Inspire Ohio 2012

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Advent HOPE Kettering

Chester Clark

He Hath Shown Thee

Tonight, we're going to begin what I've been impressed to share with you this weekend.

You know, as I think of ancient Israel, I think that very often there are parallels between ancient Israel and modern-day Israel, right?

And Israel went through those times in her experience too, where at times she realized her need for an awakening and at times she didn't have that need for an awakening or didn't realize that need for an awakening.

I think those times when we don't realize our need for an awakening is when we needed the worst, right?

And that was certainly the case with Israel.

And Israel of all the Church of God in the Old Testament, she would go through those times of spiritual lapses where she would backslide and sort of drift away from the Lord.

Before the Babylonian captivity, it was an overt apostasy, you might say, in idol worship and in following after the gods of those around, the nations around her.

After the Babylonian captivity, it wasn't so overt.

It was a little more maybe subtle, but it was a drifting away from the Lord nonetheless, right?

A drifting into forms and ceremonies on 1 hand, or in sort of a denial of the Word of God on the other.

So by the time of Christ, you had the Pharisees and you had the Sadducees, right?

You had the 2 extremes, you might say, the 2 ditches.

And this is the way that the devil wants us to be deceived is to go into 1 ditch or the other.

And so, as I think of ancient Israel, I think of the situation she was in in the time of Micah.

In the time of Micah, there was a general neglect of the way of the Lord.

There was a general, maybe not an open denial, but a general sort of forgetting all of the things that God had done for her, all of the blessings, all of the leadings in her past history.

And you remember what happens if we forget what the way in which God has led us in the past, right?

We're told we have nothing to fear for the future except we forget it.

And we find, if you've turned with me in your Bibles to the book of Micah, and I'm going to be referring often to 1 text which I think is a useful text for us this weekend.

I'm going to be using it in our time together, Micah 6.

And when I think of a revival, of an awakening, of a new and deeper walk with the Lord, I was led to study this verse and what it can hold for us.

I want to share with you this week in Micah chapter 6.

You remember there's this dialogue going on between God and the prophet and between God and His people.

And it says in verse 4, I brought you up out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of servants and I sent before you Moses, Aaron and Miriam.

Oh my people, remember now what Bala king of Moab consulted And what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim unto Gilgal, that ye may know the righteousness of the Lord.

Wherefore shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before the high God?

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or with 10 thousands of rivers of oil?

Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

You see here there's this dialogue going on.

God is saying, look, I've got something against you.

You've neglected the very 1 who has given you the life that you're enjoying.

You're going along thinking these are just your own blessings when they're really my blessings.

It sounds a little bit like Laodicea, doesn't it?

And then there's this dialogue, how can we return?

How can we make things right with God once again?

How can we have that closer walk with the Lord?

And the answer is in verse 8, Micah chapter 6 in verse 8, He hath shown thee, O man, what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.

Tonight I want to focus on that first part of the verse, He hath shown thee.

And I would just like to invite you once again to bow your heads for an additional word of prayer as we consider the Word of God.

Father in heaven, today we recognize that we're living in exciting times.

We're living in times that the prophets of old, the patriarchs of old, the disciples, the great champions of faith, they only dreamed and longed to see.

And we have the privilege of living in these last days.

Lord, we recognize that with these last days, With the Church of Laodicea, there comes a need for a continual revival of our spirits, for an awakening.

And, Lord, if there's not a longing for that, it's evidence that there's really a need for that.

We come asking that as we study your Word this evening that you will speak to our hearts.

Lord, take my lips, take my thoughts, hide me behind the cross of Christ and may I not be seen, but may the message that you have for each heart be heard clearly that your Spirit might do the work that only He can do for each 1 of us, including myself tonight.

Micah chapter 6 and verse 8 begins with perhaps 1 of the most important thoughts for us as we begin our weekend together.

He has shown the thought that I want to share with you in this evening's meeting is that the solution to the problem lies not in our own devising, not in our own programs, not in our own plans, not in our own meetings, not in our own agendas.

The solution of the problem lies within divine revelation, within the message that God has given to us through His Word.

And so, you know, as I was thinking about this, I remembered a song that I was taught when I was a teenager.

It went something like this, there is a road inside of you, inside of me there is 1 too.

Oh stumbling pilgrim in the dark, the road to Zion's in your heart.

A teacher just taught it to us when I was a kid.

But at the time I thought it was great, you know, a little song, a nice little chorus, it wasn't a problem.

But as the more I've thought about this song, the more I've come to recognize that it has a particular flaw.

It proposes that The road to Zion, the way of salvation, the way that we should find our way spiritually, our way to God, lies where?

There's a road inside of you, inside of me there is 1 too.

Is it true that the road to Zion is in your heart?

In fact, Proverbs chapter 14 and verse 12, You're familiar with that verse.

It's also found in Proverbs 16, verse 25.

Right into a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death.

Jeremiah chapter 10, a passage not as familiar as the Proverbs text, Jeremiah chapter 10 and verse 23.

Jeremiah chapter 10 and verse 23, The prophet says this, O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself.

It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.

Here you have a direct, pretty much a direct contradiction of the song that I learned as a teenager, right?

Inside of you there's a road to Zion, there's a way of salvation.

Here the prophet is saying, oh Lord, I know it's not true.

I know it's not in myself to direct my steps.

It is the Lord that is able to show us the way.

And he goes on and he says, O Lord, correct me but with judgment, not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing.

Psalms 119, Verse 105, another very familiar text, thy word is a what?

A lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

And so if we want to know the way of salvation, if we want to know the way to Zion, if you please, If we want to know the way of a spiritual revival, we need to turn where?

Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

Proverbs 6 And verse 23 says, for the commandment is a lamp and the law is light and reproofs of instruction are the way of life.

So there's a temptation, I think we have a temptation, humanly speaking, we have a temptation to begin to think that we can figure it out on our own.

And you know, it doesn't matter whether you're in 1 side of the, 1 side of the, 1 camp or the other camp, there's a human tendency, I think, to start trusting our own intuition, our own ideas, our own plans, you know, and trusting the fact that we're not over there with the others, the non-Christians, we're not over there maybe with those who are really conservative, or we're not over there with those who are really liberal.

And We start to just sort of, we start to sort of trust that we have it figured out, that the way of salvation, it maybe is within us.

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He Hath Shown Thee

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