Little by Little [Part 1]

Allen Wright, pastor, Bible teacher, and author of his latest book, The Power to Bless.

God wins many, many spiritual battles for us by confusing the enemy. 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, Second Wind, as presented at Reynolda 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. A copy of Pastor Alan's book, Lover of My Soul. This 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. Contact us at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org. Or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on that later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Allen Wright. Are you ready for some good news? If your spiritual progress feels slow and your victories feel small, good! God gives people a promised land little by little.

We're in a new series called Second Wind, which is about the power to persevere. Because there's so many promises to those who wait upon the Lord, those who just keep going. And today we come to a beautiful, powerful, encouraging text that describes how it is that God will give the promised land to his people. A land that he will most certainly give to them, but that we'll see he gives to them little by little. Exodus chapter 23, verse 27. I will send my terror before you and will throw into confusion all the people against whom you shall come. And I'll make all of your enemies turn their backs to you. And I'll send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from before you. I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you. Little by little I will drive them out from before you until you have increased and possessed the land. And I will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines and from the wilderness to the Euphrates. For I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you. So, huge promise, I will drive them out, and I'll do it little by little.

Say that with me. Little by little. The one thing that we all would like in life is we'd like for it not to be little by little, wouldn't we? We'd like our successes to come, just whole hog, whole thing, big time, sudden victory. That's why everybody wants to win the lottery. One in a gazillion chance that you could win the lottery.

That's the way I'm going to get my life going. In 1978, a trio of researchers at Northwestern University and University of Massachusetts. There's something very interesting. They did a huge study in which they interviewed lottery winners, Illinois State lottery winners, and they also interviewed victims of recent accidents that had left them paraplegic or even quadriplegic. And astoundingly, they essentially found that the accident victims, many of them, were by many standards happier than those who'd won the lottery. That's astounding, especially when it came from reporting happiness about everyday pleasures, like having a good talk with a friend or laughing at a good joke or just receiving a compliment.

So many stories you've heard before. Jack Whitaker, the West Virginia man who won the $315 million on the Powerball jackpot in West Virginia back in 2002. At first he gave millions away to charity and set up a foundation. It seemed like things were going well, but then it just started headed south for him. A briefcase with over a half million dollars in cash and cashier's check was taken from his car while it was parked outside of a strip club. His office, his home were broken into. He was arrested twice for drunk driving.

His granddaughter died under suspicious circumstances, and by 2007 he'd spent almost all the money, and he told reporters that year, quote, I wish I'd torn that ticket up. See, the Lord gave the Israelites a promise. They would be given the land. It was their inheritance. It was being occupied by enemies, and it was their land, and God was going to give it to them, and he was going to make the way possible, and they were definitely going to conquer.

They would win, but it would not be given to them in a day or even in a year. It would come battle after battle, step after step, day after day, year after year. Promised land comes little by little, and I think that's just a really important principle for anybody that wants to discover the power of persevering, because if you have in your mind that you're going to get it all at one time, it's very, very frustrating when it doesn't happen that way, and it sets up false expectation, and it also can make us idolize the sudden victory, and I want to talk to you today about why God gives the promised land little by little, why instant success usually isn't good, and why taking the land little by little is God's very best plan.

So here's the idea. The promise of God is like a vision, like a faith statement, a reality that comes from the very inmost nature of God. His word is so attached to His own essence that it's like when He sends His word, He's sending Himself, and His word is full of His own breath or spirit, and the same way my words right now are full of my breath, God's word is spirit-infused, and so His word to you is utterly 100% reliable, and He gives words, and He gives promises, and He gives pictures of promised land, and promises that that's what you're going to have, and He makes huge promises also about how much this battle belongs to Him.

So the vision is given up front, but the progress towards the completion of it is almost always incremental. Look again here, verse 27. I will send my terror before you, and will throw into confusion all the people against whom you shall come, and I'll make all your enemies turn their backs to you, and I will send hornets before you. So God will be the victory. I will do this, and He's going to do this, and here's some lessons for spiritual warfare. At least in these ways, He's going to send His terror before us.

He is awesome, and He has ways of showing Himself to be God, and you can count on that. It's not your own might. It is His that will defeat the enemy, and throw into confusion all the people against whom you shall come.

So I'm going to come back to that later, but just keep that in mind. God wins many, many spiritual battles for us by confusing the enemy. I think that we give far too much to the devil, and forget the devil's just a creature with limited understanding, and God is all wise, and you put God and the devil into the same chess match, and there's no contest, right? The one who can see the future and knows all things always wins. He always wins, and He promises that I will make your enemies turn their backs to you, which means that they're going to turn and flee at some point. So there's your principles for spiritual warfare. God is mighty, and He'll show Himself to be that, and at some point, He brings confusion to the enemy, and when we stand and resist, eventually the devil flees.

That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. For any woman who has searched for true love, what you long for can only be found fully in God. Gary Chapman, renowned author of the five love languages, says, The incredible reality that God pursues us in love comes to life in lover of my soul. Ancient biblical accounts explode in the heart. Accept Christ's proposal, enjoy His embrace, revel in His love.

After all, it's a match made in heaven. It's Lover of My Soul by Alan Wright. The Gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org.

Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. James chapter 4 says this, He gives more grace. Therefore it says, God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. To those that know how much they need God, that's humility.

Who exalt the Lord and know how much they need God, that they're humble, then there's lots of grace that comes. In other words, what happens, our pride, when we think we don't need God, then we don't hunger for God, and so you don't receive from God. He says, verse 7 of James 4, Submit yourselves therefore to God, that is, trust Him, worship Him, yield to His good plan, and resist the devil, that is, just continue to persevere without giving up or giving in to the temptation, and He will flee from you. This is the most important spiritual warfare principle you could ever know. Hell has limited resources, and when the temptation is not working against you because too much time's going by, and you're persevering and you're just standing, then eventually those resources are going elsewhere. The devil will flee from you.

We don't run from him, he runs from us. He'll turn his back, and that's the way of the spiritual warfare. So the hornet reference, it might be literal. There are some ancient references to plagues of hornets or bees or wasps, but probably it is referring to armies, in this case, maybe Egyptian armies that had preceded the Israelite armies into Canaan and battered them. Isaiah 7, verse 18 probably gives us a hint of that. In that day, the prophet is proclaiming, the word of the Lord, the Lord will whistle for the fly that is at the end of the streams of Egypt and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. So those are clearly references not to a literal fly or bee, but to the armies of those lands. And so one of the things that would happen is before the Israelites ever got to Canaan that a lot of the Canaanite armies had been weakened by preceding armies especially the Egyptian armies that had been through there.

Probably what he's talking about. Verse 29 again, I will not drive them out from before you in one year, but little by little I'll drive them out before you until you have increased and possessed the land. Every instant success story that you might ever think was an overnight success, if you really go back and read the story, isn't it true? It was a little by little. We love the trophy moment and we don't pay much attention to the pathway to get there. I wish somebody had really drilled this into me when I was very young. Little by little.

Because the quest for instant success shortcut to glory, grab the trophy without all of the incremental progress, it not only doesn't work, but it usually leads us down a path that does the opposite. I've been waiting for this moment. I knew there was going to be a moment where I was going to be able to weave in the illustration and now it comes basketball fans. How about my Baylor Bears? Come on, my Baylor Bears. Baylor Bears. Our son Bennett went to Baylor.

I remember very well when we first began to even consider it because I'm thinking my home school boy, he's going to go to school no more than an hour away. We began to notice Baylor and Bennett got offered a really good academic scholarship and that got my attention. Then we started looking and realized it was a Christian school.

A lot of people don't know that. It's a Christian school. Not all the students are Christian, but the faculty is Christian. We got really interested in it and started thinking a little bit about Baylor, way out there in Waco, Texas. While we were thinking about it, at the end of December 2012, I that same week got together with a friend I hadn't seen, a pastor friend I hadn't met with in literally years. We had breakfast together, caught up, and enjoyed our breakfast together.

As we were saying goodbye to each other, I said, oh, we didn't even talk about our kids. How's your daughter doing? He said, it's great. She said, I'm getting ready to go pick her up from Waco, Texas.

She's flying in right now. I said, Waco? What? He said, yeah. I said, finish your first semester at Baylor. I said, what? I said, we're just thinking about that. Let's get together for coffee. Later that week, we got together for coffee and everything she had to say about Baylor was good.

Next thing you know, our son, we're dropping him off in Waco, Texas. Now, while we were considering and looking at Baylor, one night, Bennett and I were just flipping through the sports channels looking for something to watch, and there is Baylor playing basketball. I was like, look at there, Bennett. They got a basketball team. I mean, I didn't know anything. I grew up in basketball heaven. I mean, we've grown up here. We've got Tim Duncan and Chris Paul, and I grew up watching all the, you know, Wake and State and Carolina and even, I mean, Duke. And I mean, we're in basketball heaven around here. I didn't even know they played basketball in Texas. They play football out there. But we saw them on TV. I said, Bennett, you know, they might even, I might even be able to see them play basketball sometime. I mean, I'm sure they're no good, but I mean, we could, you know, we could watch it.

I'm a Christian school out in Waco, Texas. And while Bennett was there, the football team was the crazed man. I mean, there was a couple years that football, they went to the top 10 and had a chance to even make the playoffs, and it was crazy. But it was, basketball, I mean, they had a hard time even getting people to go to the basketball games. And I went to some of the basketball games. Sometimes it just is, you know, half empty in there and everything, but I mean, but this coach, Scott Drew, this coach, in 2003, Baylor was looking for a new coach because they had just experienced one of the worst scandals in sports history.

I mean, just got to put it out there bluntly. A basketball player on Baylor's team had murdered another teammate, and one of the coaches was involved in a cover-up of the thing. It was, it was talk about Baylor should just never even play basketball again, and nobody wanted to go. Well, they started looking for a new coach, and President Sloan and others started traveling around interviewing some coaches, and they went to Chicago to interview a 32-year-old man named Scott Drew. And what's fascinating is that when they met him at the airport, Drew had reserved a room at Chicago's Midway Airport, and instead of a few chairs set up for an interview, he had green and gold balloons and green and gold crepe paper all spread around. President Sloan said it looked more like a pep rally than an interview room, and there were tables, listen to this, there were tables set out there, and on the tables were mock front pages of newspapers that Drew had drawn up that said things like Baylor Bears in the Final Four. People thought Scott Drew was crazy to even want to come, but they were drawn to his faith, and this 32-year-old came to be the coach. At his opening press conference, you ought to watch it sometime, this young man who's come into this scandalized program and says, I haven't come just with the hope that we could make the NCAA tournament. I've come with the belief that we could get to Final Fours and win a national championship. That was 18 years ago. He said, but it's going to take some time. You know what he's saying?

I see a promised land, but we're going to get there little by little. Baylor had some self-imposed restrictions after the scandal. The NCAA came two years later and put some restrictions unprecedented. They weren't allowed to play non-conference games for a while.

They only had six scholarship athletes. Coach Drew said one night he and an assistant coach were at an Italian restaurant in Waco as the season was beginning and looked over and saw a tall boy. They saw a very tall boy having some pizza at the restaurant and went over and asked him if he was a Baylor student. He said yes, and they looked at him. He was about six, seven, or eight, and they said, would you come join the basketball team? No tryout, no nothing.

They just needed somebody to play. Alan Wright. Today's good news message is titled Little by Little, the series, Second Wind. Pastor Alan is back with us in the studio sharing his parting good news thought for the day in just a moment. Stay with us. God's love. You've heard about it with your ears.

You've believed it in your mind. Now experience it in your heart with Alan Wright's beloved book, Lover of My Soul. The Bible is a love story from beginning to end. The spiritual bride of Christ, the perfect bridegroom. The Bible tells about a God who has gone to unimaginable lengths to woo you, to win you, and to walk with you hand in hand. For any man who has fallen in love with a woman, you've tasted the sweetness of what God's love for you is like. For any woman who has searched for true love, which you long for can only be found fully in God. Gary Chapman, renowned author of the five love languages says, the incredible reality that God pursues us in love comes to life in Lover of My Soul. Ancient biblical accounts explode in the heart. Accept Christ's proposal, enjoy His embrace, revel in His love.

After all, it's a match made in heaven. It's Lover of My Soul by Alan Wright. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Back now with Pastor Alan and our parting good news thought for the day.

What's the takeaway as we place a bookmark here in this teaching? I just can't think of anything more important for Christians at this season, at this moment in history. God has made a promise to us in Jesus Christ. God has issued us many wonderful assurances in His Word. And just as He promised the people of God in Exodus, that He would give them the promised land, there is a principle in the heart of God because He's all wise and He's so kind that as He told the people that were headed towards Canaan, I'm going to give you the promised land, but I'm not going to give it to you all at one time. I'm not going to give it to you all in a year, but I'm going to give it to you little by little. There is a principle in life that issues from the very heart of God and the sooner we can accept it, the better. And that is almost everything good from God that comes to us comes not instantly, but comes step by step, little by little.

And I think, Daniel, that if we can just appreciate that, it will encourage us. It'll let us go, hey, don't despise the days of small beginning. If you're just 1% further than you were yesterday, you are on the way. God's going to give you your promised land little by little. You probably have some more steel in your spirit now than you did beforehand, and you may not feel it yet, but it's there. And you may not feel like, because you don't have the whole promised land, because you don't have all of it yet, that you're not making progress, but you are. God's taking you, and it's okay.

If it's just 1% today and 1% tomorrow, you're on the way. Promised land's coming, little by little. Thanks for listening today. Visit us online at pastorallen.org, or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. If you only caught part of today's teaching, not only can you listen again online, but also get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching, delivered right to your email inbox, free. Find out more about these and other resources at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org. Today's good news message is a listener-supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.