Transcription
Welcome. So glad to see each and every one of you here. All right, well, we're going to continue, um, with worship by the giving of offering. You know, we've been doing this consistently, even without passing offering baskets or or anything in that nature. You can give online. There are receptacles outside in the lobby as you leave here today. God is faithful. He has sustained this. Your generosity, your faithfulness to fulfill the commandments that God gives you, you have done an amazing job, and I want to thank you for that.
But today, I want to specifically invite you to join me in prayer for our leaders. First Timothy chapter 2 says this: "I urge then, first of all, that petitions, prayer, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people—for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness." I know many of you know this verse, but I believe it is true. If we will pray for our leaders, our those that are in authority, that God will hear our prayers, and we'll get to live quiet and peaceful lives. Quiet and peaceful are not the adjectives that I would use to describe our current culture. So I think that means it's our responsibility that we turn up our prayer lives a little bit. Regardless of persons or individuals, we are going to pray for our leaders and those in authority. Can I get an amen? Amen.
If you would stand with me, please. Let's go before the Lord. Let's bow. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you and Lord, we confess and we repent. Our nation has strayed from your truth. Please have mercy on us, Father. Lord, reveal what you require of each and every one of us in these days. But now, Lord, we lift our leaders and those in authority up to you. We're reminded of Esther chapter 4 and verse 14, where Mordecai says to her, "And who knows but you have come into your royal position for such a time as this?" Who knows, Father, but you, that our leaders and those in authority have come into their positions for such a time as this? Lord, we ask that you be their refuge and their fortress. Be their protector. Be their shield and strength. Deliver them out of the hands of those who would do them harm. May your grace and mercy sustain them. May the Holy Spirit be their helper, and may the Holy Spirit stir their hearts. May their choices and their decisions, those of our leaders and those in our of our authority figures, may they once again reflect your heart and your word in our land. And it's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. Amen.
Give the Lord a hand. Don't sit down just yet. You are doing good. You know the routine. You know the routine. You learn when I'm up here that someone else is coming after me. Please make a big WOC round of applause and welcome for Pastor Robert Morgan. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, please be seated. Thank you. I always think that Caleb has all the enthusiasm of his biblical namesake, and I love to hear him pray, and I'm so glad to be with you. I know that you miss Pastor Jackson when he isn't here. He's in Israel, and I hope that you'll have an opportunity one day to go to Israel with him. I just got back from Israel, and we had a wonderful 10 days, and the highlight for me is we went to Shiloh. Now, Shiloh, this isn't a part of my message tonight, but I want to tell you about it. We went to Shiloh, which is in Samaria. And when Joshua brought the Israelites into the promised land, he made that his headquarters because it's very central, and Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal are there, and it's, um, where they placed the tabernacle. Now, I did not realize until this trip that over time, the tabernacle was converted into a stone structure. You know, when you read about it in the book of Exodus, it's a tent, and a tent is portable, and so they took it with them on their journeys. But when it was there for several hundred years at Shiloh, it became a permanent structure of stone with the curtains over it. And the leading archaeologist, the leading evangelical archaeologist in the world, I think, and especially in Israel, is Scott Stripling, and he is excavating in Shiloh, and he happened to be there when I was there, and he showed me around and said, "I have found, I believe, the foundation for the tabernacle." This is where Samuel, you remember when Samuel came and he was presented to the Lord at the tabernacle? He said, "I have found the foundation for the tabernacle." And he showed me. He said, "Here's where the Holy of Holies would have been." And he told me some of the reasons for it, and I did an interview with him, and it was one of the most fascinating days that I've ever had in my life was studying with Scott Stripling there in Shiloh, where the tabernacle might have been.
Now, I'm saying all of that to say that the interview, it was a 14-minute interview that I did with him. I am putting on social media this week, along with some other teachings about the tabernacle, and I've tried down a picture of what it might have looked like as a stone structure. And this is a very important subject. One day, I want to preach about the 10 different temples there are in the Bible, from the Garden of Eden all the way to New Jerusalem, and how God dwells among his people, and a tabernacle or in the temple. Jesus was a tabernacle. It says in John chapter 1 that the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. And it's a very fascinating study. And so, if you're on Facebook or Instagram, follow along with Robert J. Morgan Ministries, and I'll teach you something this week about the tabernacle and about these incredible discoveries that are happening right now in Israel. Someone said that the critics keep burying the Bible, and the archaeologists keep digging it back up. And that has, that is really true. Some of the archaeological discoveries in the past 100, even the last 50, even the last 25 or 10 or 5 years have stunned us with the way that they have confirmed the historicity of the Bible. Well, anyway, that's, that was just, that's been on my mind. So let me get now to the message for the evening, and I'd like to ask you to turn with me to the book of Acts in chapter 16. The book of the Acts of the Apostles, it is book number five in the New Testament, and chapter number 16.
I grew up in Elizabethton, Tennessee. I've told you that before, on the Tennessee-North Carolina border. My dad came from Roan Mountain, not Roan County, but further east on the Tennessee-North Carolina border. And Roan Mountain is a beautiful, beautiful place. The Appalachian Trail goes right through there. And there are various, uh, theories about why Roan, R-O-A-N, Roan Mountain is called Roan Mountain. We call it the Roan. And one of the theories is because it's the site of the largest natural rhododendron gardens in the world, and they're in bloom right now. I wish that I were there. Many years, I try to be there, but it's an incredible. People come from all over the world to see them. But my dad told me another story. He said that Daniel Boone, in the late 1700s, early 1800s, had a roan-colored horse, and he was exploring along the ridge of Roan Mountain, which is 6,200 feet above sea level. And the horse became lame, and so Daniel Boone left it there and then got lost trying to find his way. But he found himself again, and a year later, he came back, and the horse that he had left there, because there are these incredible balls, they, the horse was sleek and healthy, and, and the horse's name was Roan because he was named for his color, and Daniel Boone named the mountain Roan. Well, I don't know that there's any way of proving that. But here is the quote that my father gave me. He said that when they asked Daniel Boone, "Have you ever been lost?" He said, "I have never been lost, but I was bewildered once for three days."
Well, do you know that from the moment that I receive Christ as my Savior, I have never been lost, but I have been bewildered from time to time? Sometimes for three days, sometimes for three weeks, three months. I have a friend who's been bewildered for three decades. What do you do when you feel bewildered in life? Now, I believe that God guides us. It's a very important teaching in the Bible that the Lord has an individual plan for each one of our lives. He's got a plan for you. And Psalm 139:16 says, "You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your book." And the Bible says, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He leadeth me." And then it comes around another time and it says, "He leadeth me in paths of righteousness." And the Bible says, "This is our God forever; he will guide us even unto death." And I believe that the Lord has a plan for our lives, that he guides us. I was just in Wales, and there's a great Welsh hymn, "Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah, Pilgrim Through This Barren Land." But if God guides us, why is it sometimes we feel so bewildered? And why is it that sometimes the doors close, and we're trying to go in the right way, and, and we just get bewildered by life? Why is that?
Well, I don't know all of the reasons. I do believe that if the Lord Jesus Christ and his creative genius can make all of the stars of the universe, more of them than there are grains of sand on all of the oceans in the world, then he knows how to deal with complexity, and he knows how to synchronize the affairs of our lives and lead us in various ways. And if that little hummingbird that you saw today near your hummingbird feeder somehow knows how to make it 600 miles across the Gulf of Mexico and turn around at the right time and come back to the very spot, if the Lord can guide that little bird, he can guide you. I believe this. But why is it we are sometimes bewildered? Well, the best paragraph on this subject, I think, in the Bible is this one. So look with me at Acts 16, beginning with verse 6.
"Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, 'Come over to Macedonia and help us.' After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them."
Now, that may seem like a very pedestrian paragraph, but the great Bible scholar, Sir William Ramsay, who studied the life of Paul and his travels more thoroughly than anybody ever had up to that point, in his book about the journeys of Paul the Apostle, said this is the most intriguing paragraph in the book of Acts. So let me very quickly give you the background. In chapter 13 of Acts, there was a church in Antioch. This was a very large city, one of the largest cities in the world, maybe the second or at least the third largest city. It was a Roman city, and it was right above Jerusalem. And when the Christians were run after Jerusalem, many of them went up to Antioch to this great Roman city, and so the church there flourished, and Barnabas was the pastor, and he needed an associate. And so he went looking for Saul of Tarsus and hired him or recruited him to come and help him with the church in Antioch. And so the two of them, along with some others, ministered there for a while. And then the Holy Spirit said to that church, "Send out Barnabas and Paul as missionaries." And so in chapter 13, at the end of the chapter, we have the first church-sponsored, church-supported missionary endeavor in history. And they go to Cyprus and then up to Turkey, and they take with them a young man, John Mark, who deserts them along the way. But they have a fruitful ministry. They come back to Antioch. And after a while, Barnabas said, "Let's go back and check on all of those churches." And Paul said, "Well, let's do it." And Barnabas said, "Let's take John Mark back with us. He didn't do too well the first time, but I think he'll do better this time." And it says at the end of chapter 15 that Paul and Barnabas had such a sharp disagreement that they couldn't even work together. It's incredible to me that the very first missionary team in history, after their first tour, couldn't get along, and they went their separate ways. Well, later, they all sort of made up, but it was very difficult. And so Paul selected another young man who's there in Antioch, Silas, and the two of them started out, and they went to an area where they met a teenager named Timothy, who had been converted, and he began going with them. And so the three of them started going east to west across Asia Minor. Now, I should have had a map here for you, but all you have to do is to picture in your mind the nation of Turkey. You know, it's sort of a rectangular nation, and they were going all across Turkey. From Antioch to Troas is over 1,000 miles, and they only wanted to do one thing, and that was to preach and to plant churches. And the Lord said, "No, no, no." It was just a thousand miles of the Lord saying, "No."
Now, I don't know how he said no. It says here, let's look at it again in verse 6: "Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia." What does it mean they were kept by the Holy Spirit? And later it says, "The Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to." I don't know exactly how the Holy Spirit did that. Was it illness? Was it political restrictions? Was it an inner impression that they had? Was it an outward voice? Was it a revelation? We don't know. All we know is the Lord kept saying, "No, no, no," for a thousand miles. That's a long way. You know, if you were to leave here walking, and you walked all the way to the state of Maine, that's the distance they traveled, and the Lord saying, "No," to them all along the way. Now, I know something about that. I've never walked to Maine, but my wife, Katrina, was from Maine. We got married in Maine. I married a Mainer. And so we were there very often, but I never walked there. But that's the distance they went. And so they kept going. They tried to go here, they tried to go there, the Lord said, "No," until they went as far as they could, which was Troas, and it was a port city right on the Aegean. And one night, as Paul was tossing and turning and trying to figure out, "What do I do? I've been bewildered here for three months. I've come out to preach, and I'm prevented from doing it somehow." He looked up in his night tossings and turnings, and he saw someone from Macedonia. Now, Macedonia was northern Greece, across the Aegean Sea. It is what we call today Europe. Paul had been trying to preach in what we call today Asia, and the Lord kept saying, "No to Asia, no to Asia, no to Asia." And then all of a sudden, they saw this man from Europe, and the man said in his dream, "Come over to Europe, come over to Greece, to Macedonia, and preach to us."
Now, notice this in verse number 10: "After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them." Now, the "we" and the "us" now mean that at this point, for the first time, the writer of this book, Luke, joined them. How it happened, we don't know. William Ramsay thought that Luke was the man from Macedonia. We believe that Luke is connected with Antioch, but there was a large medical school in Philippi, and so it could be that Luke had a dream of this man, maybe a student at the medical school, saying, "Come over here to, to Philippi, to Macedonia, to Europe, and help us." And the next day, Paul was walking down the street, and there was the very man in Troas that he had seen in the dream, and he said, "Who are you?" And the man said, "My name is Luke. I'm just on holiday here, but I, I'm going to school over on the other side of the Aegean in Philippi." And Paul said, "I dreamed about you last night." And it says, "So the 'we' determined, we concluded that God had called us to preach the gospel in Europe."
So here's what I'm, I'm trying to tell you the whole story to tell you this: that there was a "no, no, no, no, no, no" that drove them as far as they could westward, because God had somebody else to evangelize Asia. Peter later managed all of that area very well in his letters, he said Peter the Apostle too, and he listed all of these places in Asia where Paul wasn't allowed to go to. Peter was in charge of that. God wanted Paul in Europe, and so he told him "no" over and over and over again to get them to the point where finally there was a "yes." Has the Lord ever done anything like that with you?
Well, there are four lessons here that I want to bring out. The first one is that God's will for our lives is sometimes perplexing, and that's why we walk by faith. We don't always understand why doors close. You want this promotion, you work for it, it doesn't work out. My son-in-law thought he had a job this week, but at the last minute, they said, "We've hired somebody else." Why is it that sometimes we want to get into a school, we want to marry this girl or this guy, and they dump us? Why is it that sometimes the doors close, and it can be very, very painful? Well, all I know is that happened to Paul, and it happened over and over again here, but it was simply so that the Lord could finally get Paul in the position of saying "yes" to the right thing. So we have to walk by faith. You know, I graduated from Wheaton Graduate School in 1976, and I graduated in May, and I didn't even wait for graduation. I didn't, I wasn't required to. So the second I finished my last exam, I was in my car and headed home, because I was going to get married to Katrina at the end of August, and I wanted to get a job. And the job that I wanted to get was pastoring a church. And there were a lot of churches up in the Tennessee mountains that needed a pastor, little churches. In Carter County alone, I don't know how many. There's a church up every holler, as we say. And so I didn't think it would be any trouble getting a church, but nobody invited me. And the time came for me to get married, so I drove, my parents and I drove to Maine, and my sister, and got married, and came back, and I didn't have a job. So I started working at Sears, and at, uh, J.C. Penney's. I can sell you a pair of shoes. Anyone here need a pair of shoes? And Katrina got a job, and we did that for a full year. And 12 different churches turned me down, and it got very discouraging after a while. There was one church in particular here in Nashville. I thought, "Wow, coming to Nashville to pastor," and everything seemed to be going so well, and my wife and I almost packed our bags. We thought, "Finally, it's come." And when the man called me, he said, "You know, our church voted, and you got 73%, but you have to have 75%." And so I was fired before I was even hired.
But you know, looking back on it now, I am as thankful for the 12 "no's" as I am for the one "yes." Because the Lord knew what he was doing. It only stands to reason that we would have a lot more "no's" from the Lord than "yeses," a lot more closed doors than open doors, because for every one thing the Lord wants us to do, there's probably a thousand things he doesn't want us to do. And so that's just why we walk by faith. The great hymn, "Now I think we all," our God has a verse that says, "Now may this bounteous God through all our lives be near us with ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us, and keep us in his grace and guide us when perplexed, and free us from all ills in this world and the next." The Lord knows how to guide you through perplexity. And here's the second lesson: the Lord's will for our lives is progressive, and so that's why we keep knocking on doors. Now, Paul was not passive here. It says, "We tried to go into Bithynia, but the Lord wouldn't let us." We tried here, we tried there. I think that if we're too passive, say, you need a job. A lot of people right now are looking for work, and a lot of people are looking to hire somebody. I've got a couple of people I know, I can't figure out for the life of me why they don't have a job when everybody is hiring. But if you are too passive, if you never ask anybody to date, if you never apply for a job interview, if you never apply for a school, if you never take a chance, if you don't take any risk whatsoever, then probably not a lot is going to happen. But if you're too aggressive, then that can be just as detrimental. I've learned through the years that when I come across a door, I just knock on it. And if someone answers, the answer. And if they don't, they don't. And if they do, I see how far wide the door opens. And sometimes it opens all the way. You know, you have to depend on the Lord to orchestrate the circumstances. You can't force the circumstances, but you can try. We do our best, not passive, not aggressive, just knocking on doors and saying, "Lord, is this your will?" We try one thing, we try another thing, and at the right time, it's going to come to pass, because God knows what he wants you to do with your life. God has a plan for your life. And so it is progressive, and that's why we keep knocking on doors.
Here's the third thing: God's will for our lives is premeditated, and that's why we stay positive. From before the world began, the Lord knows what he wants you to do. From before he ever laid the foundations of the earth, he had a plan for you. From before the eons began or the ages began or the mountains were brought forth, even from everlasting to everlasting, God loves you, and he knows what he wants you to do, and he's got a plan for you, and he leads you step by step. But sometimes there are closed doors along the way, probably more closed doors than open ones. But he is doing something, and so that's why we stay positive. And the most surprising thing about this paragraph, and maybe you didn't notice when I read it, so I'm going to read it again, and I want you to see this. Once you see it, you can't unsee it: the presence and involvement of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, the Trinity. So look at verse 6: "Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in Asia. Then they came to the border of Mysia, and they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision of a man from Macedonia standing and begging them, 'Come over to Macedonia and help us.' After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God..." And when you see the word "God" by itself in the New Testament, the Greek word is *theos*, then it almost inevitably refers to God the Father.
Now, I don't know how to explain this, and I don't know how to fully understand it or help you to appreciate it, but just try to contemplate that this world is so complicated, and our lives have so many spinning parts, and there are so many circumstances, and things in our control, and things out of our control, and things behind us, and things in front of us, and contingencies, so many things, that somehow it takes God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit working together in orchestration to plan out and to implement his purposes for your lives. But they are willing and happy and able to do it. It's amazing when you think of that. So you've got God the Father planning the way, God the Son giving his direction, his input, his provision, and you've got God the Holy Spirit on the ground giving you step-by-step guidance. The whole Trinity here. And so we stay positive. When I was trying to figure out what the Lord wanted to do with me, I found the song in the hymn book by Joseph Gilmore. He wrote it during the Civil War one night after he preached from Psalm 23. I wonder if you know it: "He leadeth me, O blessed thought! O words with heavenly comfort fraught! Whate'er I do, wherever I go, Still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me." And that's my testimony. I haven't always followed him perfectly, but he has always led me precisely. And the closer we are to him, the more likely we are to find the guidance for every footfall along the path of life. Now, it requires knowing him as Savior. And I hope that all of you do. But if there is someone here and you have never given your life to Jesus Christ, then it's impossible to be in the perfect will of God, because the perfect will of God is in Christ. So you receive him. You say, "Dear Lord, I can't make sense of life. I am bewildered all the time, and I need someone to navigate. I need someone to lead me, someone to guide me."
And here's the final thing: God's will for our lives is purposeful, and that's why we cannot stop. It didn't matter how many "no's" Paul got, he was not going to get discouraged. He was not going to stop, and neither should you. Disappointment comes, but disappointment really is only God's way of keeping us back from something that he didn't want us to do to begin with, because he's got something better ahead for us. And when I look back over my life, I'm 70 now. I know I don't look a day over 69. But when I look back over my life, the doors that I wanted so badly to open never did open, and the doors that I never imagined would open did. And the Lord knew about all of this so much more than I did, and he led me well. I didn't always follow well, but he led me well, and he will lead you well too. You stay close to Jesus, and don't get discouraged if the Spirit of the Lord says "no," or if the Spirit of Jesus says "not here." You just keep going. If you keep going and you persevere and you never stop, you will make it to Troas, and the Lord will give you a Macedonian call, and you'll know his will for your life, and it will be wonderful. So you follow him, and you follow Jesus, and you and I can say, "He leadeth me, he leadeth me, by his own hand he leadeth me. His faithful follower I would be, for by his hand he leadeth me." Amen.
Will you stand, please, for our benediction? And now may the God of peace, who from the dead brought back that great Shepherd of the sheep, even Jesus Christ our Lord, may he equip you with everything good for doing his will, and work in you what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
[Applause]