"Our Need and His Ability" Conclusion

Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 875 -- taken from Closed Captioning Text

-- Brother Phil Enlow: If you're backed up against a Red Sea, He can open that, if that's what He wants to do. That's no barrier to Him. If you're thrown into a fire, tied up, is that a barrier to Him? No! If He wants to He can leave you walking around with the Son of God in there with no bonds and not even a smell of fire on you. What do you think God has given us these examples in His Word for? Over and over again the stories that we hear and they're not just stories...these are things that happened to real people, real people just like you and just like me.

And I guarantee that many of those people looked...went into those circumstances just...oh my God, there ain't no way this is gonna happen. Nothing is gonna change these circumstances, but God stepped in. And God said, all right now it's time, let Me show you what I can do. I have allowed this to get to the point where you have no hope in any other direction except just to say...just to look up and say, Lord help. And now it's time for Me to step on the scene and you will know that you won this battle, you got extricated from this circumstance because I moved.

( congregational amens ).

Because I...you put your trust in Me and I worked. Praise God! I'm thinking of some of the people that Jesus encountered. I mean what a testament to the love of God, to the mercy of God, to reach out to people that just had no hope. You know, what does...what did the Syrophenician woman have in the way of hope? She had a demon possessed child. Was it a daughter, I think? And there she was, she wasn't even an Israelite. Jesus was not even particularly sent to her at that point in history. We know the Gospel immediately began to go out, or soon began to go out to the nations of the world, but here she was a foreigner. She had no hope.

There was no witch doctor she could go to, no medicine she could take. But she heard about Jesus. She heard about somebody who had power against demons. She understood what the problem was, and she came to Him, and she cried out, and she cried out until the disciples said, get her out of here. We don't want to hear this any more. She's bothering us.

Oh, I'll tell you what, Jesus wasn't bothered. He is never bothered when you cry out to Him in your hour of need...never bothers Him. He never gets aggravated or tired of listening to you cry out to Him. That's music to His ears. Because that's the cry of someone who has no hope but Him and that's exactly what He wants to do because then He can pour in His life and change the situation.

And so that's what He did. Boy He put her to the test, didn't He. There she was crying out and He even said something to her that could have been taken as a terrible insult. Oh, is it proper to cast the children's bread to dogs? He said, I'm not sent but to the house of Israel...lost sheep. But then He says is it proper to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs? Oh boy!

How are you when it comes to the things of God? Are you easy to offend--are you easy to offend? Think about it. But here was a person who was just willing to come and say, Lord I don't care what the terms are. I surrender. I'm fixed on the need and the fact that you can meet it. I don't...you can call me whatever you want. I'm just coming to you. God help us to have that kind of a heart and that kind of a spirit, to get off our high horse and just humble ourselves before Him.

I believe with all my heart that God allowed all of this to show a tremendous example of faith. In fact that's what Jesus said. I haven't found faith like this in Israel. But oh, He gave her request, didn't He? When she said, Lord, it's true...but yet the dogs eat the crumbs. Jesus said, go, your daughter is healed and she was healed from that very hour. A hopeless situation, it was not hopeless anymore, because Jesus had the power to do something about the situation.

You think of other people that He met, the woman at the well. Once again this wasn't even an Israelite. Every natural consideration was against what happened that day. The very fact that a Jew would even go through Samaria was unusual. You see, Samaria...here was the main body of Israel, Jerusalem was down here in Judea, I guess and then here's Galilee up here where Jesus was born and a lot of His ministry was conducted, here's Samaria in the middle. But you know how the Jews got from one to the other? They crossed the Jordan and went up and went back over. That's how little they thought of Samaria and the Samaritans. They despised them. They were dogs. They were just the lowest of the low. I mean it was just...you didn't even talk to them. You didn't have any interaction.

And so there she encounters Jesus at the well and He says, give me something to drink. My God, every natural consideration said this is unusual. What's going on? Why would you, a Jew, ask me, a woman of Samaria? And so He uses that to launch the conversation. If you knew what...if you knew the gift of God, if you knew what this was about, you'd ask Me for living water and I'd give it to you. And He launches into a conversation.

But I mean it wasn't just the fact that she was a Samaritan. She was a woman! And not only that, within her own society she would have been an outcast. She was an immoral woman. If anything of their societal practices had been in effect here, this would have been a totally hopeless situation. But look at the Spirit in the heart of this One who became our High Priest. He talked with her and He loved her and He gave her hope. He didn't soft pedal the truth. He talked about her immoral life but that wasn't a barrier. That wasn't a hindrance to Him working. Her past did not matter. The fact that she was a woman did not matter. The fact that she was despised not only by Jews, but by the Samaritans themselves, none of that mattered. Here was a heart that God wanted to reach and show His love to. It was not hopeless. Jesus was able to offer hope to that woman that day. Praise God!

I can imagine that if she'd thought about God much at all, she would have felt like a hopeless prisoner, just marching along the road unable to break her chains, unable to live down her past. People wouldn't even look at her...people would look at her funny or they'd turn their eyes away when she came because of what she was. Jesus looked her in the eye and offered her hope.

I'll tell you, where are you at this morning? Are you a prisoner of your past? Are you a prisoner of what you are? Jesus is able to save completely those who come to Him because He ever lives to pray for you and for me. He is able. And how many times did He demonstrate that? You know you think about the demoniac, the one who had the legion of devils. Once again, this guy was not a Jew. He lived in just a total state of demon possession. I mean there's no way to know how many there were. People speculate. I don't know. It was enough to make him a raving lunatic. He would have been in the padded cell in our society today. Nobody would know about him. He'd just be in there and the guards would look in on him every now and then, but he would be just a total wreck. Total hopeless--totally hopeless.

And Jesus was sent of the Father over in that direction. Do you remember what happened on the way? There was a storm, wasn't there? I'll bet you the demons in that region knew something was up. How many times does it get darker before it gets better? Like about all the time.

( laughter ).

Yeah. You know I believe with all my heart the devils sense when God is at work and I believe God is at work in many of our lives and I believe we need to take hope and not look at the winds and the waves and the things that would steal our hope and our confidence in God. Every time I look at me I get real discouraged. But every time I look at Him I remember His promise. He's not dismayed with my need. He knew all about it before He set out. It's no barrier to Him. It doesn't mean He loves me any less because I suddenly discovered this terrible need in my life. He doesn't love me any less. Oh, praise God! Praise God for the hope He's given.

But you think about what Jesus did, and not only that, there was a rest in Him. There was a rest to the point where when they got in the boat and the storm was going on He was sleeping, wasn't He? He wasn't worried. He just simply moved within the harmony of His Father's will. Oh God, give us a greater rest to where even in the storm we're able to look past the storm and say, hey wait a minute. God has everything under control. There is nothing that the devil can do that can destroy what He has set out to do in me.

If I lose my life, nothing has been destroyed that matters, because I've trusted in Him. And what He has given me is eternal. If I give up this earthly body, if somebody shoots me, or hangs me or whatever, nothing can separate me from His love. When it's all said and done I will be there enrobed in white and it'll be entirely, entirely because He saved me, not because I did anything.

Nothing will I...I will not be able to go before Him and say, yes, Lord, you helped me and you gave me a helping hand here and a helping hand there, but I did it Lord, I got here. No, no. If He hands me a crown, I'm gonna throw it down and say Jesus, that's Yours. It's all Yours. You did it. It's every bit You and Your ability to save me completely, because I was lost completely. I was just lost completely, nothing I could have done to help my situation.

And you think about the man that Jesus was going to help...naked, in the tombs. They'd try to bind him with chains and those devils had such power they would break the chains. Everybody was afraid. Everybody knew about this guy. But oh, there's something. I don't know all the dynamics of what happened but we do know that he came running to Jesus and he knelt down at His feet. I think one of them said it's because Jesus had commanded the spirits. I mean they knew that someone with real authority was there. People didn't have any of this but Jesus had authority over those demons. He has authority over the demons that bother you and me. He has all power in heaven and earth against whatever afflicts and binds you and me. That's why He's able to save completely those who come to God by Him.

( congregational praise ).

Praise God! And so Jesus commanded them to go out. And of course you know the story of how they said, well, don't send us into the abyss, send us into the pigs there. There was a bunch of about 2000 pigs. Some people say well, there were 2000 demons. I don't think it would take 2000 demons to stampede a bunch of pigs, but it was enough, whatever. Whatever it was, they stampeded down the hill and they were drowned and everybody was scared to death in the area. They said, please leave.

But, I'll tell you God sent Him to set that man free, to take a hopeless situation and save him completely. I'll tell you what I believe with all my heart, later on as the Gospel began to spread through that region, I believe this man was part of it. God...Jesus was already showing that the Gospel was for the whole world, not just for Israel.

But you think about the occasion when He was dining with a rich man. And there they were, the rich man hadn't even shown Him the courtesy of washing His feet, having a servant wash His feet, which would have been common courtesy in that day. And this sinful woman, I mean it was very obvious she had lived a very immoral life. By every standard of the law, this woman had no hope whatsoever. She was despised. Everybody knew what she was, and she came in there and began to wash His feet with her tears and to kiss His feet and just lavish this praise. Why did she do that? I believe with all my heart that there was a sense in people who knew what they were that He loved them, that He didn't come with a condemning spirit. He didn't come to take away her hope. He came to give it.

( congregational response ).

And so, even though there was a light in Him that exposed darkness everywhere, it yet exposed with a sense of hope. Yes, you're in terrible darkness. Yes, you cannot break the power of sin and darkness over your life. But, I have the power and I love you. Come to Me. There was something in Him that drew her and gave her a sense of hope. She mattered to Him. She mattered to God and she came with a gratitude that these religious people didn't know anything about.

So I don't know where you're at this morning, but I want to tell you something. We need to cling to this truth with every fiber of our being. I'll guarantee you, if you're not being tested right now, you will be--you will be. God is gonna see to it that you and I are in over our heads if we think for one second that we've got what it takes to come to Him, to serve Him, to overcome the things that are wrong.

We're gonna have circumstances that arise that we cannot...we have no answer for. All we can do is stretch forth our hand and say, oh, my High Priest, help me. You have promised to save me completely. I surrender to whatever Your purpose and Your will is in this, but Lord, I need salvation today. You know if you've never come to Him, you don't have to wait. You can come to Him right where you're at. If your heart will reach out to Him and just cry out to Him for the need of your heart, He will hear you and save you.

( congregational amens ).

But it doesn't stop with that. I need His salvation this morning. I need Him. I thank Him that He shows me how much I need Him. It doesn't feel good much of the time. It tends, if I look at the need, to discourage me real quick. But there's nothing that He cannot deal with. What did Paul say in Romans chapter 6, I think it is, or 5...5, I think it is? Praise God! "...Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." (KJV). Exceedingly super abound, some of the translations say. I mean it just...here's the pile of need and it's growing in our eyes. But the Lord says grace is just way on up there somewhere. It's always more. It's always enough.

If you're afraid you've gone to far today, I'll tell you what, you cry out to God. God's grace is enough to pull you out, to turn you around, and change the direction of your life. He can do it. You can't. You can't do it. And as long as you try, you're not trusting...you're not surrendering to Him. You're not a candidate for salvation, as long as you think you can fix what's wrong with your life.

I can't do it. The more I go, the more I know that I cannot fix what's wrong with me. And I thank God for showing me. Like I say, even though it's not pleasant, it doesn't feel good, it wounds my pride. Of course, nobody here has any of that.

( laughter ).

But you know God has to touch those things, doesn't He? But He always touches us with love, with mercy. Always, though He has the truth in one hand, He has His love and grace in the other. And it's always enough. So if you're in that place, this morning, where something looks impossible. The devil is just oppressing your mind with the hopelessness of your circumstances, your situation, your need. I want you to take hold of this Scripture and say He is able to save me completely as I come to God through Him. And that's what we need to do this morning. I praise Him, don't you?

( congregational praise ).

Praise God! Praise God!

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