Here's Pastor Alan Wright with Today's Blessing: A Biblical Faith-Filled Vision. for your life. You were made in the image of a genius creator. A God who sees what can be, before it is a god who breathes on formlessness and fashions beauty and order. God is creative and you, the pinnacle of his creation, the masterpiece of his creativity.
are like him. You're made for a visionary life, a life that sees possibilities before they manifest.
So I bless your creativity. whether a new recipe in the kitchen. or a new process in the workplace. or a new approach in a challenging relationship. or a new invention for Shark Tank.
I bless you to see with Jesus's eyes all that can be.
So much more can be, child of God, May you have eyes to see. Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright. I'd like the Lord to turn down the heat, but instead he came into the fire and took the heat for them.
Sometimes when you're in your hardest time. It's hard to feel his presence. But I want to tell you today, you can know that he's present with you. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light.
I'm Daniel Britt. Excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, No Worries, as presented at Ronalda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Allen Wright Ministries. As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer.
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4860. More on all of this later in the program. But now. Let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Alan Wright.
He'd set up an idol to deal with his fear, but instead he found himself mocked by the very idol that he'd set up. Jeremiah prophesied it. In Jeremiah 10, 14, every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols, for his images are false, and there is no breath in them. If I had an idol of it needing everybody's approval, And then one person doesn't approve. Instead of the idol serving me, I've got to serve the idol, and you become weary trying to serve it and worried all the more.
because it places a greater and greater demand on you. In other words, you You put the idol in its place and it turns around and mocks you and says, look, you still don't have enough approval. You've tried your hardest. You've done your best. And you still don't have everybody's approval.
And so now it's going to try to force you into a kind of bondage and slavery. You just need to try harder. Or maybe you just need to despair of it all. That's what an idol will do to you. Exhaust you.
Isaiah 46 is a powerful prophecy of verse 1. Bel bows down, Nebo stoops. These are. Pagan. deities.
Idols. The idols are on beasts and livestock. These things you carry are borne as burdens on weary beasts. They stoop, they bow down together, they cannot save the burden, but themselves go into captivity. You know what he's describing here?
He's describing idols that as the people go into captivity, they have to carry their idols with them, and they have to turn them up this way and then strap them onto the beasts of burdens in order to transport them. Because the irony is saying this, if you make an idol, you've got to carry it. And they're heavy. But he says, Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel who've been born by me from your birth, carried from the womb even to your old age, I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear, and I will carry and save.
You carry your idols, but God carries you. What happens is when you have these idols, it puts such a demand on your attention and time and energy and resources that it robs you of your awareness of the presence of God. And He's with you, and He loves you so intensely and so much. And so the only one who actually can cure all of your worries is put to the side of your mentality, and your vision is set instead on these idols that claim so much.
So in other words, idols damage our relationships with one another and with God. I don't know why as this came to my mind. thinking about the fair being in town. And I always loved going to the fairy even as I was a little boy. And when I was in, I don't know, ninth or tenth grade, I was going to go to the fair on a Friday night in Greensboro.
And my best buddy, I'll call him John, was going to come and pick me up. We were going to go to the fair. And John had his driver's license by that time I did, so he was going to come pick me up and go to the fair, and he didn't show up. And I was just at home and a half hour went by and an hour went by. And after an hour and an hour and a half, he hadn't shown up.
I you know, it's before day of cell phones. I just called over to his house and his mother answered the phone and I said, Well, I was looking for John to come pick me up and she said, Well, it must have been some confusion 'cause he's gone to the fair with so-and-so. And I knew that my buddy, who had been such a good buddy to me, But I knew that there were these couple other guys that were in his eyes the most popular guys in in school. And And what I found out later was the opportunity to go with them had come up, so he just went, and so I missed the fair. I'm deeply scarred by this, but that's fine.
Still. Go to the fair with whoever I want to go today, you know. I'll go to the fair, but uh. But what do you think that did to my friendship with him, right? I mean, we still remain friends, but I do my best to forgive somebody for that, but they've communicated that the idol of being the most popular guy in school has arisen so that I would sacrifice this relationship.
You know what idolatry reminds me of? It's like you ever been talking to somebody, and while you're talking to them in a room full of people, they're looking at you and then they're looking away, they're looking around, and they'll look back at you and they'll look around to see if there's somebody else a little more interesting than you that's there. You know what I'm talking about? That's what idols will do in your heart. You'll be talking to God and Your attention's diverted.
It's hard to see him. It's hard to know his presence. It's hard to It's hard to love him. It's hard to appreciate him. It's hard to worship him when Part of your heart is taken away by other allegiances, by golden calves.
By other sites, by other things, by the need for others' approval, by this or that. It's no wonder that God variously called. Idolatry, adultery, spiritual adultery. He loves you. He's died for you.
He doesn't go away from you. But our attention can be diverted. and we can miss the presence of God. And in the midst of this big fanfare of uh Huge golden idol, and everybody worshiping the idol. There are these three men: Meshach, Shadrach.
Abednego He refused to bow down. Why?
Well, they said to him. They explain it. They said, We don't really even need to talk to you about this. Look at verse 16. O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.
They were saying, we don't really even need to talk about this. He said, because um If you throw us in, our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace. And he will deliver us out of your hand.
Okay. But if not, Be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. What they were saying was, our God can save us. from this fiery furnace. Our God will save us from this fiery furnace.
But no matter what We're not going to bow down to your idols. We're going to worship the Lord. My God can. And my God will. But no matter what, I'm going to praise him still.
That's a great faith statement right there. My God can heal this cancer. My God will heal the cancer. But no matter what, I'm going to praise Him still. My God can bring home the wayward child.
My God will bring home the wayward child. But if it doesn't happen the way I think it's going to happen, I'm still going to love and praise him because he is my God. My God can fix this marriage. My God will fix this marriage. But even if he doesn't and it doesn't go the way that I want it to go, I'm going to praise him and worship him because he's my God.
I can get out of this financial bind and God will get me out of this financial bind, but even if he doesn't, I'm going to worship God because he's my God, not my finances. In other words, what they're saying is that we have had our hearts captured by a higher affection than anything that you could ever set up. And that affection that we have for God and that certainty that we have of how real he is and how lovely he is and how powerful he is and that he is the one true God, that has taken hold of us to such a degree that we really don't even need to talk to you about the opportunity to worship your idols because we feel safer. In our love for God, even if we're in the fire, than we do bowing down to an idol who has no life to give. And that's how it happens.
And what happens is such a great scene, isn't it? That the whole thing backfires on them. That's Alan Wright. And we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. This month's featured resource from Pastor Alan is the Untroubled Heart, a powerful digital bundle including audio messages and a digital study guide.
In this series, Pastor Alan unpacks Jesus' promise from John 14, 27. I leave you peace. My peace I give you. I do not give it to you as the world does.
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Today's teaching now continues. Here once again. is Alan Wright. Don't you like these stories about when criminals make bad mistakes and just backfires on them? They're just funny stories.
One man in Colorado Springs robbed a corner store at gunpoint. Cashier put cash in the bag, and the robber spotted a bottle of scotch that he demanded as well. And the cashier refused, saying, I don't believe you're 21. And they got in a. They got into dispute over the robber's age until finally the robber relented and showed him his driver's license.
Yeah. Yeah. There was a lineup at a police station. The DA requested the robbery victim to study the lineup of five people and the suspect. Was the last of the five in line.
Each man in the lineup was requested to step forward and say the words: Give me all your money, and to say, I need some change in quarters, nickels, and dimes. I don't know if it's evidently spoken of the crime. And the first four spoke the phrases correctly, but when it was the last man's turn to restite, he stepped forward and blurted out: that isn't what I said.
Sometimes, sometimes they just backfire on you. And so, and so. Nebuchadnezzar is so furious that he's got some people that won't bow down to his idol that he said, I want your turn to heat up. Turn it up. I said, yes, Your Royal Highness.
We'll turn it up. He said to Meshach, Shadrach, and Bego is still not bowing down. No, they're not bowing down. Turn it up again. Yes, you're royal.
Wonderfulness. We'll turn up the fire again. They turned up again. Is that how dare them defy my edict? Turn it up a third time.
Yes, your royal stubbornness, we will turn it up a third time. Still, he's furious and says, Turn it up a fourth time, fifth, sixth, until it's seven times hotter. Seven's the number of completion in Hebrew. Seven, it was as hot as it could possibly be. We'll see what happened was when.
He opened up the door to the furnace to throw in Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego. It was so hot that the flames leapt out and destroyed the henchmen of the Babylonian king. He ought not have turned it up so hot it backfired on him. Which kind of makes you think about Adam and Eve in the beginning when The devil turned up the heat. The serpent slithered in, deceived them, allured them, And they've sinned.
And the devil thought he'd won, but immediately God turned to the serpent and cursed him. And said You might have bruised his heel, but the seed of the woman's going to crush your head. And then the story just keeps going along. It just keeps backfiring on them all the time. Story of Joseph.
where just like the heat just keeps getting turned up. devil lures the brothers to throw Joseph into a pit. And then they turn up the heat and sell him into slavery. And then he gets turned up, slave master's wife falsely accuses him. And then they turn up the heat again, and all of hell is rejoicing that Joseph is thrown into prison, and the plan of God seems to be thwarted.
But. It backfired. Because he was promoted to all of Egypt and saved the known world, including his own family, such that through Jacob's lineage. The seed of the woman would live. and one day crush the Serpent's head.
Makes you think of Moses, if Pharaoh hadn't just turned up the heat and sent all of his chariots and horsemen after him, pinned him against the Red Sea, then the Red Sea opened up. It was just more of the enemy to be swallowed up, and it all backfired on him. makes you think about the day that The Son of Man started his ministry, and Jesus was tempted in the wilderness for. 40 days, and the heat just kept getting turned up all throughout his ministry. and religious leaders.
persecuting him and political leaders and their defiance against him and one day he experiences the real heat and they begin With a false trial, turn up the heat, spit upon him, turn up the heat, scourge him, turn up the heat. Put a crown of thorns on his brow, turn up the heat, nail his wrists, turn up the heat, nail his ankles to the cross, turn up the heat while all the demons of hell are persecuting the Son of God, the sinless one who hangs upon the cross. And the moment that he breathes his last, it looks like hell has won and it has all backfired on the devil himself because he who knew no sin became our sin. That we who trust in him would become his righteousness and be forgiven and become his children and behold, reign with him forevermore. I'm telling you, it all backfired on the devil.
That's a whole nother sermon right there, isn't it? And then Nebuchadnezzar is more mystified now than he was when Daniel interpreted his dream. Because he sees that there are four men in the fire walking around unbound. Unbound. They're more free in the fire than they were outside of it.
And I noticed that though I would like to have the fourth man appear before I get in the fire. That in this story, the fourth man doesn't appear until they're in the fire.
Sometimes we spend so much time fearing the fire. not realizing the fourth man's already in there waiting on us. to unbind us. Walk around with us. I like the Lord to turn down the heat.
But instead, he came into the fire and took the heat for them.
Sometimes when you're In your hardest time. It's hard to feel his presence. But I want to tell you today, you can know that he's present with you. Next week, Andrew Brunson's book, God's Hostage, is going to come out, and we all ought to read it because he's a missionary in our denomination and lives up the street. And many of you have been praying for him.
Because he was incarcerated for 735 days in a Turkish prison. He is a missionary who just loves Jesus and loved Turkey and has spent a good bit of his adult life there with his wife Noreen. And they uh were wrongly incarcerated, she was released and he stayed in prison. until the prayers of literally millions And he was released last October. But listen.
He is very honest, and he said that while he was in the squalid prison, The uncertainty was the greatest Trouble of all. And he said that he wanted to think that he was just going to have this supernatural joy like Paul had in prison. He said, but it didn't come to him immediately. For a long time, he suffered. And he said he became exceedingly discouraged and began wondering about spending his whole rest of his life there, never seeing his family again.
And he said at one point he got so discouraged he considered suicide. And so it was real, it was earthy. He's Suffered. We really suffered. And um I haven't even read the whole book yet.
I've been skimming pieces of it, but this part has got my attention. He said that when he got to be at some of his worst, he said he started reading the writings of Richard Wormbrand. a Romanian pastor who was imprisoned and tortured for 14 years under the communist regime. And how that Romanian pastor had taken Jesus' words to rejoice and be exceedingly glad as a direct command. and chose to rejoice by dancing in his cell.
in spite of the horrors that he was facing. And Andrew said that he decided to do the same. I can barely get through it without weeping. He's our brother. He lives up the road in Black Mountain.
He said, I felt no joy, my body was weak, and my spirit sad. But there was something about Wormbren's story that captivated me. And so he said, each day I would leap around the courtyard. No matter how much I didn't feel like doing it, or how hot the sun, or how cold the rain. I danced.
And he began to experience more of the intimate presence. When asked what he thinks is going to come of all this in a Wall Street Journal article that came out this week. The article said that Brunson believes the ordeal was part of God's plan. To raise up millions of people around the world, he said, who would pray for me, and that has happened. And he concluded, and this is, I think, exactly right: by praying for me, actually, God was using me as a magnet to draw prayer into Turkey.
The regime has brought Turkey, he said, into very difficult times, doing it all in the name of Islam. All this repression, Islam, Islam, Islam. And that's creating the conditions, he said, for many people to turn away from Islam. What then? Brunson said.
millions of Turks will become Christians. Praise God. That's a wonderful thought, isn't it? In other words. There is in the searing adversities of life And in our bed of fears, There is a great temptation to set up our own idols as if they have some kind of life to give us.
But if you set up an idol, it will turn and make you more worried than you were before. The answer to my idol of needing others' approval was not to work harder to get everybody's approval so I could finally rest. The answer was to crush the idol of approval and say, I don't need everyone's approval because I've already found approval and being accepted in the beloved in Jesus Christ. And no matter what, I'm accepted by Him, and everything else pales in comparison. And once an idol comes down, it loses all power in your life.
And if we're the ones who set up these idols, we're the ones that can take them down.
So the good news of the gospel is that your idols act like they have power, but they don't have any real power. And the power of the gospel of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ can make every one of them tumble, even today. And when they do, you will discover the presence of God in the midst of whatever troubles you're going through, because, beloved, no matter what, there is another. in the fire. And that's a gospel.
Alan Wright. And what a great message today. Another in the fire from the series No Worries. It's part of today's teaching, and Alan is back here in the studio with a parting good news thought for the day here in just a moment. This month's featured resource from Pastor Alan is the Untroubled Heart, a powerful digital bundle including audio messages and a digital study guide.
With practical insight and biblical encouragement, you'll discover how to quiet anxious thoughts and rest in Christ's peace that endures. When you give today to support Allen Wright Ministries, we'll send you the Untroubled Heart digital bundle as our thanks. Call us at 877-575-845-8525. Five four four. 4860.
That's 877. Five four four four four four four four four four four four four. or come to our website. PastorAllen.org. Here with Alan Wright.
So I grew up in church. I grew up around the things of God, right? And so I've always heard about idols. And I always thought that, you know, something in my mind said, well, it's not the things you put on a shelf and literally bow down and worship, right? But somehow, all these years, I still can't get it in my mind figured out until I hear this message from Alan Wright.
And it's the message you were hearing today: another in the fire. Transformational message and a source of a worry-free life. And you get rid of the idols that you make to relieve your worries. Yeah. When we say, if this, then I just won't worry anymore.
Exactly. And we could put so many things in that blank, right? Yeah. If I just make enough money, I won't worry anymore.
Well, right. That's true. What we find out, of course, whatever you put in that blank, because it's not God, it will not satisfy. And instead, it will make you more anxious. When you try to get ultimate life from something that can't give you ultimate life, what will it do?
It'll make you more anxious.
So, the answer to a lot of our anxiety. It's just get rid of the idol. And it's so wonderful about Meshach and Shadrach, Abednego, that their refusal to bow down to the idol put them into a place where they discovered. Then when the worst happened, There was another in the fire with them. And there'll be.
God's presence with Each one of our listeners, whatever you're going through. God's grace is sufficient. You can count on it. Today's good news message is a listener-supported production. of Alan Wright Ministries.
