R315 The God of The Bible and The People of God Pt.2

We all could use some encouragement, and we'll find it together today through the Bible-based preaching of Dr. Don Wilton.

Coming up on today's edition of The Encouraging Word, the conclusion of the message to the God of the Bible and the people of God. We'll be headed back to the book of Nehemiah in just a moment, but Dr. Wilton wants you to know we're here for you. We just cherish the privilege of praying with you and for you anytime, day or night, as you call 866-899-WORD.

I encourage you to jot that number down, store it in your cell, 866-899-9673. We'll always connect you with one of us, happy to talk or listen or pray or connect you with great resources. So many are asking about the new book, Saturdays with Billy, by Dr. Don Wilton about his relationship with Dr. Billy Graham.

You can also find details online at www.tewonline.org. Now, Dr. Wilton. The God of the Bible always has His people for the times in which they live. Well, let's look at it first of all just briefly. The first principle we're going to discover in general terms is that the God of the Bible is sovereign in His purpose for His people. Friends, God desires to reveal Himself to us the same way in which He revealed Himself to Nehemiah and to the remnant of exiles that returned to a devastated Jerusalem.

I had the privilege of being in the hospital again and at one place in the hospital I saw some people that were very bereaved. And I began to think about these people. I began to think about all the gamut of emotions that come upon us as human beings.

I began to think about some of the most penetrating questions that we ever ask of ourselves and sometimes when we're at our worst point. Does God desire to reveal Himself to us? Are you telling me that God actually wants us to know Him and to do what He wants us to do?

We're going to discover absolutely yes. God desires to reveal His will to His people. Consider the situation here in Nehemiah that we're going to get to know over the next couple of weeks. Humanly speaking, their predicament was impossible. The walls of Jerusalem were broken down. They had no means to defend themselves. They had no place to worship.

They were scattered all over the universe. The people were torn apart. They had given themselves to ungodly pagan practices. They had drifted away from the sanctity of everything that God is and everything that God was and everything that God does for us. And yet God did something through Nehemiah and for His people that boggle the mind.

Why did He do that? Simply stated, because He tells us in Acts, all power is given unto me in heaven and upon earth. And that word power there means dynamite. It means because I am God. I am the God of dynamite. I'm so explosive that nobody can touch me.

And I have a habit of rearranging everything that I do touch because I am dynamite. I am God. I am power. I am grace.

I am sovereign. And there is nothing that is outside of the reach and the grasp of an eternal and holy God. This is clearly seen in the Old Testament.

You can go back with me if you like. Go back in your own private time and study about Abraham and Isaac. You're going to understand that the God of the Bible is sovereign in His purpose for His people. You can go back to Joseph and Jacob. I mean, can you imagine the audacity of Joseph being turfed into that pit and being sold into slavery by his brothers? I wonder how many whys Joseph must have asked. Why, Lord? What am I doing here?

What have I done? You know, Joseph added to that. You know what his father called him?

Puffikins. That's just a rough translation of the Hebrew text. It means that he was his father's favorite son. He never did anything wrong. He was the one who washed the dishes after the meal. He was the one that was always there to serve his mother and father.

He was the one who always was the model child. His father loved him so much. And yet, my friend, the Bible says that his brothers in their jealousy came and cast him away and sold him into slavery.

What conclusion can we come to? Well, amidst all the whys, my friends, we come to the conclusion that the God of the Bible is sovereign in His purpose for His people. And so it is with Moses. This is not only clearly seen in the Old Testament. It's clearly, clearly taught in the New Testament. I don't have time this morning to go back to Ephesians chapter 2 and see how that we were once lost, dead in our trespasses and sins, but now because of Christ and the purpose of God in Christ, we have now been found. In Romans chapter 8 and verse 28, All things work together for the good of those that love God and to those who are the called according to what? His purpose. But there's a second truth. A second principle.

Here it is. The God of the Bible always has His people for the time in which they live. And so we come to Nehemiah. Nehemiah, what an incredible person. I want to introduce you just briefly today and perhaps somewhat rather scantily to this man whose name was Nehemiah. An incredible person he was.

He came right out of the court of Artaxerxes, the king. And there is so much that God wants to teach us about this man called Nehemiah. He was a remarkable person. He was someone upon whom the spirit of the living God descended. This man by the name of Nehemiah, no different from you and no different from me, did most extraordinary things under extraordinary circumstances. All because he had a relationship with an extraordinary God. Someone who loved him. Someone who gave to him. Someone who poured out his soul upon him. But there are three things that I believe that we learn about the God of the Bible who always has His people for the times in which they live. First of all, God implements His eternal purposes through people. Now folks, I don't understand that.

But it's marvelous, isn't it? I love to read autobiographies and biographies and all these kinds. God implements His eternal purposes through people. I preached on Luke chapter 15. And in Luke chapter 16, at the end of Luke chapter 16, the rich man who had gone to hell begged for Abraham to send someone back from the dead so that he could convince his brothers that they needed to accept God as their Savior.

And what did the Bible say? The Bible said they have Moses, they have Nehemiah, they have the prophets, they have the preachers, they have the churches, they have the Sunday school teachers. Do you know why my friend sending somebody back from the dead is not God's chosen method of evangelism? You know what God's chosen method of evangelism is? It's the Word of God, the Spirit of God and the man of God.

It's the most unbelievably exciting thing to know that God in His sovereign grace has chosen the Word of God through the inspiration of the Spirit of God fed through the heart of the man of God totally given over to the grace of God to bring about all the riches of God's grace. Consider this man, Nehemiah. He was one of the greatest men that ever lived. According to historians, he was a captive in Babylon just like all the others. He was chosen to fill a respectable office in the court of Odysseus the king. He lived in ease and comfort but he couldn't continue in comfort because of the news that he received.

It's right there in those first four verses. You see, this man had everything, everything that opened and shut per se because he came to occupy even as an exile a privilege in the king's court and yet he couldn't find any peace in his own heart. He couldn't just sit there and watch the world go by. He had to get into action.

He had to keep the main thing, the main thing. What had he seen? He saw that his people were distressed according to Nehemiah chapter 1. The sepulchres of his fathers had been trodden, altars of his God had been overturned, the worship of God had been corrupted and so he sought, he prayed and he wept. For Jerusalem, look at verse 4 with me. When I heard these things, I sat down and I wept.

The Bible goes on and says for some days I mourned and I fasted and I prayed before the God of heaven. This man, we have a picture of someone here who is absolutely pouring out his heart before the only one who could do anything about the unbelievable predicament in which they found themselves. You see, Nehemiah was willing to be that instrument. He was willing to just give of himself, that's what the word says. He had to develop ways in which he could deal with the opposition.

Little did he know when he went to Jerusalem that he was going to find himself coming up against Sanballat, against the Samaritans, against Tobiah, against people who even though we cannot understand it, that even while they were building the walls of Jerusalem and while the people were coming back to God, there were those that were rising up within the congregation and they were bringing about every kind of opposition you could ever imagine. And so what we're going to do is we're going to note this man's virtues and his piety, his character, his devotion, his conviction, what he believed about God. Oh, he relieved these people from their hardships. He re-established proper worship. He re-instituted godly morality and he revived the spirit of Jerusalem and her people. This man upon his knees, day and night, praying, seeking God's face, meant business before the throne of grace. Perhaps, beloved friends, this morning as we consider the God of the Bible and the people of God, we must conclude that the God of the Bible always has his people for the times in which they live and God implements his eternal purposes through people.

But I want you to notice something in the second place. God achieves great things through ordinary people just like you and me. This was an ordinary man.

We might not have thought so. We might not have thought he was ordinary, but I'll guarantee you Nehemiah was just as ordinary as you and me. Let's note some of the things that Nehemiah did based upon the mission that God had given to him.

What did he do? Well, he showed us how to pray when there seems to be no solution to problems. I wonder if you've ever had a problem in your life and you've said there's no way out of this one. I wonder if it's a family problem, marriage problem, finances.

Maybe you've been laid off from your job. Whatever it might be, you say, man, I don't know where to turn. I don't know what to do.

I don't know how I'm going to do it. This man, Nehemiah, is going to show us how to pray when there seems to be no solution to the problems that surround us. Please forgive the interruption. You're listening to The Encouraging Word with Dr. Don Wilton, and in those moments when he's talking about Nehemiah showing us how to pray when it seems like there are no solutions to our problems, you need to know that Dr. Don reminds us often, it's not about talking about prayer. It's about praying, and we believe in the power of prayer. It's one of our foundational truths here at The Encouraging Word, and one of the first things we did when we began the ministry years ago, when God launched the ministry years ago, was say we need to have a way to pray for people. Now you can do it in a lot of ways.

Keyboard to keyboard is perhaps the most common today from our website at www.tewonline.org. That's www.tewonline.org, but some of you are like me, and sometimes the most powerful thing is the voice of someone else, another Christian. Brothers and sisters in Christ, ready to pray for you now at 866-899-WORD. I pray you'll jot that number down and know that we'd love to pray with you anytime.

866-899-9673. Now back to today's message with Dr. Don Wilton. But he's also going to show us how to blend human and divine factors when facing innumerable predicaments and unbelievable and immeasurable predicaments. There was something about Nehemiah that the Bible is going to show us, that Nehemiah was able to take the sovereign work of God and His divine grace and blend these two together with a human factor. How do we understand who God is?

How do we understand where God is and yet at the same time continue to operate our daily lives on a daily basis? You see, it's one thing, Nehemiah, for us to stand in the court of our Xerxes and it's one thing to be in the temple of God, but it's another thing to be out there in the workplace on Monday. It's another thing to be building the walls of Jerusalem. It's another thing to be faced by the onslaughts of a society that wishes to erase everything that is dear and near to the heart of God. But he didn't only do that, he showed us how to keep God's sovereign control of the universe and our responsibility in proper balance. He took God's sovereign control of the universe and our human responsibility and he kept them in the proper balance. You know, it is possible for us individually to try and get ahead of God sometimes, isn't it?

We do that as churches, as nations, as individuals, as people. One thing about Nehemiah that we're going to discover that was so remarkable, he was able to keep in a proper balance God's sovereign control of the universe, juxtaposed and intertwined together with our human responsibility, but he took that even further than that. He showed us how to plan our work and then how to work our plan while always relying on the Holy Spirit.

It's so easy friends when we get involved and when we do things to try and move the Holy Spirit into the background of our activities. This man planned his work and worked his plan in such a way that the Spirit of the Living God was so evident in everything. Maybe what it was, Nehemiah, maybe you understood as did Joshua that when God is for you, nothing can be against you.

If God be for us, nothing can be against us. Perhaps this is what Jesus meant when he said to his disciples, I've instituted my church and you are the rock upon which my church is built and the gates of hell shall never prevail against my church. What an incredible thing to understand that in the life of Nehemiah, but he also taught us how to handle discouragement in ourselves and with others. You know, he was remarkable in this regard. We're going to see how that sand ballot and the Samaritans and Tobiah, while all this activity was going on.

Maybe we're going to call it church growth principles, I don't know. But God was moving, the remnant, the exiles had come back and God was moving. He was bringing people back. People were coming to know him. He was forgiving their sin. He was restoring them. He was building the church. He was resurrecting the temple.

He was reinstituting the worship of the one true and living God. But there were those who didn't like it. Oh, they didn't like it. They were out there. Boy, they rebelled. They began rumors. They began false accusations. They began to ask questions.

They began to rumble away. I don't know what it was that he did, but I do know this. In one hand, he taught the people to take a sword. He took that sword and he said to them, put on the whole armor of God. Now, forgive me, Nehemiah, you didn't quote the New Testament.

You didn't know anything about that. But that's what he said without, no, he said put on the whole armor of God. You probably preached on Ephesians chapter 5, old chap, and you didn't even know about it. He understood the unbelievable grace of God. Put on the whole armor of God.

Perhaps you understood 2 Peter, that the devil is as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. And so he taught his people to take the sword of the Spirit and the sword of the Word of God and stand up. Stand up for the Lord Jesus Christ. Stand up for righteousness.

Stand up and arm yourselves and prepare to stand against the onslaught of the devil. But then in the other hand, he took his work tools. He took his instruments, his hammers, and he took his nails. And he taught the people how to work. In fact, you're going to discover something in Nehemiah. It'll boggle your mind to know how many times the word work is used in Nehemiah.

I'm going to tell you about it. He had a work ethic. I mean, this man didn't believe in snow days, folks.

I want you to know he didn't want any cabin fever, thank you very much. He wanted to be out there working because God had spoken to him. This is the same man who will teach us how to set goals and achieve them while all else fails. This is the same man who will teach us how to motivate others and morale is even at an all-time low, even in the United States of America spiritually. This is the man who will teach us how to cope with anger and with feelings. This is the man who will teach us how to accept promotion and success without abusing and misusing privilege. This is the man who will teach us how to respond to those who make false accusations and rumors and who start trouble. This is the man who will teach us how to develop others and to develop their own perspective of God in their lives.

This is the man who will teach us how to face and to solve some of the toughest problems that you and I can ever face. You see, the Bible says, my friends, that God implements his eternal purposes through people. But God achieves great things through ordinary people, just like you and me.

I like that, don't you? There's a third thing the Bible tells us. The Bible says that God uses people who are servants.

If you look with me at Jeremiah chapter 1 and the last verse of chapter 1, look at it. What does it say? It says, I was cupbearer to the king. That's what this man was, he was a cupbearer. Now, do you know what a cupbearer was?

I mean, look at him. He carried a cup. You know what that meant, to be the cupbearer of the king? That meant that you had the lowest position in the king's court with a simultaneous highest honor. You had the lowest position with the highest honor. You know why it was the lowest position?

Because you could die at any moment, buddy, you know that. It was the lowest position. They took the servant of all servants. You know what the cupbearer did? He took a sip of everything that the king was about to drink, just to make sure there was no poison in it. He ran ahead of the king everything that he ate. The king ate, the cupbearer would eat first and the king would watch him. So he always had to be dressed well, smell good, had to have the right B.O.

and all the rest aftershave. I mean, he had the best. The king gave him the whole nine yards. The king wanted him healthy. The king wanted to say to him, look at my cupbearer. Because if the cupbearer keeled over with a tummy ache, he knew there was something there that he need not to touch. You see, the cupbearer of all people in the king's court was the one man who was willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice for the king that he served.

There was never a day in the life of a cupbearer that he was not willing to lay down his life for his king. You know, Nehemiah, maybe again, I apologize for doing this because you didn't know Romans or the letter to the Romans. But in Romans chapter 1, there's a verse that goes like this. I beg of you, Nehemiah, I beseech of you that you lay down your life a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable under God, because this is your reasonable act of worship.

This man was willing to lay down his life. Thank you, Nehemiah. We're looking forward to studying you in the weeks and months that lie ahead. You'd say to me, pastor, what does this mean for us as a people? Perhaps it means that we serve a sovereign God who can do far more than we think is possible. Perhaps what it means is that we are an important part of the revelation of God. But perhaps what this means, beloved friends, is simply this, that we must be ready to adjust our ways in obedience to God's will. You've been listening to Dr. Don Wilton, and as he challenges us to adjust our ways in obedience to God's will, is there a course correction, an adjustment that you need to make today? If you need to talk with someone or pray with someone, we're here at 866-899-WORD.

That's 866-899-9673. If you've developed questions as we've studied God's Word together, let us discover the answers in the Bible itself, God's encouraging Word. You've heard Dr. Don preach, but now as he steps into the studio, just hear him from his heart. Are you ready to give your heart and life to the Lord Jesus Christ?

I'm so happy to hear that. Why don't you pray this prayer with me today? Dear God, I know that you love me very, very much, and I know that the Lord Jesus Christ came and died on a cross so that I might be forgiven of my sin. Today, I repent of my sin. I confess my sin to you, and I invite you to come into my heart and into my life by faith. In Jesus' name I pray. If you prayed that prayer, let me be the first one to welcome you to the family of God.

This is wonderful. I hope that you know how much I'm going to be praying for you and how very important this is for me. Call us so that we can talk to you and connect you in the right place so you can begin this wonderful journey.

And in just a moment, I'm going to come back with a final word. Welcome to the family of God. I believe some of you just prayed with Dr. Wilton to give your life to Christ for the very first time, and some rededicated your life. Either way, we want to walk with you in the next steps.

Dr. Wilton has specific materials for free he wants you to have. You just need to call us and let us know what God's done in your life and the decision you've made today. Our number is 866-899-WORD.

That's 866-899-9673. Or, meet us online at www.tewonline.org. Right now, The Buzz Online is about this fresh new book with Dr. Don.

Here's Doc with all the details. Hello, everybody. You know, my friends know me as Don Wilton, pastor, friend, neighbor, dad, husband, grandpa. But I'm going to tell you people all around the world just like you know and identify Dr. Billy Graham as that man that God used to reach so many people around the world for the Lord Jesus Christ. I had the privilege of knowing Mr. Graham in a very personal and intimate way, both as his friend and as his pastor. In fact, for many years, I drove up to his home in Montreat, North Carolina, and visited with him every Saturday. Just like friends do everywhere, we sat together and ate together, walked, talked. We discussed politics, friends, places, people. We laughed our heads off. We did everything one could possibly imagine. That's why I wrote this wonderful book, Saturdays with Billy.

It's all about a personal relationship. And I hope and pray that Saturdays with Billy will be a blessing to you, will inspire you, and will encourage your heart, just as Mr. Graham encouraged my heart and changed my life. God bless you, my friends. The number again to call for your copy of this new book is 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673. You can order it online as well at www.tewonline.org. While you're there, there are a number of resources that may be just what you need. One of our favorites, one of the literally global favorites of The Encouraging Word is the daily encouraging word devotional. You can sign up for it today and begin receiving it tomorrow online at www.tewonline.org.