How To Stay Out Of God's Woodshed

This is the Truth Network. Encouraging Prayer. God offers an open invitation for His people to talk with Him at any time about anything.

On Encouraging Prayer, Dr. James Banks, author of the bestselling Prayers for Prodigals and many other books on prayer, provides weekly Biblical insight to help you learn to love to pray. And now, here's James. Well, how fun on Encouraging Prayer today, how to stay out of God's woodshed. You know, that's great advice James, but you know, how do we do that? Okay, well first of all, maybe we'd better explain that because not everyone may understand what it means to go out to a woodshed. That's kind of a previous generational reference.

And Robby, what do you think it means? Well, it was back when I grew up that the woodshed would be the place that you would pick a switch, and that switch would be used to discipline you, to show you the disadvantages of misbehavior, making bad choices, and it could be quite painful. But I've often heard of it as something that God uses to our benefit, and so I'm really interested in how to stay out of it. Yeah, well, you know, Scripture tells us, Hebrews 12, 6, that those whom the Lord loves, He also chastens. But so often when that happens, it's because we have a lesson to learn, and maybe we've been pushing back against Him, maybe we've been disobedient. I know times when God's discipline has come in my life, I can often trace it back to, you know, some choice I made where I knew it was wrong, but I went ahead and did it anyhow.

How about you? Yeah, I was just, you know, one of the things I do just constantly struggle with is my choice is in eating. And, you know, if you make the wrong choice, if you're diabetic, you end up in the woodshed rather quickly.

And it's almost a great tool to train me, you know? Yeah, yeah. And, you know, this isn't to say that every time something bad happens to you that, you know, oh, God is doing this to punish you. Please, no, we're not going there. But sometimes you know, you know, and that's where we're going. Because Scripture says, you know, that whenever we're tempted, and this is 1 Corinthians, what, that the Lord will provide a way out. But what if we don't take that way out?

And what happens next? I once heard it put this way that, you know, if you drop your pen and it falls, you know, and it breaks, is God mad at it? No, it just disobeyed the law of gravity. And so God wasn't mad at it.

You know, when you break the law, unfortunately, there's consequences. Yeah, and there's a fascinating instance of this in Numbers, chapter 13 and chapter 14. You know, it's when Israel has been out in the wilderness, and they come up on the borders of the Promised Land. And Moses, you know, chooses 12 men to go in, Joshua and Caleb are among them. And they come in and they find us this beautiful, beautiful place.

And yet, they also noticed that the people are pretty big and pretty numerous. You know, so when they come back, actually, 10 of them start to spread a bad report, they don't have faith, they're like, we, you know, we can't do this. We can't go in. And, you know, Joshua and Caleb are like, No, no, no, we really can, with God's help, if we believe in God, you know, He will conquer them for us, basically. And this is where the whole woodshed incident really starts, because God says, Okay, the 10 of you, I mean, actually, those 10 lose their lives. Because of that God doesn't allow them to live any longer. And then what happens is that he, you know, he's told them, not just the 10, but the people who believe their bad report, he says, you know, for every one of those 40 days, you're going to wander in the wilderness for a year. So for 40 years, this generation will wander and, you know, your children, whom you thought would be devoured alive, you know, by this land, they'll get to go in. And so you look at that, and you think, hmm, because it is, it's no small thing to fall into the hands of the living God, is it?

Darrell Bock No, no, no, no, no. And, you know, it's fascinating to me, you know, then in Matthew, when he gives you the, in Matthew 24, the story of the 10 virgins, you know, you got 10 again, and here we got a bunch that God never knew them again, or a similar situation that, you know, they really, it's a prayer issue, because it's an intimacy issue. It really is. That's the thing that we need to keep in mind, because what God says about Caleb, in all of this, and I think it's 1424, is my servant Caleb has a different heart. He's remained loyal to me, and I'll bring him into the land he explored.

And that's the truth of what happens. Only Joshua and Caleb from that generation get to go in. And when they go in, they're old, but they're hardy, you know, Caleb's like, man, give me the help country, I can take this.

Joshua leads the whole group. But, you know, the point is relationship, the point is faith. They believe him, and our prayer is so, you know, just spending time with God in that relationship through prayer is so important to building and keeping our faith and to keeping us out of trouble. And, you know, really keeping us out of God's woodshed.

It's so important. And you see that here, because what happens after this is that the people are like, Oh, no, no, you know, we were wrong, we repent, we're sorry, we're gonna go in. Like, don't do that, you know, it's not gonna work.

And they go in anyhow, and yeah, they get beaten back, and it doesn't work. And, you know, what you see there is the difference between between false faith. It's like, Oh, yeah, I'm following God, but they're not really, you know, and true faith, which is what Joshua and Caleb have. And, you know, again, that that true faith is faith that praise its faith that, again, remember, Caleb had a different heart. And so if we're to love the Lord, our God, with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength, prayer has got to be a matter of the heart more than than anything else. You know, it can't just be taking the steps.

It's got to be following him. Darrell Bock Unfortunately, we're running out of time. So I guess we'd better pray that we get close, James.

James LaPaglia Yeah, why don't you do it? Darrell Bock All right, Lord, thank you. Thank you for this episode. I'm so encouraged as really to fall into your arms rather than fall into trouble. And so, Lord, help us to pray more often just through the day and whatever opportunity that we have to walk with you. And I'm so thankful for this reminder. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. You can hear more from Pastor James by visiting his website, jamesbanks.org, or by visiting Peace Church in Durham, North Carolina. May God bless you and encourage you as you pray. This is the Truth Network.