Unveiling the Hidden

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, August 21st. If you find your prayer time frustrating, today's podcast is just right for you. Let's begin a series of messages designed to bring life, depth, and joy to the time you spend alone with God. The title of the message today, Unveiling the Hidden, and this is the first in a series of sermons on prayer, How to Talk with God.

And if you'll notice, I didn't say how to talk to him, but how to talk with God. In the scripture, Jeremiah chapter 33, verses 1 through 3, and if you'll turn there and let's read together. Jeremiah chapter 33, the first three verses. Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah the second time while he was yet shut up in the court of the prison, saying, Thus saith the Lord, the maker thereof, the Lord that formed it to establish it, the Lord is his name. Call unto me, and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not. There are three things in this one verse I want you to get, so I hope you'll get a pencil and paper out and listen to what he says. Verse 3, Call unto me, and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not. So the first thing he does here is he enjoins us to prayer by saying, Call unto me.

Now, Jeremiah is in prison. I don't know of a better place for fellow ketchup on his prayer life than being in prison. And some of you have never been behind bars, but God's put you in circumstances and situations where I believe that God wanted to teach you something or say something specifically to you or maybe teach you how to talk to him, and the only prayer you knew how to pray is while you were rattling the bars, you were saying, God, get me out of here, when that may not be the prayer God wanted you to pray after all. You see, we're so prone to want everything to go our way, not to have any suffering, not to have any difficulty and any heartache. When we come along and stump our big toe or fall into some difficulty, the first prayer is, God, where are you? Get me out of here so I can love you more and serve you more and pray better.

Nothing could be further from the truth than that. He said to Jeremiah in prison, listen, he didn't say, Jeremiah, I'm going to get you out of there. He doesn't even mention that. And nor does Jeremiah even mention God getting him out. He comes to Jeremiah and he says, Jeremiah, call unto me, I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not. I wonder how many of us are more intent on getting out of our circumstances than we are on finding out what God, what great things God wants to show us. And you see, sometimes when he puts us in circumstances that we cannot understand and we have difficulties and heartaches, he's teaching us some things.

Now, you remember this. The next time the bottom drops out and you're confronted with a problem or decision and you don't have a solution, you remember this one thing. The shortest distance between the problem you're facing, whatever it may be, and the solution of that problem is what? The shortest distance between the problem and the solution is the distance between your knees and the floor. Prayer is always the shortest distance between the problem and the solution, the difficulty and the answer.

It's always that way. Now, what we usually do after we've read some books and after we've talked to some friends and after we've exhausted all possible resources, then we come to God and we say, oh, my God, what we're saying is Lord, now that I can't do it myself, can you help me? He wants us to come to him on a basis of father and son or daughter relationship, not after we've exhausted our resources, but he wants us to come to him first. He enjoins us to pray because God knows that you and I are oftentimes in prisons made by our own, not prisons of bars, but intellectual prisons, emotional prisons, relational prisons, all kinds of difficulties, heartaches, troubles and trials, and he knows that the quickest solution is on our knees before him. God always without question has an answer. The second thing I want you to notice he says here, call unto me and I will answer thee. He not only enjoins us to prayer, but he encourages us in our prayer. He says, I will answer thee.

Now, let's think about that for a moment. I will answer thee. Many times you and I will say to someone else, I will be there. I will do this and so you can count on me. We may want to do it. We may mean to do it. We may attempt to do it. We may try to do it, but we can't.

Let me tell you something. The God who says I will is the God who can follow that by saying I always can. And you see, sometimes we'd like to incant.

Sometimes we desire to, but we just can't do it. God says I will hear and answer your prayer, which brings me to an interesting question. How does God answer prayer? Sometimes he answers yes.

In fact, the real problem we have is this. That's the only answer most of us will ever agree to. If God says yes, then he's answered my prayer. If God says no, we said he didn't answer my prayer.

Now let me show you how inconsistent we are. If a little boy goes to his mother and he says that 15 minutes before supper tonight, Mom, I saw a candy bar and I'd like to have it. And she says, Son, the answer is no. So he goes to his sister and he says, Well, I asked Mom if I could have a candy bar. What did she say?

She didn't say anything. And that's what we say. When God says no, we say he didn't answer my prayer. The little boy knows what his father said or his mother said no, she meant no. When God answers our prayer, he either says yes, no or what?

Wait, one of those three, they're all three answers. Listen, some of his answers are no, no, no, never. That's it, never. What do we do? We just sort of curl up and we say, Oh God, what's the matter? And we look around, we think we've got to have sinned. We can't be walking in the spirit.

We blame all of these things. Listen, doesn't God have the legitimate right to say no? We won't even give him the privilege of saying no.

What do we do? We say, Lord, if the answer is not yes, then there's something wrong. God's answer can be no and be absolutely and totally from God. You see, we don't want to wait. We don't want to hear any nos and we don't hear any waits. The only thing we want to hear is yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes from heaven. And we want him to say yes.

When deep down inside we even have a sneaking suspicion it's not right. People say, well, I want to stand on the word of God. So they asked the Lord about answering the prayer and he says, no.

They said, Hmm, I'm going to get in the word and find me an answer. And what they're really saying is I didn't like God's first answer and I'm going to show him why he's got to answer my prayer. So I'm going to get me a scripture and I'm just going to stand on the word and claim the word. Listen, when God says no, you can't give him his word back and misinterpret to him and you think you're going to fool God.

You can't fool God with his own word. He says, no, the answer is no. If he says wait, the answer is wait because God is more interested in your future. He's more interested in your peace. He's more interested in your faith. He's more interested in growing you up. He's more interested in your character. He's more interested in your obedience than he is pleasing you for the moment.

You may get an instant answer, but it may not be the answer you want, but you remember this. Whenever God says no, he's loving you. Whenever God says, wait, he's loving you.

It's always the motivation of love. The third thing I want you to see here. Notice what he says. Call unto me. He enjoins us to pray to him in all kinds of difficulty. I will answer thee is his encouragement to us in prayer that he's personally interested in whatever concerns us. Then he says, I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not. Now I want you to see the difference between these two words because the English translation of one of these words doesn't really show us what he's saying to us here.

Now listen, he says, I will show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not. All of us have decisions to make and we don't have the answers. We have decisions that involve other people. There are home decisions, marital decisions, decisions about our children, decisions in business and finance and relationships with other people.

All of us have decisions we're confronted with constantly. He says here, if you will call unto me, I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not. And so many of God's people go all the way through their life making decisions based on, listen, their knowledge, their mundane understanding of things and their experience when there are some decisions that must be based on divine wisdom and illumination from God. And there's some things that will not come any other way. For example, most any preacher can get up a sermon.

He can get him an outline. But friend, you can't get a message from God by reading books, writing, finagling, manipulating, praying, pleading, doing anything else unless God gives it, you won't get it. You can't make God give you anything. And there are many times when we make decisions that we never really know if that's what God wanted or not. And so many people are prone to flip a coin spiritually speaking and say, well, Lord, here's what I'm going to do. If it's of you, I know you'll bless it. If it's not, then so what?

And how many times have we jumped off the cliff, the wrong cliff at the wrong time and said, God bless me going down into a pile. And you see, he doesn't, he has no obligation to bless anything that's not of him. He's not going to do it. Now, what is he saying?

And it's very important you get this. He says, I will do what? I will show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.

Now, two words. First of all, the great things. What does he mean when he says I will show thee great things? I believe that every time you and I come to him in prayer seeking to know his will or his mind a better thing, there are two things he always wants to show us.

And these are two great things. He said, call unto me and I will answer thee and I will show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not. The one thing God always wants to show me is himself.

Can you tell me anything greater than seeing and knowing God? Listen, when you and I kneel to pray, the first thing God wants to show us always is how great he is. Listen, the way to begin to talk with God is not saying, Lord, let me tell you about my needs. We ought to begin our praying by saying, Lord, thank you that you're omnipotent.

You have all power to meet all of my needs. Thank you that you're omniscient, that you know everything I'm going to tell you about even before I tell you. Thank you that you're omnipresent, that you're not up yonder, but you're in my heart and I'm in your presence and I bow my heart and my body before you're thrown. Thank you that you're holy, you hate sin.

Thank you that you're merciful and loving and forgiving. Thank you, Father, for being the great creator, the great sustainer, the great lover of mankind. Father, I'm coming to you, great as thou art, recognizing thy greatness, recognizing thy holiness, bowing before you as one of your children and knowing that you're more than sufficient to meet our needs. You're talking about, listen, friend, that's the way to talk to God and to talk with him. Now hop on my knees, dear Lord, you know my needs and I'm on my way down the expressway. Hurry up, Lord, and on my way.

Now listen, some of you are faster than that. You just think it and keep going. You never stop to recognize that God always wants to show us himself in prayer. The second great thing he wants to show us is what he's able and ready to do. Call unto me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not. How does he show us what he's willing to do? He shows us in his word.

He reminds us of what he's done in the past. He shows us in other people's lives and other circumstances what holy, almighty, omnipotent God is willing and ready to do. So he says, call unto me and I will answer thee and show thee great things that thou knowest not. But now here's the key.

Look at this next word. Call unto me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things. Now listen, the word mighty does not mean what it implies here. The word mighty means the hidden things. Listen, the things that are fenced in.

It is the word used for fortified cities, that is, cities that are garrisoned about, that you can't get in. He's talking about unveiling for us those things that, listen, that are inaccessible to us any other way except through God in prayer. Listen, has it ever dawned on you that God wants to show you some things that you won't ever find talking to anybody else? He wants to unveil truth to you and answers to you that you're not going to ever find with confidence reading somebody's book.

God is willing. He says, call unto me and I will answer thee and show thee great and hidden inaccessible things that will never be known any other way. He says things that thou hast not known. You see, we don't want to take the time.

We don't want to take the time to wait upon God in prayer. He says, I'll show you. And many of you are making decisions in the process of making them. You'll say, I'll tell you, I just don't know what in the world to do.

Listen, if you don't know what in the world to do, I can tell you what to do. Stop wringing your hands and get on your knees before God. The promise he made, listen, the promise he made to Jeremiah is accessible as a promise to us.

Call unto me. I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not. He says, when we come to him and we're willing to see him as he is, you see, listen, God isn't going to show us something that's inaccessible, something that's hidden, something we'd like to know, something we need to know. Listen, until first of all, I have settled that I know who he is. Listen, if I want to bypass who he is and bypass understanding what he's able to do and just get in and get my answer and get out, forget it.

Until I recognize who he is and until I am awed in the presence of God and stand in awe at the omnipotence of God, how will I ever be impressed to believe that God is willing to show little old me something that I could never know any other way? Here you are in the throes of making a decision or trying to find something in your own life, or maybe you're in a circumstance and you're just covered with circumstances. In fact, you just don't know what in the world you're going to do. I want to tell you something. There is no knowledge you and I'll ever need to know that is not easily accessible before the throne of the loving, living, holy, righteous God who has said, call unto me. I will answer thee and show thee the great, the hidden, the inaccessible, the garrison about things that you'll never be able to understand any other way. You know what the key is for God to showing you the things that you won't ever find that any other way? You say, well, I can go ask somebody else and the Bible says there's wisdom and counsel is right, but friend, there's some things that you're not going to find that any other way. I don't mean that God's going to add to the book of Revelation one more chapter and give it to you, but I'm talking about showing you about you. I'm talking about illuminating your mind and heart till you know that you've got the mind of God and if everybody in the world says no, you're going to say yes because God has given to you clearly a word of wisdom and direction for your life.

But there's one key and the key is this. Are you submissive to him to the point that whatever he says you're going to do, the quicker I move from my will to his will, the quicker God's going to show me and unfold to me what I need to know. God doesn't answer prayer out of curiosity, my friend.

You mark that down. He's not going to show you anything out of curiosity. He's going to show you in order that you may obey him. That's the reason God hears and answers our prayer.

He wants us to obey him. Now, let me ask you something. Are you facing a decision in your life? Are you in the midst of something that you feel like there's no way for you to get out of?

Everything looks hopeless. Or maybe you're going through some difficulty in your life and you don't have an answer for it right now. Let me tell you what he says. Call unto me and I will answer thee and show thee great. I'll show you what I'm able to do, God says. If you will see me and understand me as I am, and then I will take the lid off and let you look in and see what I'm willing to do in your life. I have the solution, God says. I have the answer. And if you're willing to call unto me, I will answer you and show you my mighty power to do it. And then I'll show you what I want to do.

And let me ask you this. Is what you need, the solution you're seeking, worth your submitting yourself totally to him, that whatever he requires, you're willing to say, yes Lord, yes Lord, yes Lord. Thank you for listening to Unveiling the Hidden. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.