Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, September 13th. If you look closely enough, you can see the fingerprints of God in the small details. Today's podcast continues the Ways of God series to help us notice the things God uses. When I first began to be interested in photography, I was just amazed at God's awesome creation. And first of all, I began to see all the big things out there. Whether it was snow-capped mountains and when I looked all around me, everything I saw seemed to just be grabbing my attention. And whether it was glaciers or beautiful picturesque waterfalls and big, gigantic waves breaking on the rocky shores and misty forests and rainforests and ancient castles and big, giant redwoods. And think about all those awesome acres and acres and acres of God's beautiful flowers.
So, I was sort of caught up in all that. All the big things, panoramas, majestic things. Then when I got a little closer, moved a little closer in, I began to see a little different side of God's beauty. And instead of photographing a whole field of flowers, to photograph one flower. And then, when I began to get inside of that one flower, I saw the most awesome thing.
God's creative, delicate, intricate, detailed creation. I remember driving down the road one day with some friends of mine and they were in a vehicle behind us. And so, I was down in this field photographing flowers. And so, my friend's wife said, Well, why you take all that much trouble to get out of the vehicle and come down this hill and get all focused in on one?
So, I said, Well, I can answer that. Why don't you look inside? Just look through the lens.
She looked through the lens and she said, I want to forget this, Oh, now I see. Oh, now I see. The same thing is true about God. The closer you and I get to Him, the more we see and the better we understand. How does He operate? How does He think?
Why does He do what He does? And sometimes, in fact, probably with most people their idea of God is He's this awesome somebody out yonder in space in a place called heaven. And if you pray, sometimes He'll listen to you and sometimes He'll answer your prayers. And so, that's why if you give most people a sheet of paper and say, Write down everything you know about God. You really didn't truly know about Him. Fill up this page.
They couldn't do it. Because their idea of God is really very, very sparse compared to what God wants them to understand and wants them to know. And so, I want us to look at a number of things here to help us understand that God wants us to know Him intricately. He wants us to know Him intimately. He wants us to know Him personally. He wants us to see beyond awesome power, great might, Creator of the universe. He wants us to see His heart and He wants us to see His ways. Because, you see, the more of His ways I see and understand, the more about God I fully understand. And the title of this message is simply this, The Ways of God, the Things God Uses. We've talked about that the ways of God are the best ways. We've talked about the fact one of His ways is He always keeps His word.
And one of His ways is the things He uses that sometimes are very surprising. And I want to take you through a series of these and let you think about and have some questions to ask you and you think about in your own life. And I want us to begin in the second chapter of Exodus, because there's an incident here that most all of us who've been believers for a while, we know what this is all about. But I want you to look at that second chapter and remember this, that there came a time when the Scripture says that Joseph died and he was sort of in charge in Egypt for a long time, having been the prime minister. He passes on and there's a verse of Scripture here I want you to notice because this verse of Scripture is almost identical to the book of Judges. It says in verse eight of chapter one of Exodus, Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.
And that is not knowing Joseph, they did not know Joseph's God. And so what happens, and this is something we should be careful about in our own lives, the generation that has gone on before you and me, we don't see things like they see them. This generation today is different from the last generation, and we have drifted further away from God. The generation that shall come after us, if history keeps repeating itself, they too will drift a little further away from God.
This is what causes the devastation of civilizations, when they drift and drift and drift and drift. And so what happens as a result in Egypt was, the Pharaoh said, Look, these Hebrews are becoming so mighty and so strong and so many. We better do something because if our enemies attacked us, they may join our enemies and they would win. And so here's what we'll do.
We'll do something to help them. And so, the Pharaoh said, Look, you know, the Hebrews are becoming so mighty and so many. They made slaves of them. And they put taskmasters over them.
And so finally, that didn't work. The Scripture says that the more they persecute them, the Bible says, the more they grew and the mightier they grew. So then, Pharaoh decided, Well, I'll fix that. We want to kill every Hebrew baby that is born. And so, the Pharaoh said, Well, I'll fix that. And so, the Pharaoh said, Well, I'll fix that. And so, the Pharaoh said, Well, I'll fix that. And so, the Pharaoh said, Well, I'll fix that. And so, the Pharaoh decided that she didn't want her baby to die.
And you, of course, you know his name is Moses. And so, when he was born, the Bible says she kept him as long as she could. And then when she realized they were going to catch him one of these days, she built a little ark, a wicker basket.
She put a little wicker basket and pitched it with the kind of wicker basket. And she said, Well, I'll fix that. And so, the Pharaoh said, Well, I'll fix that. And so, she went over on the edge to set him in the Nile River, it's a big river. But over on the edge, sent him away and had her daughter watch to see what happened.
Well, you know what happened. The little basket got caught in the bulrushes and down close to it, and it was a little ark, a wicker basket. And so, the Pharaoh said, Well, I'll fix that. And so, the Pharaoh said, Well, I'll fix that. And so, the Pharaoh called her mates to go get the little ark and brought it over. And she opened it and it had a little Hebrew baby in it.
She knew that's what it was. And not by accident, but here's his sister, so to speak, standing there sort of waiting and said to her, Would you like me to get a little ark? And she said, Well, I'll fix that. And so, the Pharaoh said, Well, I'll fix that. And so, he goes away until he reaches a certain age and then he's brought back to Pharaoh's daughter.
Now, he's a son. Now, you say, Well, what's so significant about that? What I want you to see is this. A wicker basket is not a very valuable thing. More than likely, all of you have baskets at your house.
But you have a wicker basket. And what I want you to see is this. He gave him the baby that he received. The baby that would become the Redeemer, the Liberator of a nation of people that they would call Israelites. He saved him from death. Raised him up to be the Liberator. And so, he gave him the baby that he received. And so, he gave him the baby that he received. And so, he gave it to those people out of Egyptian bondage across this miraculous sea escape that they took.
And in the process of doing so, it sent a message to all of those neighbors out there, all those nations out there that those Hebrews that came out of Egypt, all those nations that came out of Egypt, all those nations that came out of Egypt, all those nations that came out of Egypt that were in the sea. What was so significant about that basket was this. In that basket was not only the Liberator, the demonstrator of God's power, but in that basket was the man who would give leadership and guidance and direction to a nation of people through whom the Messiah, the Lord of the world, was the one who would give the Lord the glory of the Lord. And so, that's what God used. And so, it's not very valuable, but it's how she used it. It's what God used to save this awesome Liberator. And so, God used a simple wicker basket. Now, I wonder what you have in your house around your life that God could use to do something awesome, and it's not just making you an unimportant person.
You have children. And so there's a lot of different things and sometimes you feel yourself the same. Do you feel unimportant? Do you feel like, well, you know, sometimes I feel like a wicker basket, but there's not anything in me that's worth having. My friend, God doesn't make any unimportant people.
And so, what you kind of have to ask is this. You can't say God always works this way, God always works that way. You can't expect God to work the same way all the way in your life. And sometimes we greatly limit ourselves by what we can do and what we will do, but the fact that we don't believe that we're important. We seem to feel like one of those wicker baskets that's empty is floating in the Nile River somewhere.
We're not important. There's nothing within us that God can use. Yes, He can. God can use you. What He's waiting for is for you to be willing to be used. A wicker basket is nothing until you put something of great value in it, then it becomes very valuable. Moses' life rested for a season of time in a wicker basket. But the wicker basket was held by the hand of Almighty God, guided by the hand of Almighty God.
It could have just gotten out in the middle of the Nile River and floated for days or weeks or months. And little Moses could have died. But in that wicker basket was a chosen vessel of God.
And God protected him until he fulfilled the purpose of God. Don't underestimate the small things in life. They look small, but when God gets ahold of them. And I think about sometimes when very small children walk the aisle and say they want to give their life to Jesus. Very, very young, maybe six or five or six or seven years of age, they may look unimportant to some people, but not to God.
Because there's someone that God has touched, spoken to already so very young, God must have a very specific purpose in life for them. Then I want you to turn to the book of Jonah for a moment, if you will. And you know the story of Jonah, but some people who are listening may not even have ever heard of who Jonah is or what he is about. So, let me just remind you that Jonah was a renegade preacher, is what he was. And God called him and he refused to answer God's call. Now look at this, if you will, in the first chapter of Jonah.
It's over here in the middle of all these Mount of Prophets. And the Scripture says in verse one, The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. Now let me tell you what Nineveh was all about. Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrians. And Nineveh would be a part of the city of Masul, which is a major city in Iraq today.
And so, because they were wicked, vicious warriors, conquered people, they were very bloodthirsty kind of people. And when Jonah heard that God was sending him, when God said to him, here's what I want you to do, here's what the Scripture says in verse three, But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare, went down into it to go with him to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
Let me ask you a question. Have you ever thought about the fact that you could run from God? If you and I believe what we say we believe and we know that what we believe about this is true, that God is sovereign, sees all things, light and darkness are the same to Him.
Do you think there's any bushel you can hide under? If there's any room in darkness that you could flee from Him, how absolutely foolish to believe that you can run from the presence of God. But that's exactly what many people do. They think that by refusing to go to church, they're running from God, that God's out. Don't go to church. That's where God is. If you don't go to church, then you're away from God. The truth is there's no escape from God, listen, before whom all presence of all things are in His presence. But Jonah decided he'd leave.
So what happens? Scripture says he gets on the boat, big storm, listen to this. Scripture says that the Lord hurled a great wind on the sea and there was a great storm on the sea so that the ship was about to break up. I know some people who've tried to run from God and ran right into a storm.
And more than likely, some of you are sitting here. You've tried to run from Him before you got saved and everywhere you turned, wind was blowing, the waves were high and you were about to sink and finally you caught on that you can't get away from God. And so what happens is they wake Him up and they decide that it's somebody's fault and so they have this little gambling game.
And in those days, they would have like nine dark black stones and one white one or vice versa. And the one that pulled out the odd one was guilty. So he says, I'm guilty, running from God. He says, in fact, just throw me overboard. Here's a man who is willing to commit suicide rather than to be obedient to God. And so what happens is they toss him overboard.
What happens? This big fish swallowed him. And so if you think you can get away from God, listen to His experience because some of you have been, and you may be right now in the same place, not in the belly of a whale, but listen to what's happening to Him.
Chapter two, verse one, then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the stomach of the fish. And he said, I called out of my distress to the Lord. He answered me. I cried for help from the depth of Sheol. You heard my voice. You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas.
Listen to his explanation of what he experienced. The current engulfed me. All your breakers and billows passed over me. I said, I've been expelled from your sight.
Nevertheless, I will look again toward your holy temple. Water encompassed me to the point of death. The great deep engulfed me. Weeds were wrapped around my head. I descended the roots of the mountains.
Pretty bad news. Listen, the earth with its bars was around me forever, but you brought me up, brought my life from the pit, O Lord my God. While I was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayers came to you into your holy temple. And so what happens? He gets repentant. Well, then the Bible says in verse ten, then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up out on the dry land.
Then what did he do? Well, it was a three-day walk to Nineveh. Now, I imagine he got there ahead of schedule because of what he'd been doing. And the Scripture said it was a day's walk across Nineveh. So he begins to cry out to repent of their sin or the judgment of God is going to come upon them. And the Scripture says as he walked, Jonah began to go through the city one day's walk, and he cried and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh will be overthrown. Now, they were the most vicious people around in that day, the Assyrians. And so then the people of Nineveh believed in God.
They called a fast, put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. Then it tells about how they had to turn away from their other gods in verse eight, but both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth. Let men call on God earnestly, that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. Who knows, God may turn or let him withdraw his burning anger so that we'll not perish. And of course, that's what happened. Now, you would think that Jonah would have been praising God.
Hallelujah. You know what he did? He got into the depression because he, everybody else is getting right with God but him. And so what you find out at the end of the book of Jonah, what is he doing? He's sitting up there under this plant, and the plant wilts.
And here's what he said. Then God said to Jonah, Do you have a good reason to be angry about the plant? And he said, I have good reason to be angry even to death. And the Lord said, You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work, which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished.
Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know the difference between their right and their left hand as well as many? And what happens is, look, verse eight, when the sun came up, God appointed a scorcher in the east wind. The sun beat down on Jonah's head so that he became faint. Beg with all of his soul to die, saying, Death is better to me than life. Instead of rejoicing over what God had done, he's sitting up there having a pity party because the truth is, he preached repentance, but the last thing he wanted was Nineveh to repent so they wouldn't be lost.
Now, the issue here is this. God knew exactly what it would take to get Jonah to do what He wanted him to do. You see, probably Jonah would never have even thought about the fact that once he got on that ship and was leaving anywhere what he would think would be an indication of the presence of God, and especially after they threw him overboard, he thought that was it, but it was not it.
God accomplished His purpose through Jonah in spite of his attitude. What I want you to see, it's what he uses. He uses one thing one time, one another. He knows exactly how to get our attention. And there are many people today living in a storm because they're running from God, thinking that somehow if you drink enough, if you have enough drugs, if you have enough money or have enough relationships that somehow you're going to be able to silence your stinging, guilty conscience.
You cannot. Listen, if you're willing to listen to the voice of God, if you're willing to respond to God's call in your life, He will use something, something different more than likely to get your attention. Watch this, God's purpose is always for the good, not only of yourself, but of someone else.
He will use whatever's necessary. Thank you for listening to The Things God Uses. For more inspirational messages like this one, visit our online 24-7 station. And 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, in Atlanta, Georgia.
