us with respect to this great lesson that God has given us. That burning zeal is an essential quality in the accomplishment of the work of God. Now it wasn't as though he just had a phlegmatic kind of temperament and could never get excited about things. It's very interesting that when we turn over to chapter 14, we find this man full of zeal in a cause that ought not to have made him zealous.

19:45 For in 2 Kings 14 and verses, 12 through 14, we have the account of his zeal to fight against the southern kingdoms. And Judah was defeated by Israel and they fled each to his tent. Then Jehoash, king of Israel, captured Amaziah, king of Judah, the son of Jehoash, the son of Ahaziah, at Beth Shemesh, and came to Jerusalem and tore down the wall of Jerusalem from the gate of Ephraim to the corner gate, 400 cubits. And he took all the gold and silver and all the utensils which were found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king's house, the hostages also, and returned to Samaria. When it came to fighting with his neighbors to the south, the other two southern tribes of the entire nation, we find this man capable of zeal. We find him capable of something other than a spirit of indifference. So he could not hide behind his personality.

20:48 And he was there, therefore rebuked and felt something of the anger of the man of God because he was not zealously affected in the cause of the living God. Well, you say, Pastor, what does that have to say to us? God does not call upon us to go out and fight literal enemies and shoot literal bows and arrows or guns at people. How can you make an application from this king's lack of zeal to us as the people of God?

New Testament Mandate for Burning Zeal

21:19 Well, I dare to make that application because the New Testament makes it in explicit language. Turn, please, to the twelfth chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans.

21:33 Romans, chapter 12,

21:36 coming on the heels of that great exposition of the gospel of the grace of God that is found in the epistle to the Romans. And in this chapter where the apostle is giving general directions to the people of God, nestled in amongst those directions are these very pointed words, Romans 12, verse 11. Not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. The New English Bible renders it this way.

22:13 With unflagging energy, in ardor of spirit, serve the Lord. What kind of spirit, service does God expect from His people? In the great battle against personal sin, in the great battle against the world, the flesh and the devil, in the great militant conquest of evangelism and discipling the nations, in that which is the mandate of conquest for the new Israel. Ours is not to conquer Syrians and conquer Amalekites and Hittites and Jebusites.

22:54 But in obedience to our Lord to make disciples of all the nations, seeking to bring all men to the obedience of faith. What is the spirit that must characterize every dimension of our service? Well, on the negative side, it is not to be with flagging energy, but it is to be in ardor of spirit that we serve the Lord Christ. Or in the language of Colossians 3, Colossians chapter 3.

23:28 And again, this is an interesting passage because it comes in the context of giving practical directions to husbands, to wives, and now to slaves who are called upon to serve God in the capacity of bond slaves. And how are they to do this? Verse 23 of Colossians 3. Whatever you do, do your work heartily.

23:54 Heartily. As for the Lord, rather than for men. And I like the paraphrase that Phillips gives. I do not call it a translation, but an interpretive paraphrase which captures the essence of the admonition.

24:12 Whatever you do, whatever you do, put your whole heart and soul into it as unto work done for the Lord and not merely, for men. In other words, the apostle who says literally, you're to do your work from the soul. It is not to be done in a mere mechanical, perfunctory, external way. He intimates that there is a direct relationship between that kind of wholehearted zeal in doing the work of God and the recognition that all of our work is done as unto the Lord.

24:56 Now, what's the connection? Well, I believe the connection is simply the connection of the first commandment. We are commanded, or the essence of the commands is, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. And therefore, whatever service we render as a reflexive response of love to God who has loved us in Christ, the only service worthy of Him is service that is rendered with the whole heart and with the whole soul.

25:38 God takes no pleasure in our lackadaisical striking of three arrows into the ground when with some measure of sanctified zeal we could strike five or six in the name of the God of heaven. And not only, does the law of God demand this burning zeal in fulfilling the work of God, but surely the example of our blessed Lord presses it upon us. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself so to walk even as he walked. Well, how did he walk?

Jesus Christ: The Embodiment of Zeal

26:17 Turn, please, to the second chapter of John for what is perhaps the classic example of this virtue of zeal which is to walk in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. John's Gospel, chapter 2.

26:36 And I begin reading in verse 13. And the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves and the money changers seated. And He made a scourge of cords, now notice the vigorous verbs, and drove them all out of the temple.

27:00 With the sheep and the oxen. And He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. And to those who were selling the doves He said, Take these things away. Stop making My Father's house a house of merchandise.

27:21 You see the vigor bound up in those verbs. Our Lord did not go through the temple saying, Could it be, Mr. Money Changer, Mr. Doves, Mr. Seller, that there are a few abnormalities in this setup, that things are not quite in accordance with the will of My Father. No, nothing of the sort. He wove together a scourge and like a man possessed He went through that temple overturning the tables, scattering the money, driving them out. And the disciples beholding this remember something that was said in the 69th Psalm.

27:58 And we read it in this passage. We read, In verse 17, His disciples remembered that it was written, Zeal for thy house will consume me.

28:14 And oh, what pregnant words they are. In a sense, they form the very framework of the life and ministry and death of the Lord Jesus. So zealous was He for the house of God, the dwelling of God, that nothing would stand in His way of seeking to, to purge that house of all that was offensive to His Father.

28:41 My friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, fellow members of Trinity Church, as we stand on the threshold of seeing a building raised up in Montville, that in a very real sense will mean a transition for us in our life and ministry as a congregation, as we move into a new community and in a very real sense a much more idealized, identifiable community. And as there are set before us new opportunities for the work of the gospel, as I stand on the threshold of another of these ministries in which I will go to people whom I've never met personally, into situations that will be totally strange to me, what is the disposition of our hearts? Is it one that rejoices in the opportunities of doing service for Christ, that is grateful for the privilege of knowing that the Lord has laid His hands upon us and His promise, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age? Is it enough for us to have a general sense of confidence in the Lord's promise in the great work of gospel conquest in our own generation and to go about that work with some measure of energy? No, no.

30:01 If the Lord does not see us consumed with some measure of burning zeal, if He does not see in us a reflection of something of the spirit of His own Son, then the Lord would say to us in words of rebuke, even as He said to that King of Israel, if only you had, then you would. And I call upon you as the people of God to pray that the Lord will give you a new measure of zeal, zeal in your prayers, zeal in your giving, zeal in your witnessing, zeal in your willingness to work so that we render to God nothing that has the stench of indifference about it, but that everything we bring to God in the most mundane tasks, the most secret tasks, to the most visible, the most public, the most extensively influential tasks, it may be evident as people look upon us that we share with God where in the spirit of our Savior zeal for the house of God is consuming us. That we are not content simply to have orthodox and reformed religion and correct worship and some evangelism and some witnessing and some missionary endeavor. That we will be content

31:29 with nothing less than a burning zeal. Now I'm not calling for a blind fanatical zeal. Not the zeal of which Paul speaks when he writes concerning his countrymen in Romans 12 too. They have a zeal, but not according to knowledge.

31:48 But I'm speaking of a burning, boiling zeal that is under the discipline of a clear light of biblical precepts. And I say there are few things more beautiful to a spiritually minded man or woman than burning, fervent zeal that is under the discipline of the clear light of balanced biblical perspectives. And there are few things which are a greater rebuke to the world and yet at the same time a greater attraction to the Christian faith. Oh, as we stand on the threshold of these new opportunities, whatever else we ask of God, may we be found as a church pleading with God to stir us up and then doing all within our own power to stir ourselves up. For that is our responsibility. God indicts his people saying there is none that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee. Paul writes to Timothy and says stir into flame the gift of God that is in thee.

Aggressive Faith: The Second Essential Quality

32:54 Burning zeal is an essential quality in accomplishing the work of God. But then, there is a second spiritual quality that is absent in this king. And I'm going to state the principle this way. An aggressive faith is essential in fulfilling the will of God.

33:17 An aggressive faith is essential in fulfilling the will of God. On the surface of it, this language is shocking. He says to the king in verse 19, you should have struck then you would have struck Syria until you would have destroyed them, but now you shall strike Syria only three times. On the face of it, the text seems to say that the measure of Israel's victories over Syria through the hand of this king will be in direct proportion to his faith. No more, no less. Now we could try to unravel, then, the implications of this text for the biblical doctrine of the absolute, unrivaled sovereignty of God, the doctrine of the decrees of God. He does according to his will in the armies of heaven and earth, and none can stay his hand and say unto him, What doest thou? But I'm not going to try to unravel it. I want you to feel the force

34:29 of what the king should feel. The king should have left the presence of the prophet with this conviction, If all, How may I have believed God, for greater conquest, greater conquest would have been my portion. And he lays at the feet of this king the indictment for his own unbelief. If you had, he says to the king, there would have been greater conquest. Now this is no isolated teaching.

35:05 In allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture, there are two New Testament texts that I would bring to bear upon this passage. The first one is in Matthew 13 and verse 58. The Lord Jesus has come into his own hometown, the town where he was reared. Verse 54 said he began teaching them in their synagogue. Matthew 13, 54. So they became astonished and said, where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas and his sisters? Are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things?

35:59 And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household. And here's the text. And he did not do many miracles there because it was the sovereign decree of God that no miracles should be accomplished.

36:23 That isn't what the text says. It says he did not because of their unbelief. Thomas Brooks, one of the most readable of all the Puritans whose works have just gone through a recent reprint by the Banner of Truth, speaking of the sin of unbelief and eventually making reference to this very verse, says these very, very pointed words. If you will do gloriously, seeing hereafter you shall be glorious, in the first place, whatever you do, take heed of unbelief. There is nothing in the world that more hinders men from doing gloriously than unbelief. All other miscarriages and weaknesses have not so much an influence upon the heart to hinder it from doing gloriously as does unbelief. It is said of Christ concerning them in Matthew 13, 58, he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief. Now

37:33 listen to this unashamed Calvinist speaking. Listen to it. Unbelief, as it were, tied the hands of Christ. He could not do many mighty works.

37:51 Because of their unbelief. If men would do glorious things, take heed of that. Unbelief ties the tongue. It causes a damp to fall upon the heart. It binds the hands that a man hath no tongue to speak for Christ, nor heart to act for Christ, nor hand to strike for Christ. Unbelief spoils all the strength and power by which we should be serviceable to God. What water is to fire? That is an extinguisher. That unbelief is to the soul. Therefore, as you would do gloriously, take heed of unbelief. And then back in Matthew 9 and verse 29, the positive statement of the same principle. Matthew chapter 9 and verse 29. The Lord Jesus in the presence of the two blind men who cry out for mercy. The scripture tells us in verse 29 that Jesus

38:53 touched their hearts with the blood of Jesus. And he said, I am the one who has touched their eyes saying, be it done to you according to your faith. Now notice he does not say, be it done to you according to my secret purpose. Be it done to you according to the measure of my power. And though those are glorious truths and there are other texts which set them before us in a way that we cannot avoid them, these texts set before us the great responsibility of men and women to believe. Be it done to you according to your faith. And when the prophet had laid his hands upon the hand of the king and given him every encouragement to believe by symbolic action that Jehovah the God of Israel was with him, then he interprets the action in a plain word of promise. Then he buttresses it with a specific word of promise and the remembrance of a historical event.

Pressing God's Promises with Aggressive Faith

39:53 What more can he say to that king? Strengthen faith so that there would be a aggressiveness in his faith to go forth in the name of the God of hosts to conquer greatly. But no, he is found, an unbelieving man, without the aggressiveness of faith that would press the promises before God and go forth conquering and to conquer. Ah, but you say, Pastor Martin we have never had the Lord put His hand upon our hands if He would just point a finger. But no we haven't, and if He did, we would have had耶re given His power. Then why do horses ç exploded when we stood on the legs doing a dreamskip? would do that, then I'd surely believe. I've never had a prophet speak a word of promise into my ear. My friend Peter heard the great prophet speaking audibly, but he said we have

40:40 a more sure word of promise. Peter says that the word given to us in the inscripturated word is more certain than even the audible voice of God. We have great promises from our Lord as we anticipate the life and ministry of the church if the Lord is pleased to spare us. In no sense do we look upon this move to Montville as coming up a long hill and reaching a plateau where we can rest. No, no. Any more than Israel coming to the borders of the promised land was to think, oh well, Egypt is behind us, the wilderness is behind us, the Red Sea is behind us, the Jordan is behind us. Now let's have a sermon. No, no. God brought them over that Jordan River in order to go on to new conquest in the land of Canaan. And that's the great principle that we must lay hold of as a people of God,

41:39 that as the Lord brings us into a new sphere of contact and all of the tentacles of contact and opportunity and interaction with new people in the new geographical setting, we ought to take those promises of Christ and lay hold of them. We ought to lay hold of them with a vigor and with an aggressiveness of faith that perhaps hitherto we've never known before and bring to the Lord his promise. Have you not said, Lord Jesus, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it? Have you not said, Lord Jesus, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee? Lo, I am with you always. Ask and it shall be given. Seek and ye shall be given. Ask and ye shall be found. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. Have you not said, if two of you shall

42:31 agree on earth, this touching what they shall ask? Oh, to see us as a congregation, in our closets, in our families, in our corporate seasons of prayer, taking hold of God with renewed aggressiveness. Never fear that you insult God when you get aggressive in pressing his promises before him. There is no instance recorded in Scripture where God is not ever expressed displeasure when men brought his own word to him and pleaded it in the aggressiveness of true and living faith. We find unbelief rebuked again and again and again. Jesus says, Oh, fools and slow of heart to believe all that is said. Beware lest there be an evil heart of unbelief. Warnings against unbelief. I find few, if

43:25 any, warnings against unbelief. Do we have any warnings against being too aggressive in our faith? Oh, yes, we can be presumptuous. And we can strike out an act where we have no clear warrant from Scripture and then under the semblance of great faith ask God to bail us out of our foolishness.

43:41 Now, that's one reason why we've been so many years from the time we purchased that piece of land to the time we built it. We felt the pressure as elders. There were times when some were saying, in essence, look, let's just break ground. Whether we've got the money, can see our way clear or not, let's just believe God. And as we waited in the presence of God, we felt in the light of Scripture there was no warrant to tempt God in that way. But as God has in so many ways given us encouragement to believe that now is indeed God's time to move ahead, it would be wicked unbelief for us to drag our feet in anything less than the aggressiveness of a living faith. And we've been so many years from the time we purchased that piece of land, it would be stupid. So let's get that out of hand.

44:29 We've got to be careful in that we're buying more for ourselves, and we want to be more of a product of this than a product of something else. You know, I feel that about every single person who is living in theAnd if you're only looking at a piece of land, you need to know where you're going with this, because you see lots of different things happening. And then I tell you that these things are very strange and strange and strange and strange and strange. And you have to be careful. Because what we're really looking at is the possibility. The possibility of a place in our very present-day lives that people can have a good life in. And you can have a good life in that place. So let's get that out a way.

The Cost and Reward of Zealous, Aggressive Service

44:59 two nights on an airplane in seats this wide with a bad back, and I don't sleep on airplanes. So you get excited about the thought of two nights not going to sleep with people half drunk all around you, cramped up in a plane at 40,000 feet above an ocean. Does that sound very exciting?

45:19 Is it very exciting to stand and speak to people whose idiom you don't know? You know their language but not their idiom. And wondering if when you're speaking idiomatically and using illustrations, if you may as well be talking Chinese. Is there anything exciting about giving yourself to feeling people's burdens?

45:40 Anything exciting about seeking to enter in and feeling them? No. It's work. Arduous work.

45:49 The loss of sleep and the expenditure of energy and all of the rest. There's nothing romantic. Nothing romantic at all in the whole thing for me. Now it may appear romantic from where you sit. I would much rather wake up tomorrow morning knowing that I had an ordinary week. To keep any consistency of devotional life, to keep any consistency of prayer is so difficult in these seasons. They always take their toll physically, emotionally, spiritually. No, there's nothing glamorous.

46:16 Well, why in the world go? Because there is a stewardship of opportunity for the work of the gospel. And with the world coming apart at its seams and with that nation of South Africa with such potential for blessing to the entire continent of Africa, where there is an open door and open ears and open hearts, it would be wicked not to say, Lord, you can give grace to bear the sleepless nights on an airplane. You can give grace for the additional burdens you've promised as thy days. So shall thy strength be. Go in this thy might. Lo, I am with you. Be not discouraged. Be not afraid.

46:59 These great promises that were read in our hearing tonight. Oh, how the Lord is pleased when coming in the consciousness of our own impoverished state by nature crying out, who is sufficient for these things? We, like Moses, endure seeing him who is invisible, fixing our gaze upon the glory and power of our ascended Christ. We lay hold of him for the supplies of grace needed.

Conclusion: A Call to Zeal and Faith at the Lord's Table

47:27 I urge you as the Lord's people to read the eleventh chapter of Hebrews sometime in the coming week and notice what is said, concerning these people made of ordinary stuff and yet who through faith subdued kingdom. Who through faith and then there is the list of all of the mighty works that God accomplished with a believing people. And so my dear brothers and sisters as we stand on the threshold of this new opportunity as the people of God may we hear this message from the dying prophet that if we would do the work of God acceptably it must be done in a burning zeal and with an aggressive faith and may we as a people be marked by those graces as the Lord is pleased to work them in us by the power of his spirit and even as we come to the Lord's table, what better place to have our zeal for Christ strengthened beholding his love to us, feeling more powerfully the pressure of his love upon our own hearts and being constrained by that love not to render half-hearted service but zealous service to our great God and to believe the one who having spared not his son has promised

48:55 with him also freely to give us all things. Frankly I look forward to these coming months when the deacons will report to us that after X number of months of construction we're down to X number of dollars and the anticipated payment for the following month is X number of dollars and then to cry to God and to plead with him and to see the Lord bear his arm and answer our prayers again and again so that when we move into that building we move into that building with our faith strengthened our zeal deepened and intensified so that we in the hands of God may accomplish that for which the Lord has laid hold of us in our generation. Let us pray. Our Father we confess in your presence that left to ourselves we are a mass of coldness and of unbelief that we stagger and stumble in a very half-hearted and perfunctory way through the most sacred duties and privileges if left to ourselves but we thank you that you've given to us of your

50:22 Holy Spirit and we pray that he may so work in us that we may have that burning zeal manifested in our Lord Jesus seen in so many of his servants and grant us we pray that aggressive faith that does not merely look at your promises and point to them and confess their validity but seizes upon them and presses them before you and believes you for their fulfillment even in our circumstances and in our generation. Oh Lord make us a congregation full of these graces to the end that we in your hands may do mighty things for the sake of your dear son in our generation. Bless them the word preached in this hour. Sanctify it to the prophet of each one of us and to your name and to your name alone be praise and honor and glory. Amen.