Read the devotion about Esther.
Oh, good. I don’t know; it’s interesting. Whenever I start reading some story—especially, well, Old Testament or New Testament—a lot of times, kind of a movie starts running through my mind. You know, I start picturing what the characters look like.
And when I read about Esther, I picture this kind of young gal, a real pretty gal with beautiful silvery-gray hair, kind of like June and Ellen and Stella, because to me, that’s the prettiest hair: the gals that have that kind of silvery-gray hair.
I had to say that in case my wife listens to this tape. But you do have an image of people when you read in the Scripture. In fact, my own image of myself has been forever changed from being at this conference, because the other night after I spoke, Dana came up to me. I thought he was going to say something profound, you know, and he said, “You know, Sonny, when you were standing up there speaking, I realized that even years ago, before it was popular, you were the first person I ever knew that had hair that stood straight up.”
So we all have some image that we create in our minds of people.
If you would turn with me to our theme verse—even though you know it by heart—we’re going to read some other Scriptures around that verse. Would you turn with me to Matthew 16?
We’re going to start reading with Matthew 16:22 to the end of the chapter, okay?
And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.”
But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.
For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it.
For what will a man be profited if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?
For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then recompense every man according to his deeds.”
Just have one further word of prayer, then we’ll look at some Scriptures together.
Lord, this morning we just again want to ask that You help us. Lord, just as we’ve already been praying, Lord, that You would alert our minds, help us everyone to concentrate and to focus.
Lord, we need Your presence. We sense Your presence here in the room. Lord, I ask You to help me to speak clearly this morning, to release all that You’ve given to me.
Lord, we need You desperately to help the speaking and the hearing. Lord, we don’t want a single one of us to leave this room today being the same as when we came in. So we look to You, Lord, to work among us and to help us in every way. In Your precious name we pray. Amen.
If you would turn over now to John 11—and we’re going to just go through a number of Scriptures this morning and try to paint a picture, a bigger picture, of this matter of following Him by looking at several Scriptures together. So just go over to John—excuse me—John 10.
In John 10:27, one that everyone knows about, just a simple verse:
“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”
This is an interesting verse, as all verses are when you begin to think about them. You know, if most of us were writing this verse, or if we were quoting it but not paying attention, most of us would probably say, “My sheep hear My voice, and they know Me, and they follow Me.”
But the Lord says, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” It makes me wonder about something: this issue of the Lord knowing us.
So it raises a question. I’m going to ask a number of questions this morning in order to provoke our thoughts and our consideration. Here’s a good question to ask: How much does the Lord know you?
Now, we all say, rightly so, that we know Him. We all know Him to some degree. But here’s another question: How much does He know you?
Remember Esther, when that one who was a picture of the Holy Spirit came to her? She invited him right in and said, “I have plenty of room, plenty of room for you. Come on in.”
Well, how much room do we have in our hearts and in our lives for the Lord Jesus? Do we really allow Him to come in and know us in every place?
Remember, we also said about intimate relationships: an intimate relationship is one of knowing, of knowing each other. Both parties know each other and let each other in. How much are we letting the Lord in? That’s a question that we want to be asking ourselves.
Does He know you, and how much does He know you? The other part of this question is, “My sheep hear My voice.”
I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, because it’s our birthright to hear the Lord’s voice. And I wonder a lot—not just with young people. This isn’t just an issue for young people; it’s an issue for Christians in general, of all ages.
The question is: Do you hear His voice? Do you know the Lord’s voice in the inner man? Do you know what it is to hear His voice? It’s your birthright. It’s your spiritual birthright to know what it is to hear His voice.
Let me give you an example. Even when I say the words, “hearing His voice,” what comes into your mind? What do you think about? What happens to you when I say, “hearing His voice”?
Let me just tell you what I think. Probably some of us, what our register is when we hear that term, “hearing His voice,” is this: “Yeah, I read the Scripture this morning, so I saw something in the Scripture, so that was hearing His voice.”
That’s not untrue. That’s not incorrect. Only, there’s more. There’s more than just seeing something in the Scripture. There’s more than just intellectual assent or understanding of something. There’s actually a speaking available from spirit to spirit.
It’s my view that many of us are probably limited in that area, probably don’t really know what it is to have the Holy Spirit speak into our spirit. It’s not something strange. It’s not something peculiar. It’s not something only a few people should have in their life. It’s the birthright of every born-again person.
Jim talked yesterday about this matter of the Lord speaking. He used an example of dress and certain other things where the Lord would begin to speak into his inner man, and you can’t get away from it.
Oh, listen, in my own adult life, I’ve had so many times where the still, small voice of the Lord spoke into my inner man. You notice where I’m pointing. I’m not pointing to my head. The Holy Spirit spoke into my inner man about something.
Usually it was not something evil, but something convicting. He began to speak to me about something in my life that I was not aware of, and would not have been aware of had He not spoken to me about it. He didn’t shout at me, and He didn’t cause a tree to fall on me. He just wouldn’t let it go.
That’s conviction. By the way, there’s a big difference between conviction and condemnation.
A lot of the Lord’s people—young and old, not just young—in fact, sometimes I think older people have a bigger problem with this than young people. Maybe young people are more tender and soft, and as we get older maybe we get harder. But a lot of people don’t know the difference between conviction and condemnation.
Condemnation should always be rejected. There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. The Lord does not condemn us. The enemy condemns us, and he’s a liar. There’s no condemnation from the Lord, but there is conviction.
All condemnation should be rejected. All conviction should be embraced. The problem is, if you don’t know the difference, you’ll reject the conviction. You’ll treat the conviction as being the same as condemnation.
And guess what happens to people who always reject conviction? They never grow up spiritually. People who continually reject spiritual conviction—you’re just as saved as anybody else, as far as my understanding goes. The only thing that happens is that you never become spiritually mature. You never become fruitful. You never become fully satisfying to the Lord, and you never fully follow Him.
So we do need to be able to embrace conviction. A lot of times, the closed door to hearing the Lord’s voice is that we won’t receive His voice—that still, small voice that gently and lovingly comes and says, “Give Me this.”
“Give Me this thing in your life. Let Me come into this room, the secret room in your heart, and have fellowship with you. Let Me in. Let Me have this thing that’s so precious to you.”
Oh, by the way, a lot of times the precious thing that the Lord asks for is not something bad. It’s not something evil or sinful. In fact, sometimes it’s something good, something that seems totally legitimate. Yet He comes and asks for it.
Sometimes in my own life, it’s been something that He gave me, and then He asked for it back. Jim and I had fellowship about that yesterday. Sometimes we know that the Lord has given us something, and then He comes and, in a still, small voice, He begins to ask for it back.
My human reasoning goes, “Well, wait a minute. I don’t have to give this. The Lord gave this to me. This is mine.” But His voice is actually asking for it back.
Oh, what a wonderful, expanding fellowship it is when we can hear the Lord’s voice. I don’t want anybody to feel badly if anyone is sitting out here saying, “I don’t know the Lord’s voice, and I don’t know what it is to know the Lord’s voice.”
Well, praise the Lord for your humility and for your willingness to say to yourself and to the Lord, “Lord, I don’t hear Your voice, and I need to, and I want to.” What a good thing it is.
You know, the Lord is always near to the brokenhearted and to those that are humble. We need to hear His voice.
I’ll just mention one last thing about that. Man alive, I’m already taking too much time. One of the things that happens sometimes with young people—not so much teenagers, but when you get a little bit older—is this.
By the way, how many people in this room are over eighteen years old and have graduated from high school? Pretty good. How many people in this room are still in high school? Okay, thank you.
Well, what happens a lot of times when you get to a certain age—I mean, boy, this has happened to my friends and brothers and sisters that fellowship with me, not only from Memphis but from around the world, people I care about—an amazing thing has happened in the last several years. It’s happened over and over and over.
Someone is certain. And anybody listening to the tape, I’m not talking to you, because this has happened to at least a dozen people, okay?
What happens is that somebody is certain that the Lord has singled out somebody else to either be their husband or their wife. “I’m certain that the Lord has spoken to me that so-and-so is the bride, is the one that the Lord has chosen for me to marry.”
And, by the way, it’s always a beautiful girl. No one has ever come to me and said, “You know, there’s a really homely girl that I know, but I think she’s the Lord’s choice for me.” I mean, usually, you know, we’re very affected by the way light reflects off skin and bones—about the least significant thing in the world. But it affects us, and we’re not as spiritual as we think we are.
Of course, so many of the sisters fall in love, or think they’re in love, with Prince Charming. I always tell people, “Listen, I happen to know, as soon as Prince Charming takes that mask off, he’s the devil. It’s not Prince Charming, and he’s not what you think he is.”
But what happens is that our emotions and our eyesight—we know what we like, we know what we want, we think we know what we want or what we need—and a lot of times we translate that into, “I’m sure the Lord has said this.”
But guess what? In the dozen or so examples I’m thinking about, the other person did not reciprocate. In fact, sometimes it’s like a puzzle. This person is sure that this person is the person, but that person is sure that this person is the person.
Almost everybody, it seems lately, the first time around, they don’t get it right. They’re dead sure they’ve got the right person, only they don’t have the right person.
Now, why does our loving Father, a dear Lord who loves us and cares about us and knows how to give good gifts to us, allow that to happen?
Usually, in the heat of the disappointment and brokenheartedness, I comfort my dear loved ones. But later on, at the right time—not in the moment of despair, but later on at the right time—I always sooner or later go back to the person and say, “You told me that the Lord told you that this was the right person.”
“Let’s have some fellowship about the Lord’s voice. What did you learn from this thing?”
The right thing, brothers and sisters, is to say, “I don’t know the Lord’s voice. I did not hear correctly.” And you know what? If that’s your heart, the Lord will meet you. He’ll work in your life. He’ll increase your understanding. He’ll increase your sensitivity to hear His voice.
The wrong thing to do is to sweep it under the rug. The really wrong thing to do is to say, “Well, I guess the other person just doesn’t love the Lord because they didn’t obey.”
It doesn’t have anything to do with the other person. It’s got everything to do with you. These issues are a matter of heart humility, hearing the Lord’s voice. We’ve got to hear the Lord’s voice in order to follow Him.
Okay, the next Scripture: if you would just turn over to John 14. Get my chapters right here.
John 14, a very familiar verse again: John 14:26.
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”
The Lord Jesus was telling His disciples—and you’ve all heard this before a number of times—the Lord was explaining that the Holy Spirit was going to come. You know, I don’t think the disciples could possibly have understood what He was talking about. He was going to leave, but the Holy Spirit was going to come.
I sat in on one of the discussion groups the other morning, and people were talking about the difference between following the Lord in Bible days versus following the Lord today.
By the way, have you ever said, or heard people say, “Well, I wish I’d been alive in Bible days. Man, if only I could have been alive when the Lord Jesus was walking on the earth”? You are alive in the Bible days.
And you can have—and this is not just rhetoric—we can have a deeper relationship with the Lord Jesus than the disciples had before the Lord resurrected.
The disciples could only follow the Person around. They could hear what He said audibly. You and I can do the same. We can follow the Person of the Lord Jesus through the Holy Spirit. We’re supposed to.
We can have the deepest, most intimate relationship with Him and understand things that they could not understand. The Lord can reveal to you and to me the deepest things. That’s His desire, and His need, that we can have the most intimate communion with Him, spirit to spirit.
Again, I want to just ask that question and ask everybody to consider: Do you know what it is to have fellowship with the Lord Jesus in your spirit? Do you know what it is to have fellowship with the Holy Spirit?
A lot of times when I go around the world here and there, people always talk about service. Sincere people, the best people, want to be in service, want to help others, want to serve the Lord. It’s a good thing and a wonderful thing.
But here’s the thing. I want to go back to this marriage thing we’ve been talking about, that Jim talked about yesterday. Marriage is not primarily an outward service relationship. Marriage is primarily an inward, heart-love relationship.
That’s what the Lord wants most of all, first of all, and primarily from us: heart relationship. All true service, all fruitful service, comes out of heart relationship with the Lord Jesus. If we’re just doing things, well, then we’re just doing things. It’s not real ministry to the Lord.
I remember one time, two young guys—I don’t even remember who they were—came up to Michael Woods and me, years ago at the Richmond Conference, and they said, “Listen, we’d like to get with you guys. We’re thinking about it, and when we get out of college, we’d like to do what you do.”
We said, “What are you talking about?” They said, “Well, you know, we want to travel around, speak to the Lord’s people, and not work.”
They said, “How do you do that?” Michael, being more spiritual than I was, was aggravated and refused to talk to them.
I just said, “Well, I think all you need to do is get into a local assembly where the Lord is Head of that assembly, and just be a doormat. You know, just put up the chairs and do nothing, and don’t get any recognition. Just learn how to serve the brothers and sisters from your heart, and just love the Lord secretly. Learn how to have a secret relationship with the Lord for about twenty years.”
“And then maybe the Lord will give you something to do—but probably not.”
What’s really important is that we love the Lord, that we have this heart relationship with Him. That’s the real deal.
Well, the Spirit is able to speak and teach. He comes alongside. The Comforter comforts, strengthens, leads, and prepares. When we have fellowship and secret relationship with Him, that’s what He’s doing. He’s preparing us. He’s tutoring us. He’s strengthening us. He’s working in our lives.
He’s making us into the people that we really want to be, but don’t know how to become in ourselves. Fellowship with Him makes us into the people that we really want to be.
You know, we all really—even though we don’t understand it and can’t articulate it—we all want to bear fruit for the Lord. We all want to have a fruitful life of purpose for the Lord. We want to bear spiritual fruit for the Lord.
I think all the stories in the Old Testament of all the heroines who couldn’t find a husband, and when they did, they couldn’t have a baby, are all a picture of bearing fruit.
The first thing that the Lord has to teach us—we see these stories over and over and over—practically every heroine in the Old Testament has the same testimony: we can’t bear fruit.
Sometimes the Lord has to bring us into the place of desperation, realizing how desperately we need Him in every area of our life. In ourselves, we just can’t do anything. We think we can; in ourselves, we cannot bear fruit for Him.
But when we come into the place of humility, of weakness, of recognizing our need for Him, of communion with Him, He gives it to us to bear fruit. He teaches; He prepares, just like He prepared Rebekah.
The other thing the Lord does in this preparation process is He increases us by life and understanding, not just knowledge. Spiritual knowledge is not the same thing as just knowledge.
Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. I think that a lot of times some of us might be under the false idea that if we were able to memorize the Bible, that we could be really useful for the Lord then.
Well, I think memorizing the Bible would be a very good thing. But a greater issue is the same thing that the Sadducees recognized when they saw Peter and John.
You remember in Acts, they marveled. They marveled at these men because they knew that they were untrained and uneducated men, and yet they marveled at their power. They recognized them as having been with Jesus.
How do you become effective? How do you become qualified? Should you go to seminary?
Personally, I think there’s only one way—I may be an extremist—but I’ll just tell you personally: I believe that there’s one way that you become qualified to be of service to the Lord, and that’s by having been with Jesus.
Spending time with Jesus, having communion, growing in a living, ever-deepening relationship with Jesus. I guess you could have that in seminary.
But I think that probably most people who enter into some kind of study are probably going to primarily be involved in the study and not necessarily primarily involved in relationship. I hope that’s not misunderstood.
Let me qualify something so it won’t be misunderstood, so I won’t get any nasty letters from parents or seminary professors or anything.
The Lord has given us three things to help us in the way, to lead us in the way, to help us hear His voice, and to lead us in every decision.
You could spout out all kinds of facts, and it would be without any understanding, because unless you have a relationship with the Person who wrote the Bible, you’ll never understand it. It’s only through your relationship with the Holy Spirit that you have a relationship with the Author.
You know, the local assembly where the Lord placed you—if you’re in an assembly that’s under the headship of the Lord Jesus—it’s different than other things. It’s something real. It’s something that has been appointed for you in your life.
In the place where we live, where the Lord has placed us in the assembly with the brothers and sisters, that’s where we learn how to function. That’s where we learn how to serve.
I’ll tell you what the primary thing has been in my own life: that’s where I’ve learned how to love. That’s where I’ve learned how to forgive. That’s where I’ve learned how to hold up and press on without being appreciated, without being respected.
That’s where you learn. That’s where the Scripture becomes a greater reality. That’s where understanding the Lord’s ways becomes a greater reality. That’s where things cease to be theory.
I know a lot of you understand this already, even though you’re young. This is where, in the Lord’s house and in that practical, locatable assembly life—church life—things pass from being theory into being life experiences.
You can always tell when you meet a person. In fact, I can tell two things. I can tell when I meet somebody who only has a lot of knowledge but no life experience. You can also tell when you meet a person who, I call, “has the goods.”
They may not have formal education, but they have relationship, communion with the Lord, wisdom, understanding of God’s ways.
There’s really no excuse for us, because the Lord has given us the Scripture, has given us the Holy Spirit, and He’s given us one another.
Our sister prayed, sort of at the end of the worship time this morning, something about the Lord. I don’t remember the exact words, but she knew she wasn’t exactly where she needed to be, but she knew the Lord was working in her life.
She was in reference to that song. She knew that perhaps she hadn’t given all of her ambitions, hopes, and plans to the Lord. See, I appreciate that. That’s why I wanted us to sing that song. That was exactly the right deal.
It’s good for us to think about the things that we sing. My friend in Memphis, after we got through singing a song, would always have them put the song back up on the overhead, and he’d point out the things in the song that were inconsistent or challenging.
“Oh, so I’m only Jesus’? Oh, I’ll follow You. I’ll follow You to the ends of the earth. Oh, really? Really?”
My friend used to say to me all the time, “Sonny, I don’t want to be found a liar. I don’t want to be found out a liar singing these songs.”
Now, we sing these things by faith. We’re not liars. But it’s good to think about what we’re singing. I appreciated that prayer. It’s good to consider these things and to know that maybe I haven’t given everything to the Lord. Probably I haven’t given everything to the Lord. What can I do about it?
Let’s look at Numbers 32. You don’t have to turn there. In talking about this matter of following the Lord fully, sometimes we have to consider what is not following the Lord fully.
“None of the men who came up from Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; for they did not follow Me fully.” — Numbers 32:11
You know, brothers and sisters, the Lord loves us. I think we’re a people who understand that more than most people. We know that the Lord loves us.
I think what happens to us sometimes is that we rightly understand His great love for us, but we sort of mistranslate the whole deal. We think that because He loves us, there are no consequences for our actions. That’s wrong. There are consequences for our actions. It has nothing to do with His love.
There’s another question here. It’s not about, “How much does He love us?” Here’s the question today: How much do you love Him? How much do we love Him?
I want my wife to know that I love her, and Jim wants his wife to know that he loves her. But I’m telling you what, with my emotional state, things would not be working out if my wife didn’t express to me on a regular basis that she loves me.
Man, I want a gal that loves me, and I want to hear it. I like to hear it from my friends too, by the way, once in a while. The Lord’s the same way. I mean, this is the deal.
How can we follow Him fully? Remember what we said the other night, just to review that one verse in Deuteronomy 30:20. We can safeguard ourselves in following the Lord fully if we do these three things:
Brothers and sisters, if you do these three things, and they’re all matters of heart, I think you’ll be found following the Lord. You won’t have to worry about it, and you won’t have to ever be introspective.
“Man, am I following the Lord? Am I following the Lord fully? Am I ninety percent? Where am I?” I don’t think we need to be introspective. In fact, I don’t think we should be introspective.
But I think if we’re loving Him as much as we know to love Him, if we’re listening to His voice and listening for His voice, and if we’re holding fast to Him, in all things we’ll be found following Him. It all has to do with heart obedience.
Do you want to talk a little bit more about this matter of hearing His voice? Turn over to 2 Corinthians 10.
Second Corinthians 10, again, a familiar passage. I’m going to start with verse 3.
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh;
for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of strongholds.
We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ;
and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete. — 2 Corinthians 10:3-6
Now, this is what Paul—the Holy Spirit through Paul—was speaking to the church.
I think it’s very interesting, the thoughts that all come together in these couple little sentences. Paul talks about taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, and about spiritual warfare and overcoming strongholds.
I’m wondering if we’ve ever considered that our thought life can become a stronghold. We’re tearing down strongholds, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, and we’re ready to punish all disobedience as soon as our obedience is complete.
One of the questions we may want to ask ourselves this morning—in fact, we do want to ask ourselves—is, “Lord, what’s lacking in my obedience? Would You speak to me in the inner man personally about anything that might be lacking in my obedience?”
When I think about strongholds, here Paul is talking to Christians about strongholds. When I think of strongholds, I always think of Jericho.
I think of the Lord’s people having gone into Canaan. They’re in the promised land, a land of milk and honey. It’s a picture of being in Christ. They’ve come out of the wilderness, been baptized in the Jordan, come through, and now they’re in the land. What happens? Right off the bat, they come to the stronghold.
Does everybody whose first language is not English understand what “right off the bat” means? I catch myself trying to explain every little thing. Anyway, they came to Jericho, the stronghold.
The way that they overcame the stronghold is very interesting when you think about it. The Lord said they were going to have to overcome the stronghold. So what do they do? How do they tear down a stronghold?
“I want the army of Israel to march around this place once a day for six days. And, by the way, no talking.” That’s not me saying that. Israel had to be quiet. They had to walk around the city once a day for six days, silent.
I always, in my movie, think of these guys marching around the city. I assume it was dusty. At least in my picture, it’s dusty, sandy, giant walls. In my production, this is a scary-looking walled city.
They’re marching around this place, and I don’t know if Joshua told everybody the whole deal or not. I sort of think that everybody didn’t know what was going to happen. I think Joshua knew what was going to happen.
But I think the guys are just marching around, and they’re probably thinking, “What in the world are we doing? This doesn’t make any sense.” By the way, it didn’t make any sense.
You’re going to tear down a stronghold by not saying anything, by being silent and marching around it once a day for six days. Then on the seventh day—this makes no sense—the priests are going to blow the trumpets and we’re all going to shout, “Hallelujah,” or something.
And the walls fell down. The whole place fell down. Then they went in and they killed every man, woman, child—everything.
By the way, in case anyone thinks, “Man, that’s mean. Why did they kill everybody?” Well, they didn’t kill everybody, because Rahab—you remember? Grace of the Lord. She was a seeker. She hid the spies. She was saved; her whole family was saved. She married into Israel and became part of the lineage of the Lord Jesus. It’s the most wonderful thing. That’s another story. That’s next year.
But they went and killed everybody. Why did they kill everybody when they tore down the stronghold? Because if you make peace with a stronghold, it’ll come back as another stronghold.
See, it’s a picture of something. You don’t make peace with a stronghold; you kill it.
So those things in your life and my life that the Lord Jesus speaks to us about and says, “Remove this”—you know, sometimes it doesn’t make sense to us. We don’t understand it.
We do like they did later on, where they decided to save some of the best. We want to save some of it, but we don’t want to get rid of everything. Brothers and sisters, when the Lord speaks to you about something in your life and says, “Get it out of your life,” put it to death—all the way to death.
Capturing thoughts, tearing down strongholds, finding out what’s lacking in our obedience—I want to say something else about taking thoughts captive.
I don’t think this is so much a problem with young people. It’s actually a bigger problem, in my viewpoint, with older people. But maybe if you head it off now, it’ll never become a problem.
It seems to me that a lot of brothers and sisters come to an ending place in their personal ability to hear the Lord’s voice and have communion with Him. They just come to a stopping place. I’m not talking about salvation; I’m talking about intimate relationship and receiving spiritual understanding.
It seems to me that many good brothers and sisters come to a place where they just stop. The reason, it seems to me, is that many brothers and sisters have undisciplined minds, have wandering minds.
Every time a spiritual voice comes, or a spiritual topic comes, or even a spiritual message comes, their minds—undisciplined and not strong—immediately begin to wander.
By the way, I’m not talking about being smart or intellectually capable. Some of the most intellectually capable and academically astute people have wandering minds when it comes to spiritual issues.
Conversely, some people who are not educated and probably only have an average IQ are able to be spiritually perceptive and spiritually disciplined in their mind. It has something to do with taking thoughts captive.
Jim made that reference yesterday about some of you guys having big thumbs because he could tell you play video games and have built up your thumbs.
I haven’t played any video games, but I’m not a prude about the computer or anything like that. I don’t have much knowledge about any of this stuff, so I can’t say anything about it one way or the other. I can barely check my email.
But I tell you, in all seriousness, brothers and sisters: what you eat is what you are. What you feed into your mind—don’t be foolish and think that it doesn’t matter.
“Oh, it’s just a game. It’s just a game.” Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not dissing all games, all recreation, or everything to do with the computer. I’m just saying this: what you eat is what you are.
If you feed your mind a steady diet of something, don’t think that it won’t affect your mind. Actually, I think we ought to be thinking that we should be feeding our minds a steady diet of something, and that’s spiritual food—real spiritual food.
You know, this is the reason, by the way, that reading the Bible in the morning is so important.
I think that reading the Bible in the morning—just having some time with some Scripture, reading a Psalm, praying a Psalm back to the Lord, just having some personal fellowship with a Psalm, or a Proverb, or one verse, and praying it back to the Lord, and having a few words with the Lord in the Scripture first thing in the morning—is important because it takes up a place.
It takes up a place in you, and it begins—it’s like taking a vitamin. You know, it begins to feed you. It affects the whole day.
Sometimes, if you’re going to have to go somewhere first thing in the morning—you’re at a gas station getting gas, or you’re at the airport or something—and you hear music. You go somewhere and there’s some song, some rock-and-roll song or something, playing.
What happens to me—and this still happens to me—is if I hear that song first thing in the morning, or if I flip on the radio and there’s some song and it blares into my consciousness, I find myself throughout the day with that thing locked into my mind.
Sometimes I just have to stop and say, “Lord, can we get this thing out of my mind?” Some stupid song. I don’t even know what the lyrics mean, much less do I want to be singing it all day long.
But it’s a good thing to feed ourselves spiritual food and spiritual life. Brothers and sisters, it’s important. It’s really important. It’ll shape our understanding in the future.
It’s more important than we think it is because it’ll affect our life as we grow older. It’ll affect your understanding. It’ll affect the way you look at things. It’ll make you healthy, and it’ll affect strongholds in our lives. It’s really a big deal.
I talked about this stronghold having to do with hearing the Lord’s voice. We’re all made up of mind, will, and emotions. Some of us have strongholds in our minds.
Some people’s wills become strongholds. I think the will worshipers are in the minority. I don’t know many of them, but boy, the ones I know take up a lot of space. I mean, a will that’s become a stronghold—mercy.
I know some little bitty, skinny Chinese women who have a will as big as a mountain. It can become a stronghold where the Lord can’t move and have His will because our will is so big and so determined.
The thing that I see the most is that emotions become a stronghold. I’m an emotional person myself. That’s my disposition; that’s my nature. I can’t do anything about it.
But I don’t want to be led by my emotions. Expression of emotion, that’s one thing. I don’t want to be led by my emotions, and I stand against my emotions becoming a stronghold that leads me in my life and makes decisions for me.
I heard one time that emotions make a wonderful companion and a terrible leader. That makes a lot of sense to me.
We all have a disposition. We’re all made up of mind, will, and emotions. The battle is a little bit different for each one of us, and the issue in your life is a little bit different than the issue in the person’s life next to you.
But the answer is the same for all of us: our birthright is to hear His voice and have communion with Him. Take thoughts captive and tear down strongholds.
I keep a little note in my Bible here, something I read one time from Madame Guyon. How many people in this room know who that is? Not enough. A few people do.
She lived more than five hundred years ago in France. She was just a young girl who began to have some experiences with the Lord and made it her life’s hobby, so to speak, to have communion with the Lord—to have the deepest possible communion with the Lord.
She affected the lives of a lot of other people because of what the Lord gave her with regard to communion. She wrote something I think is interesting. I’ll just read it to you:
“A will surrendered is not always a will abandoned. Many who have surrendered their wills are still anxious to carry out their own plans and ambitions, and are greatly vexed when their plans are thwarted.”
— Madame Guyon
You know, it’s an interesting thing. One of the things the Lord does to us—one of the things He has to do to us—is sometimes He thwarts our plans. He gets in the way of our plans.
We’ve got so many plans. We’ve planned out our life. I’m a planner. Every night before I start planning what I’m going to eat for breakfast the next morning. I’m really concerned about what I’m going to eat the next day. My wife thinks it’s the funniest thing in the world. I can’t help it. I’m always worried about where my next meal is coming from. I have a blood sugar problem.
Sometimes the Lord just thwarts our plans. We’ve got our whole life planned out. Sometimes our relatives and our loved ones plan our life out.
As I’ve gotten a little bit older, there are some people I’ve known all their lives. I was there when they got born, when they got baptized, when they got married. Some of these people have become like children to me—really, like children.
They love me, and I love them. There are a few that I have this kind of special relationship with that I consider to be a gift to me from the Lord. But what it’s done for me is it’s caused me to see what a hypocrite I am.
As a young single guy, I always had this gospel of, “Man, forsake everything,” you know, “put everything to death. Anyone who loves mother, father, sister, children more than Me is not fit to be My disciple.”
But now I find out. I’ve learned through my own relationship with some people who are almost like children to me that I have a different gospel for them than I do for others. It’s the most interesting thing.
The Lord has used that in my life. Whereas a long time ago I would have told everybody, “Just repent. Why don’t you just shape up?” certain people come to me with their problems, and I always say, “Oh, honey, it’s going to be all right.”
My wife comes to me and says, “You sissy.” No, my wife’s the repent person, and I’m always telling people, “Oh, don’t worry, honey. It’s going to be okay.”
I’ve learned a little bit about myself through these things, and I’ve learned also that what I need is self-denial.
Turn to Colossians 1.
In Colossians 1:18, remember, we said the three things: loving the Lord, hearing His voice, and holding fast to Him.
“He is also the Head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself might come to have first place in everything.” — Colossians 1:18
First place in everything.
So here’s another question, and I’m going to follow this up with a really personal question. Does the Lord have first place in everything?
Here’s a really personal question. I’m not big on hypothetical questions, or questions like the Pharisees asked the Lord: “If this gal was married to this guy, he died, and she married the next one,” blah, blah, blah. “Whose wife would she be?” I’m not so big on that. I don’t want to be a Pharisee.
But I think this is a question that’s okay to ask, and the right question to ask. It may seem a little bit silly, but it’s not silly.
I’d really like you to think about it and consider it personally. Suppose the Holy Spirit spoke to you—especially all of you who are already graduated from high school and over eighteen years old.
Suppose the Holy Spirit spoke to you and said, “I want you to drop out of school. I want you to leave your job. I want you to move to India in two weeks. I’ve got an orphanage there for you to work in. I want you to move there and work there.”
The question is: Would you do it?
Now, I just made up India. It could be any place. It could be Korea. You can put your own place in there; it doesn’t matter.
The point is, if the Holy Spirit spoke to you—and here’s another point—can He speak to you? Is it even possible? Is it even possible for the Lord to speak and say, “Go do this”? What would you do?
You know, I think of that in the light of all these songs we sing: “Lord, I give my everything for You.”
Listen, I’m not trying to stir everybody up in some emotional way, but I think sometimes there are strongholds in our lives that interfere with the Lord even being able to speak to us.
Sometimes we’ve already made a plan—not an evil plan—but our culture has already taught us what we think the issue of life is. Most of us subconsciously, though we wouldn’t say it, really believe that the issue of life is this: get a good education, get a good job, get married.
Have two kids—or, in Michael’s case, two cats, a dog, and some fish. Have a nice house, a car, live a good life. Oh, yeah, and Jesus too. Have all this and be Christians too. Isn’t that great?
The Lord just wants us to raise our kids, see them get married, have a good life, have a good career, and then retire in Florida.
Brother, sister, none of that is evil. That’s all okay stuff. But that is not the meaning of life. It is not the meaning of life.
The meaning of life is not what you think it is. The meaning of life is to have communion with the Lord Jesus. That’s the meaning of life.
He’s jealous for that communion, and He will interact in your life and in my life in order to get our attention, because He wants that communion. He wants it more than you do, much more than we do. He wants it, and He’s willing to touch our lives in order to have it.
Are we willing to meet Him halfway, or even a third of the way? What is self-denial?
Some of these terms—and I know you guys over the years have heard all these things before—I think sometimes we hear terms like “self-denial,” and it just goes by us. We’ve heard it so much, it no longer has any meaning.
But there is this issue of denying your soul life, of putting it in the right place.
By the way, denying your self-life is not a matter of killing your mind and your will and your emotions. The Lord gave you a mind, a will, and emotions. Sometimes people argue and say, “Well, doesn’t the Lord want me to use my mind?” Yes, but that’s the wrong argument.
The Lord gave you your mind, your will, your emotions, your natural gifts. Your natural gifts—the Lord gave you.
Now, I might be an extremist, and you don’t have to believe what I say. You judge for yourself. You ask the Lord. But I don’t believe personally—and I hope this isn’t too controversial—I don’t believe that natural gifts in themselves are of any value to the Lord whatsoever.
I don’t believe the Lord is the slightest bit interested in or needs your natural gift. I can’t tell you how many times, when I was a younger man, I went to some kind of conference or religious convention, and they always had some athlete stand up there and talk about his basketball or football ability for the Lord.
He gave his testimony as a college basketball player or something, and somehow this was supposed to make his testimony more valid because he was a good basketball player.
You know what I always thought? I thought, “Man, the Lord—you idiot—the Lord doesn’t need your—excuse me, I shouldn’t say that—the Lord doesn’t need your basketball ability.”
I heard somebody say one time, “Man, if the Rolling Stones could get saved, boy, the Lord could use them.”
If the Rolling Stones got saved, the very first thing that would happen is the Lord would tell them to throw their guitars away. If they were going to really follow Him, they’d have to completely put that whole thing to death.
Everything that comes under the dominion of the Holy Spirit becomes valuable. Mind, will, emotions, natural abilities—if it comes under the dominion of the Holy Spirit, subservient underneath, the bondslave of the Lord Jesus—then it can be of use.
But our natural intelligence and our natural gifts in themselves, the Lord doesn’t need them. He needs them to come under His absolute dominion, and then they can be valuable.
This objection, even of natural gifts—taking up the cross. Taking up the cross is primarily, in the simplest way, this: coming under the priority of Another.
The Lord Jesus went to the cross. He was coming under the priority of His Father. He did not want to do it. That’s what the whole Garden of Gethsemane is about. This is a terrible thing, more than we even understand.
He was not looking forward to going through this. “Father, if there’s any other way…” But He came under the priority of His Father.
You say, “That’s what taking up the cross is?” It has to do, basically, in our spiritual life—to make it practical for you—with coming under the priority of the Holy Spirit. He’ll speak to you about what that is. He’ll make it clear.
Coming under His priority is the issue for us: coming under the priority of Another, including our ambitions, hopes, and plans.
Do we really submit our ambitions, hopes, and plans to the Lord and come under His priority? Or do we try to negotiate, kind of like Rebekah’s relatives did?
We’re trying to negotiate: “Well, listen, can we have some of these come under Your priority, but not everything? Let’s not get carried away here.”
How about we have everything submitted to Him? Everything coming under His priority, completely changing what our plans are.
One of the ways that the Lord will help us along—He does help us. He’s a Helper, and He’s alongside. He’s a lover, and He’s with us, and He’s for us, and He wants to help us in all this.
He will help us in a big way. He will do something. He’ll meet us and work in our lives in a particular way.
Does anybody in this room know what a DOC is? It’s not short for doctor either. Does anybody really know what I mean by DOC?
Right. I kind of coined the phrase—at least I think I did—some years ago: divinely orchestrated circumstances.
I gave this message at a youth conference in Texas a couple of years ago about divinely orchestrated circumstances, how the Lord will use them in your life. Then I started getting emails and phone calls from people: “Sonny, pray for me. I’m having a DOC.”
It took me a while to figure it out. “A DOC? Oh, divinely orchestrated circumstances.”
The Lord will come into your life with something that you weren’t expecting, and it’s not punishment. It’s to help. It’s really to answer our prayers and to bring us into the place that we want to be.
I’ll give you three examples, and then we’ll close. Three things that I’ve seen the Lord use over and over and over. It’s drilled into my consciousness because I’ve seen it over and over for my whole adult life.
The first thing He’ll do is touch your health. I’ve seen the Lord over and over and over touch people’s health, and it’s not punishment. It’s not because of sin in their life.
It’s for some personal reason that the Lord has between Himself and that person, to bring them into a deeper communion with Him because of His love to them.
The second thing I’ve seen the Lord touch over and over—and He’s touched it in my life—is finances. That’s not a cry for money, by the way. I’m doing fine.
I’ve seen the Lord touch finances over and over. I’ve seen people who are smart, intelligent, industrious, hardworking, capable people have all their business stuff just get crushed over and over and over.
In fact, I know a couple of guys—and I had this reputation myself for a while—if I went to work for any company, if any company hired me, you could just be guaranteed they were near bankruptcy. They were about to implode, and they didn’t even know it.
It’s funny now. But for twenty years, it wasn’t any joke. I wept. I used to wonder, “Lord, am I cursed? What is going on?”
I’ll share that testimony tomorrow, but what was going on was the Lord was working in my life to bring me into a different place and to show me how desperately I needed Him. He was also protecting me, and I didn’t know it. He was protecting me.
Success can be a destroyer. You know, I’m a football fan. I’m a Southeastern Conference football fan, and in the South, you guys don’t understand. Football is not a game.
Somebody said, “Oh, it’s just a game.” I said, “There ain’t no such thing as just a game.” Football is not a game. It’s life and death. I mean, this is everything.
Kyle, who wins between Georgia and Auburn every year? I mean, this is like nationalistic, big stuff.
But you know what? Sometimes, when a player on a team that I really like starts having success and getting accolades, and maybe goes to the pros and starts getting successful, I have mixed feelings.
One side of me, I’m always rooting for my guys. But the other side of me is going, “Oh, if he has too much success, it’s going to destroy his life.”
Sometimes the Lord intercedes for us and keeps us from having too much success. It’s not punishment. It’s because He loves us and has a perfect plan for us that’s different from what ours is.
The third thing that I’ve seen the Lord use over and over and over is relationships.
You know, there comes a time for many when your friends misunderstand you. There comes a time when people don’t understand you, when you perhaps have hurt feelings or deeply hurt feelings, even.
Some of us are sensitive, more so than others. I mean, some people, you couldn’t hurt their feelings if you hit them with a two-by-four.
In fact, if you’re a sensitive person like me and you’re close to people who are not sensitive, you keep trying to hit them with a two-by-four because you feel like it’s the only way you can get their attention.
But those of us who are sensitive—and usually the two marry each other, by the way—have a lot of opportunity to learn how to forgive, and we’d better, or it’ll destroy us and eat us up.
So I’ve seen the Lord use this matter of relationships: misunderstanding, the feeling that no one appreciates you, that no one knows you, brokenheartedness, loneliness. The Lord uses all these things.
It’s not just a verse that He’s near to the brokenhearted. It’s reality. Sometimes, if it weren’t for our broken heart, some of us wouldn’t know the nearness of the Lord.
It’s actually kindness, and that relationship becomes greater than the broken heart, greater than the loss of finances, greater than the loss of success.
Communion with the Lord Jesus is the meaning of life. All this I’ve spoken this morning is directly related to this matter of following Him—following Him, having fellowship with Him, relationship with Him, growing in living communion with Him.
The last thing I want to mention: I asked earlier how many of you knew Madame Guyon.
There are several people that we ought to be familiar with through their writings:
You know, when you read Watchman Nee, he mentions these people. He mentions Madame Guyon. That’s the reason I was interested in her in the first place. Watchman Nee mentions this woman. Andrew Murray is also mentioned.
Lenny came down to Memphis. One of the reasons we need to have fellowship with each other from different localities is because a prophet doesn’t get any honor at home. You know, if I stand up and say something, people are like, “Man, here he goes again.”
Lenny comes down to Memphis, or to our youth conference. I’ve been trying to get people to read Andrew Murray for years. People would say, “Well, I can’t read this. It’s too hard.”
Lenny comes down, mentions Abide in Christ by Andrew Murray, and the next thing you know, we’ve got people buying fifty copies. People are buying in droves. Every meeting, people are standing up and giving testimony about Andrew Murray. Praise the Lord. It’s wonderful.
I’ve got a few other books. I’m going to have Lenny come back, and Lenny can be my Oprah, you know?
But I do want to say, Andrew Murray, Madame Guyon, François Fénelon, Amy Carmichael, Hannah Whitall Smith—some of these people are worth reading. There’s a history and a legacy there that we need to be familiar with.
Well, may the Lord help us in all these things. Again, I’d like to ask you to be considering these questions that we’ve asked today. Be before the Lord today about some of these things, and really look into your own self.
Again, not being introspective, not beating yourself up, but just honestly asking the Lord to search you out. That’s not the same thing as being introspective. You ask the Holy Spirit to search you out, search out your heart. It’s a wonderful revealing thing.
May the Lord give that to us. May we be those who know in our hearts that we’re able to follow the Lord fully.
That’s right.
Lord, I just want to thank You for drawing us together, for everyone that’s here this morning.
Lord, we know that You love us, and Lord, we love You. We want to love You more.
Lord, I want to thank You for helping us this morning. Lord, we just tell You that we don’t want to be those who look in a mirror and then walk away forgetting what we’ve seen.
So, Lord, we ask You this morning: will You capture our minds? Will You help us to take thoughts captive, even now and throughout the rest of this morning?
Lord, would You give it to us to begin to find You in a new way, in a deeper way? May none of the things that we’re hearing at this conference be lost to us, Lord, but may they be seeds that grow stronger and bear fruit in our lives.
Lord, we give ourselves to You. We love You, Lord. We appreciate You. In Your precious name we pray. Amen.