Be Still for What? [A]

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Transcript:

Go ahead and turn with me, if you would, to Psalm chapter 46. psalm chapter 46 we’re going to be continuing on this morning with our study of what I believe to be some of the if not the most misinterpreted verses of scripture uh certainly those that are misinterpreted and cause the biggest problems we talked last week uh I keep saying that actually I talked and y’all listen but I talked last week about judgment and whether or not Christians are supposed to judge what does Matthew chapter 7 mean when it says judge not well it means more than just judge not if you read past the comma if you if you don’t put a period where God put a comma and continue on the thought there’s actually more to that where the scriptures as a whole don’t teach that we’re not supposed to judge that we’re not supposed to stand against sin they just teach that we’re supposed to do it in the right way.

We’re supposed to do it in a God-honoring rather than a self-honoring way. This morning we’re going to look at a verse that I hear all the time. I think I told you that last week to the point where if it’s not sacrilegious, I hope it’s not sacrilegious to say this, I’m almost sick of hearing it, at least in the context that I hear it all the time.

What am I going to do about this? What am I going to do about that? What’s going to happen here?

or what’s going to happen. My mother is constantly, actually all of the women in my life are constantly telling me, except for Madeline, who doesn’t know the verse yet, and I’m sure if she did, she’d be saying it. All the women in my world are constantly telling me, be still.

I’m not made to be still. That’s not comfortable for me. I drive my family crazy because on the rare occasions that I use the phone, I hate using the phone, But on the rare occasions that I do use the phone, I can’t sit and talk on the phone.

I wander around the house and talk on the phone. I can’t be still. Or I wander around the backyard on the phone.

I can’t. I just can’t sit there and be still. If I’m watching television, I’m also reading a book on Pinterest or something.

I don’t know. I’m usually doing two or three things. Being still is a hard thing for some of us.

Some of you may say, well, I wouldn’t move if I didn’t have to. If somebody would come feed me, I wouldn’t move. Others of us, it’s a hard thing to be still.

And it’s especially a hard thing to be still when there are problems in life and you think, I need to be fixing that. And the understanding that God can handle our problems better than we ever could is a hard thing, even if we grasp it up here, it’s still hard to communicate that to our hands and just sit and be still. We’ll talk more about that tonight, what that verse really means.

But this morning, I want to talk to you as I did last week with Judge Knott. First of all, what is the passage said to mean? What is the passage said to mean and why is that incorrect?

And I will tell you, my mom’s interpretation, as much as I hate to admit it, is correct. That it’s talking about just stop and let God deal with your problems. We’ll talk about that tonight. But this morning, I want to talk to you about this, and you may think, why?

You know, I don’t listen to, I don’t listen to, I can’t even think of the name of one of the preachers now, but I don’t listen to one of the preachers who teaches this stuff. I don’t listen to so-and-so on the TV or the radio. I don’t do yoga.

I’m not into Eastern things. What does this have to do with me? Because this is one of those ideas that is slowly and subtly creeping in, even to Bible-believing churches, and is causing people to totally tune out of what the Bible says.

Some of you asked me, and I have questioned this myself, some of you asked me a few weeks ago, and I think it was a rhetorical question. You weren’t necessarily looking for an answer, but how is it that we all know people who are in church somewhere this morning who profess to be Bible-believing Christians, but they were waving the rainbow flag a few weeks ago. How is that possible?

Now, you know what, we should love everybody. We should try to be kind and gracious to everybody. That doesn’t mean as Christians we have to get on board with everything everybody does.

I’ll say this. People disagreed with me a few years ago. As a Christian, I believed I was supposed to try my best to love and to pray for Osama bin Laden.

That didn’t mean that I had to support what he did. And don’t, by the way, I don’t support anything that he did. People got mad at me when I said we needed to pray for that man’s salvation.

Didn’t mean that he shouldn’t get the death penalty, but we need to pray for that man’s salvation. You know, the Apostle Paul killed people too. And look at how God used him.

Folks, we can love and be kind to somebody without supporting everything they do. So how is it that so many professing Bible-believing Christians have come to collaborate and accommodate the world? And I believe it’s because the idea has subtly crept into our churches that we can just turn off our brains when it comes to the scripture, when it comes to our dealings with God, we can tune out what the word says and just operate off of feelings.

Have you ever been confused by your feelings? Anybody in here that just me? Okay, if you have never been confused by your feelings, you were never a teenager or you’ve never had children.

Because as a teenager, one day I just love everybody. I love all my friends. 10 minutes later, I hate everybody and everybody hates me.

They don’t know what they feel, and yet they feel so strongly. Things that they don’t know or understand. As a parent, and I can attest to this, as someone who spent from 7 o’clock yesterday morning to, what, 10.

30 last night in the car with my children on the way to and from a family reunion in southeast Oklahoma, you can both love your children and want to squeeze them until their eyes pop out all at the same time. Our feelings will confuse us. By the way, I would never do that.

That’s just, y’all know that. I just have to say that. Our feelings will confuse us.

They will mislead us. Because one moment I feel like this is, I’m absolutely right. I need to, you know, forget the consequences.

I need to charge ahead and prove to everybody that I’m right. And this is the course of action I’m going to take. And I don’t care who says what about it.

And then the next minute I’m thinking, well, I really ought to be nice. You know, maybe, maybe. Folks, if we go off of our feelings, If we let our feelings lead us, we will live a life of spiritual confusion.

And I’m not saying that feelings have no place. Sometimes you get that feeling in your gut and you just know what the right thing is to do. But I’m talking about people who use their feelings like some kind of magic eight ball for every decision they make.

If we base our lives, if we base everything on our feelings, we will live lives of spiritual confusion. I don’t know if anybody in here has seen the movie Fireproof. I love a line from that movie.

As the two firemen are talking about their marriages and whether or not to give up or, you know, it’s hard. And one of the men tells the other, you can’t follow your heart. We’re taught in our society, follow your heart.

He says, you can’t follow your heart. You’ve got to lead your heart. Folks, that’s a biblical idea.

The Bible says to keep your heart with all diligence. Or we would say today, guard your heart with all diligence. If we allow our feelings to run amok, we will live lives of spiritual confusion.

And yet there’s teaching that subtly creeps in in churches. There’s teaching that subtly creeps in through influences of books you may read, sermons you may hear on the radio, talking to friends. It says you just have to do what you feel is right.

Folks, feelings have a place, but they must never, ever, ever take the place equal to or ahead of what God’s Word says. God’s Word has to be first and foremost. If God’s Word, if the direct revelation of God through His Word is not the highest authority for us to know what to say, what to think, what to believe, how to act, then we’re off kilter. Now that’s not to say that logic, and that’s not to say that feelings, And that’s not to say that experience don’t have a place, but the Word of God, ladies and gentlemen, is paramount.

Everything else, everything else is shifting sand. Everything else will confuse us. Psalm chapter 46 verse 1 says, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, Though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof, Selah, there is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved.

God shall help her, and that right early. The heathen raged. The kingdoms were moved.

He uttered his voice. The earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us.

The God of Jacob is our refuge, Selah. Come behold the works of the Lord. What desolations he hath made in the earth.

He maketh wars to cease until the end of the earth. He breaketh the bow and cutteth the spear in sunder. He burneth the chariot in the fire.

Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the heathen. I will be exalted in the earth.

The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. Now at least three times in there, God has called a refuge.

Two of these verses are exactly the same. Verse 11 and verse 7. They both say the Lord of hosts is with us.

The God of Jacob is our refuge. God doesn’t repeat himself because he forgot what he said. God repeats himself for emphasis.

It’s sort of like that passage I love in Galatians chapter 1 where Paul says, Anybody who preaches any other gospel than what you’ve already received, let him be accursed. And then says again in the next verse, I say again to you, anybody who preaches any other gospel than what you’ve received, let him be accursed. It’s not because Paul forgot under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit what he had just written.

It’s not because God forgot what he just had Paul write. It was for emphasis. This was also a song and we could look at that as the chorus or the refrain.

That was what was important. That’s what they were repeating throughout here. That the Lord of hosts is with us and the God of Jacob is our refuge.

That’s what this whole passage is about. And yet this one portion of it, we look at it together and folks, I may not even need to preach tonight. You can probably already see how this comes together and what it’s talking about.

I still will. Don’t worry. But you can probably already see how this comes together and what it’s talking about.

It’s talking about turning to God for refuge. It’s talking about trusting in the Lord. It’s talking about his ability to do battle for us.

And yet this one portion, this one verse is taken out to support all sorts of doctrines.

be still and know that I am God it’s a great verse when used in context of the whole chapter or even used by itself to make the same point it’s a great verse but you divorce it from its context and say just be still and feel things know that I am God people have interpreted that to mean let’s just feel our way through this just be still there’s an idea where that comes from ladies and gentlemen there is an idea in eastern religion it’s totally foreign it’s totally foreign to everything that we’re taught in the bible there’s an idea that runs through all of the eastern religions whether it be hinduism whether it be buddhism shintoism taoism any of them there’s an idea that runs through them of this meditation and this clearing of the mind and emptying the mind and just being still now for some of us it’s easier to empty our minds than others some of us have less there than others and the idea of being able to clear our minds to empty our minds of all these thoughts and distractions, that sounds inviting.

I don’t know about you. It sounds inviting. You know what?

If I could just shut this off for a minute, I might be able to sleep. I might be able to not be so stressed. That sounds good and it sounds inviting.

The purpose for that in those religions though, the purpose for that in those religions is to empty your mind and thereby in a way to empty yourself of yourself. And if you’re thinking, what is he talking about up there? What does he mean?

It’s because it’s so foreign to what we’re taught in the word of God. We don’t even completely understand the teaching behind just being still and feeling. Empty this of yourself.

That way you can become part of God, become part of the universe. Does any part of that sound biblical? Let’s just become part of God, part of the universe.

Folks, we are not in a religion that says we need to die to self so we can be absorbed into God and cease being born and reborn. We are in a religion. We are in a relationship, better said, where we are taught to die to self because Jesus Christ died to forgive us our sins so that we can have a relationship with God the Father.

Not that we stop existing. Not that we empty everything out of here. but that God wants to fill us with the knowledge of Him, that God wants to fill us with His Holy Spirit.

God is not telling us to empty ourselves and just feel our way through things. God says so many times throughout the Scriptures that He wants to fill us, which is the complete opposite of this. There’s the idea that we can just be still and feel our way through this.

If you hear the idea, well, my God wouldn’t do this. That’s not based on the Bible and knowledge that’s based on feeling. My God wouldn’t say that.

Well, your God did say that, or my God did say that. That’s not based on the Bible, that’s based on feeling. I had a woman tell me a few years ago, I’ll never forget, standing in her living room, and she was trying to justify something horrible that a family member was doing, and said, well, you know God just wants everybody to be happy.

No. I said, I don’t know where you got that. I got a little heated.

Probably shouldn’t have, but I did. I said, I don’t know where you got that from, lady. But God’s word teaches that he cares a lot more about our holiness than about our happiness.

And the thing you’re talking about, the thing you’re trying to justify that’s being done, God is very clear. I could take you to chapter and verse, show you in black and white, show you in red and white how God feels about it, and it’s not the same way you’re telling me I need to feel. But we get this idea, well, God just wants us to be happy.

God wants us to do that. Folks, we can’t base our lives on how we feel. It would be so easy to say, eh, gay marriage, that’s fine.

If that’s what you want to do, God just wants everybody to be happy. Because you know what? I think most of us feel to an extent like we want to get along with people.

I am not a confrontational person. Oh, I hate it. Every time I have to go to a business meeting, I have a knot in my stomach for two days ahead of time.

I’m not a confrontational person. I think most of us, I think most of us don’t want to have confrontation unless it’s necessary. I would like to think that most of us are willing to have it if we have to, but I think if we were just going by our feelings, we’d rather not be the pariah.

We’d rather not be the one that everybody hates. Can’t we all just get along? But to go along with God’s word instead of feelings says sometimes we have to say this is right and this is wrong, and it doesn’t matter how you feel.

We can’t just be still and and experience God and experience the truth. God has given us revelation of himself and of the truth, not to feel, ladies and gentlemen, but to know. And I hope, I hope as we do get to know God, I hope as we spend time in God’s presence that we do experience feelings that go along with it.

It’s not without reason that David prayed to God, restore unto me the joy of my salvation. He didn’t say restore my salvation. He said restore the joy of my salvation.

David didn’t question that God had saved him but he said there’s something missing there’s a feeling here there’s a joy that used to be here and is gone now it’s not ladies and gentlemen feelings don’t count otherwise that wouldn’t be an inspired scripture where David prayed that to God and recorded there for us restore to me the joy of my salvation the feelings that accompany a relationship with God are not bad and they’re not something to be refused but we cannot base our entire relationship with God We cannot base our entire knowledge of God. We cannot base our entire discernment about what is right and wrong. We cannot base those things on our feelings.

You’ve got to base them on what God has said. A turn your brain on, use it, and go dig and go learn and go fill yourself with knowledge kind of experience. A few things that I want to share with you about this modern teaching.

I feel like I’m almost done. I may not be. we’ve got points and anyway a few things I want to share with you about this modern idea of just I don’t know if I’m doing a great job of explaining what it is this idea of just turning your brain off and feeling your way through it’s what some pastors and theologians call contemplative mysticism if you want to remember that term you can that’s fine if you don’t that’s fine too but basically it’s the idea of disengaging the brain and getting to know god and truth through feelings that we can have spiritual experiences, that we can have feelings, we can have new ideas and revelations that teach us truth about God.

Now I’ve told you before, I believe that God does not as a normal matter of practice give us special revelation anymore. But I’m also not one to limit God and say that he can’t. It’s sort of like we had the discussion about speaking in tongues.

I don’t believe that that’s how God normally interacts with us anymore. But I’m also not one to limit God that he can’t do that. If God wants to make you speak in tongues, I bet he could do it.

Now, whether he does or doesn’t, I don’t believe he normally does that anymore. Folks, if God wants to reveal something directly to you, he could do it, I guess. But if it doesn’t jive with what he’s already revealed, it’s not from God.

He cannot contradict himself. He cannot deny himself. If we have a feeling, oh, I’m supposed to do this, And it doesn’t square with what God’s Word says, with what He’s already revealed.

It is not from God. I had a man in my office a few years ago. I think it’s okay to.

. . I feel like because of this reason and this reason and this reason that God says it’s okay for me to leave my wife and divorce her.

Are you kidding me? These people were both dear friends of mine. Not only people in my church, but people we had in our home.

We went and we had dinner and we did things with the kids. And you’re sitting here, get out of my office telling me that. I understand you feel that way.

I didn’t say that to him, but I’m sure he could read between the lines. I love you, but you know this is wrong. And I don’t care if you had a feeling and you think it came from the Holy Spirit of God telling you it’s okay to run out on your wife.

What does God’s word say? And is that the same thing? And if they’re not, I can guarantee you which one is right and which one is not.

I can guarantee you which one came from God and which one came from somewhere else. folks this idea that we can just experience and feel our way through truth and the knowledge of god is dangerous and four things that I want to share with you about it this morning this whole idea has at its core as I’ve already indicated before the has at its core the practice of quieting and emptying your mind get rid of all conscious thoughts so that you can open yourself to experience a felt connection with the divine I know that’s a lot that’s a that’s a lot of words there but basically, get rid of all your thoughts, get rid of all conscious thoughts, and just feel God. That is not what this passage teaches.

That is not what he means by be still and know that I am God. First of all, he says be still and know that I’m God, not be still and feel that I’m God. Now, if we know it, I’d like to feel it too, but the knowing has to come first. Be still and know that I’m God.

Read it again in the context. Read the whole chapter. He’s talking about very real things, very real things where Israel needed help and needed to know that God can handle these very real things that they were struggling and working through.

And yet some teachers misinterpret this verse and verses like it and say, just, just feel God, just experience him, just know him in that way. Well, Paul warns us about this in the book of Ephesians. If you want to turn there to Ephesians chapter four, you’re welcome.

Ephesians 4, 17. This I say therefore and testify in the Lord that ye henceforth walk not as the Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their hearts. He’s talking to the Ephesian believers and saying the Gentiles are following their hearts and they don’t understand how blind their hearts are.

And he talks about the vanity of their minds because they’re following their hearts. Their minds are vain. Their minds are just empty.

He says you don’t walk as they do. just following the blindness of their hearts. Who being past, excuse me, who being past feeling have given themselves over to lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness.

He says they have, because they’re just following their hearts and the vanity, the emptiness of their minds, he said it has led them far astray. Acts of lasciviousness, all uncleanness and greediness. We don’t need to go into deep discussion about what all these are.

We know that these are bad things.

he says they’re committing sinful acts as a result of this folks the bible even says that when we sin it’s because we’re drawn aside by our own lust and temptation it’s because we give into what the feelings of the moment are because god has provided and I say this standing before you as one who is guilty of sin myself but god said he provides a way out of temptation if we would just take it but all too often we’re just following the feelings of the moment or following what our heart says as opposed to what God has already revealed and what we know that he says to do or not to do and so he warns don’t be like the Gentiles don’t just follow your heart or your feelings it’s going to lead you into all sorts of sin greediness uncleanness but ye have so you have not so learned Christ if so be that ye have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus that you put off concerning the former conversation the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.

He says this is not the way that you’ve learned to behave through Jesus Christ. This is not what you learned from Him. This is not what He taught. He said instead you’ve been taught put off the old man, put off the old way of doing things, put off the old impulsive fleshly lifestyle and stop living according to the lust of the flesh.

Stop living according to the feeling the moment and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Let God renew your mind.

Know God with your mind. Know who he is. That doesn’t mean we don’t know him with our heart, but we’ve got to be careful not to just feel our way through it.

My God would never do this. My God would never punish sin. Oh yeah, my God, my God, the Bible says, he melts mountains and he He turns the seas.

Folks, my God has been very clear about how he feels about sin. I want to feel like God’s okay with it when I sin, but in my mind I know what he’s already told me. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

Now I’m not just talking about a mental I know things, I agree faith. What I’m talking about, what I believe he’s talking about here, is not to abandon the heart and the feelings, but to use the mind to keep them in check. Don’t let your feelings run them up.

Don’t base everything on your feelings. So we’re taught in all sorts of things that are creeping into churches all over. You may hear them.

You may hear friends say, well, whatever you feel is right. You may read books, say, wherever your heart leads, that’s what God wants you to do with your life. You may hear it from some of the largest and most wicked pulpits in our country.

Folks, it has at the core. Follow your feelings. Second of all, self-control and sober-mindedness are abandoned in favor of unconsciousness and uncertainty.

We’re taught in the Bible to be sober. That doesn’t mean just don’t get drunk. I mean, that’s an important teaching.

But it also means be sober-minded. Be in control of your faculties. Self-control.

Oh, if there’s any biblical teaching that’s lacking in our society today, it’s the idea of self-control. We need to teach ourselves to be self-controlled. I talked last week about the sin of gluttony.

Good night. Self-control. Self-control, preacher.

We need to learn to deny ourselves some things. You know, we do it with our kids. We should do it with our kids.

No, here are your limits. You know what? We set up boundaries and control.

We need to learn to set up boundaries and control for ourselves where God has put them. And we need to learn to say, no, I’m not going to allow myself to do this, whatever it is. Whether it’s gluttony, whether it’s any other sin, we need to, folks, we need to have self-control.

You know when we don’t have self-control? It’s when we turn our brain off and just go with the feeling. I don’t know what scientific studies there might be to back it up.

But I remember years ago, I don’t remember a lot about seventh grade, but I do remember one goofy presentation we had about don’t fight in the hallways. My mama and daddy raised me better. I didn’t figure you had to have a class on not fighting in the hallways.

But we had a special program about not fighting in the hallways. And they were talking about the need to think through things. And they said when you get in a conflict and there’s the fight or flight response, the first thing we do is we stop breathing or we breathe more shallow and less oxygen goes to the brain and so we don’t make such good decisions.

And for some reason that has always stuck with me. There’s a good point to that. If the brain is starved of oxygen, we don’t make good decisions.

Folks, if the brain is not working the way it’s supposed to, we don’t make good decisions. That’s why people beat each other up in bars more often than at church. Although I have seen it happen.

You know what? They told us. And I’ve never been in a fight, wouldn’t know how to get in one, probably.

They told us, if something like that goes on, first thing you need to do is take a deep breath. Oxygen to the brain. Make sure the brain works.

Because then you’ll make better decisions. you know what if that works for seventh graders in the hallway it works for all of us if the brain is on we have a better shot at self-control if we’re not just letting our if we’re not just going on autopilot on our feelings and we’re listening to what god has already told us what god has already filled our minds with we have a lot more opportunities for self-control paul wrote in the book of titus for the grace of god that bringeth salvation has appeared to all men teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. The Bible doesn’t teach us to empty our minds and just go on autopilot.

The Bible teaches us, fill your mind with the good things of God and live soberly, righteously. He says, the God that brought salvation appeared to all men, teaching us to deny ungodly lusts, ungodliness and worldly lusts, and teaching us that we should live soberly, righteously. God’s teaching is that after we’re saved, we are to live in a certain way, fill our minds with good things that reinforce that.

Third of all this morning, in this idea of this mystic, this new mystical teaching, doctrine and objective truth are abandoned in favor of unreliable subjective experiences. I know in our world today, doctrine is a dirty word. Do we have to really talk about Can’t we all just love Jesus?

All right, I’ll bite. Which Jesus? That’s doctrine.

That’s doctrine. Who is Jesus? I mean, that’s a reasonable question.

Jesus even asked his apostles, who do you say that I am? Okay, so I’ll bite. If doctrine doesn’t matter, if it just matters that we all love Jesus, who do you say Jesus is?

Is he a good moral teacher? Yeah, so much more than that, I would say. Is he a figment of somebody’s imagination, a historical myth?

No. Some people believe that, though. Was he a political revolutionary?

There’s some people who see him as that. Was he a hippie? Some people have seen him as that, too.

Did he go to India and learn Hinduism and Buddhism? Was he a guru? I don’t think so.

Is he, as the Mormons teach, is he, as the Mormons teach, the first but not the only begotten spirit child of God the Father, the elder brother of Lucifer, and really the elder brother of all of us, a created being who will one day be a God over his own planet as well. I’m not making that up either. Is he as the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe?

The Archangel Michael, who after he died tied to a stake, was buried in a tomb and simply dissolved and reappeared as something like a hologram. I’m not making that up either. Is he as the Jews believe a lunatic and an imposter?

Is he as some churches teach? Just an addition to our lives. Somebody who loves us and teaches us to live the right way, but he’ll take whatever we want from him.

Folks, the list of all the Jesuses that are worshipped all over this world could go on for the rest of the morning. We want to forget about doctrine and just feel our way through it and just love Jesus. What Jesus are we all loving together?

Because it’s not all the same Jesus. Are we all loving and worshipping the Jesus of the Bible? The Jesus w

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