Are your thoughts Jesus Christ's thoughts?
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Nancy and I bring greetings to you from the sunshine state of Arizona, where we live in the city of Tucson, and from the brethren that are in Tucson and Sierra Vista and El Paso, the great American Southwest.
Many of you who have grown up watching, perhaps, the old spaghetti Westerns, have seen our backyard, the mountains and the Saguaros that are pictured there and it is a beautiful area to live in, and not just all desert as some people believe it to be. We are just less than an hour away from the Santa Rita Mountains, which rise over 9,000 feet in elevation and is the site of our Challenger II rock climbing program in the winter and it's really a diverse and beautiful area.
Some of you may know your American history — my Church circuit is actually almost identical to what was the Gadsden Purchase back in the 1840's when the Americas acquired, or when America acquired, the Arizona Territories, almost all of Nevada and Arizona, that we call that area today.
They failed to have a southern route, a land route, that was accessible in the winter time in that purchase and so — or in that acquisition — and so they needed to purchase a little bit more territory to the south of the Arizona territories and so they sent their representative to negotiate with Mexico and to purchase the Gadsden Territory and that was the — that's the territory that now has, essentially, the boundaries of the Church area that I have the privilege to serve.
So we are the land of the city too tough to die, Tombstone, Arizona, the land of Cochise and the Apaches, and a wonderful area to live in with some truly wonderful brethren. We bring their greetings.
Brethren, do you remember from your youth the story of the three little pigs? How many of you remember the story of the three little pigs? Most — yeah — almost everybody, I believe, it's one of the most common stories of our ethnic background; I guess you could say, the American culture, the English-speaking culture.
I did ask Señor Langarica if he was familiar with the story and, apparently, they don't tell that story in Chile or in Mexico, because he wasn't familiar with it, but if we've got an English speaking background most of us know the story of the three little pigs and the big bad wolf.
The story goes — and it has a history that dates back to about the 1840's, the first time it was in print, at least that we can locate, although the story is probably much older than that — and the story is that the mama pig sent out her three little pigs into the big bad world to make their way in the world.
And they went out, each of them, and they built their homes: one built a home of straw, one built a home of sticks, one built a home of bricks (he was the Hebrew). But, the big bad wolf came along, and they have a taste for pork, and so the big bad wolf came up to the first little pig's house made of straw and he said let me in, let me in, little pig, or I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in and, of course, we know the response of the little pig inside.
And so the wolf huffed and he puffed and he blew the house in, and now here, we have to tell a little version of the story, a little history because — if you go back to the 1840's and the 1880's, you find the story as it was written then — the wolf ate the little pig. They were a little tougher then. Today, we have made it a little bit more, oh, politically correct, and we don't like all the violence associated with some of the stories and so Disney came along and said we can't have this wolf eating these poor little pigs, so in the Disney version that came along, that many of us might be familiar with, we have the little pig whose house just got blown down, running to the second little pig's house and taking shelter with the second little pig in the stick house — not the brick house — the stick house.
But then, along comes the wolf and he says to the second little pig let me in, let me in little pig, or I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down. And the little pig inside, or the pigs inside, depending if you're reading the Disney story or not, say no, by the hair of my chinny, chin, chin. And the wolf huffs and puffs and he blows that house down, and he either eats them or the two pigs run on to the third pig's house, depending, again, on the story that you're reading.
And the wolf comes to the third little pig's house and he says let me in, let me in little pig, or I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down, and the little pig says not by the hair of my chinny, chin, chin. And the wolf huffs and he puffs and he huffs and he puffs and he hyperventilates and he gets blacked out and he falls on the ground and he can't blow this house down.
Okay, it's editorialized. This is a little bit more modern version, maybe, for some of you.
But, he can't figure out a way to blow the house down and so he tries to entice the pig to come out and when that doesn't work he figures, well, I will try to climb in through the chimney, like another fictional character, and go down the chimney and get the pigs that way. Well, the third little pig is a smart little pig and he realizes what the wolf is up to and so he sets a big kettle on the fireplace, lights the fire, and sets the water to boiling and the wolf — guess what happens — drops right into the kettle, the pig closes the lid on the kettle and cooks up the wolf for dinner. Okay, that's not the Disney version, that's the original version, but that's the way it went.
There are, of course, lessons to this story that we should be wise in building and so on, but you know it's interesting when you look at the history of these stories and how they're retold to fit the times that, you know, we live in over the years. As I mentioned there, the version changed. In 2007 the version changed again. Some people decided that pigs in the story would offend certain cultures and so they changed it to dogs. You know, they're always trying to update the story.
One of the most recent ones is a retelling of the story from the perspective of the wolf and it's called "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs." It's a children's book, released in 1989, and it's written by A. Wolf, that stands for Alexander T. Wolf. The book is indicated — basically tries to show that the wolf from the three little pigs story doesn't necessarily really have to be big and bad and it's all really just a big misunderstanding of the wolf's motives and intentions.
The wolf justifies his journeys to the three little pigs' houses as needing to ask for some sugar to bake a cake for his dear, ailing, granny's birthday and he says that his huffing and puffing was really just misunderstood. He had a bad cold and he sneezed and it was a powerful sneeze, sufficient, of course, to blow the houses down and he excuses his eating of the pigs by saying that, well, you should never let good meat go to waste; that's what his mommy taught him, and since the pigs were going to die, as a result of the disease that they got from the sneezing anyway, he just couldn't let the meat go to waste, since they were all going to die anyway. At the very end of the book, you find out that the wolf has been telling the whole story from prison.
Well, it's kind of entertaining to see how these stories have been retold and how we can take different perspectives, but thinking of the story of the three little pigs actually reminds me of another, even older, story of an individual that built a house that had the winds blow and it didn't fall and he found security and safety in that house.
Maybe that's a story you might be familiar with, because it comes from the ScripturesThe divinely inspired writings of both the Old and New Testaments. The term Scripture is used in the New Testament to refer to both the Hebrew Bible (Luke 24:44-45) and the new apostolic writings accepted as inspired (2 Peter 3:16; 1 Timothy 5:18). in the gospel accounts. It's written in Matthew, it's also — the account is found in Luke — and that's where I would like to turn now, to the account in Luke, chapter 6, and in verse 47, Jesus Christ says that:
Luke 6:47-49
Vs. 47 — "Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you to whom he is like."
Vs. 48 — "He is like a man who builds his house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock." So in a sense, this is like the little pig who builds with rock-like brick, only this individual in the story that Christ is telling is building on the rock. "And when the flood arose, and the stream beat vehemently against that house" — and in the account in Matthew it says that, "when the rains fell and the floods rose and the winds blew," — when the wolf came huffing and puffing, you might say, that house didn't fall, "it couldn't shake it, for it was founded on the rock."
Vs. 49 — "But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation," — Matthew's account says "on sand" — "against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great."
Well, which house would you prefer to dwell in? Wouldn't you prefer to dwell in the house that's built on the rock, rather than the one that's built on the sand? Wouldn't you prefer to dwell in the house of brick, the safe house, so when the winds blow and when the wolf comes and attacks, you're secure instead of being in that house of straw or the house of sticks? Apparently, they didn't have building codes back then that are sufficient to the standards.
But, we should live in the house that's built on the rock. How do we do that? How do we know we're living — how do we know we're dwelling—in that house? Well, let's pick up the story flow a little bit more in the earlier portion of the GospelThe good news of God's everlasting kingdom to be established on earth after Christ's return and how we may be a part of that kingdom. This message was central to the teaching of Jesus Christ and the apostles. The term is used about 100 times in the New Testament . of Luke, in chapter 6 again, we'll pick it up starting in verse 37. Christ, in the extended exposition of the sermon that He is giving, says:
Luke 6:37, 41-42, 44-45
Vs. 37 — "Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven."
Well, that sounds like — you know if you're following these instructions you're dwelling pretty securely, aren't you? You're not there to be condemned, you're not there to be judged, you're going to be forgiven; that's a secure house to dwell in, isn't it? What is behind this?
If you're not judging in that critical, condemnatory way, if you're not condemning and you are forgiving in your nature, aren't those mindsets, aren't those thoughts, aren't those ways of thinking that reflect the mind of Jesus Christ our Savior? They reflect the mind of God and, so, if we're thinking a certain — if we're allowing our thoughts to dwell a certain — yes, I'm using this word "dwell" — I'm dwelling on the use of the word "dwell" here in the sermon today — because there is a dwelling we want to dwell in, to live in, and in order to dwell in that safe house we need to be dwelling, we need to be thinking a certain way; because when we start thinking differently we, essentially, take ourselves right out of that house and expose ourselves to the danger.
The person that's being told in verse 37, by Christ, they will not be judged or condemned is a person who is thinking a certain way.
Drop down in verse 41.
Vs. 41 — "And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but you do not perceive the plank in your own eye?"
Now, this is an example, an illustration, of how we, sometimes, judge and condemn others, isn't it?
Vs. 41 — "Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, and you don't perceive the plank in your own eye?"
What a picture this is to me. Here's a person so concerned about a little, tiny, fleck of something in his neighbor's eye when he, himself, is walking around with a two-by-four sticking out of his own.
You know what? If you're walking around with a two-by-four sticking out of your own eye and you go to look closely into your neighbor's eye, you're going to go thwack! Knock him right up side the head, probably, trying to see the speck in his eye — and where is the thought, where is the mind, where is the dwelling of the person who is making this judgment? He is dwelling in the wrong place, isn't he? He is dwelling on his neighbor instead of on what he needs to be dwelling on, on improving himself, working on himself.
He is dwelling in the wrong house. He's dwelling in a house of straw that is going to get blown away instead of in the house that is built on the rock.
Vs. 42 — "How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me remove the speck that is in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the plank that is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye," — give some attention to yourself, to where it is you're coming from — "and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother's eye." Thinking about the brother and dwelling on him in a wrong way was dwelling in the wrong place.
You know, our thoughts produce two things in our lives. They produce actions, because what you think about precedes what you end up doing. If you're thinking a certain way, you're going to act on that, so our thoughts generate our actions. Our thoughts will also generate our emotions, how we feel about things, depending on how we think about something is going to determine how we feel about that thing or that person. Our thinking will generate actions and emotions.
What was the emotion of the man judging his brother? Maybe he justified it and said, oh, I'm serving you but, really, the emotion was one of superiority. I can fix you and maybe he was more critical, instead of humble, most likely in the approach, as Christ is telling us.
Vs. 44 — "Every tree" — it says — "is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush."
Vs. 45 — "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart, brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." The heart, what we tend to dwell on, the internal focus of our thoughts and our feelings. We are that way. We act based on our thoughts. We feel certain ways based on our thoughts.
We can go on and read this story again, but the point is clear. If we want to dwell in the house that's on a sound foundation, then our mind, our thoughts, need to be Christ's, as we heard, even in the first split sermon today. I found it fascinating how God inspires presentations and thoughts to be consistent and I, very much, certainly agree with and echo what Mr. Langarica was saying. Our thoughts need to be the thoughts of Jesus Christ. When we have that, then we're building on a rock.
Let's turn to Psalm 15. Psalm 15. We all look forward to our eternal life in the Kingdom of God; that's a wonderful calling, a wonderful hope that is held out for all of us. Psalm 15 and starting in verse 1, King DavidKing of Israel, killed the giant Goliath with a sling and stones, a man after God's own heart, only turned from God in the matter of Uriah the Hittite (1 Kings 15:5), had an affair with Bathsheba, Messiah would come from line of David, main author of Psalms and highly musical. said:
Psalm 15:1-5
Vs. 1 — "Lord, who may abide in Your tabernacle? Who may dwell in Your holy hill?"
Do you want to dwell in God's holy hill? Don't you? Of course we do. We've conditioned our whole lives on the hope of being able to dwell on God's holy hill and DavidKing of Israel, killed the giant Goliath with a sling and stones, a man after God's own heart, only turned from God in the matter of Uriah the Hittite (1 Kings 15:5), had an affair with Bathsheba, Messiah would come from line of David, main author of Psalms and highly musical. asks the question, well, who is going to dwell there, and he answers it. He says in verse 2:
Vs. 2 — "He who walks uprightly, he who works righteousness, and speaks the truth in his heart."
Vs. 3 — "He who does not backbite with his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor, nor does he take up a reproach against his friend;"
Think about the person who takes up a reproach against his friend. What's that saying? You hear something and, boy, it's easy to hear a reproach, or hear something evil, but the person who takes it up is somebody who says, oh, that was something, you know, not complimentary, that was something evil, it was a reproach, and he takes it up and he carries with him, and he has to, therefore, dwell on it, instead of saying, wait a minute, this is my friend, I know my friend, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt. He harbors it. He thinks about it. He takes it up. He dwells on it. Well, that's not the person that's going to dwell in God's holy hill. That's not the attitude of love covering, but it's an attitude of, well, looking at the speck in your brother's eye, isn't it?
Vs. 4 — Verse 4 says the person who is going to dwell on God's holy hill is one, "In whose eyes a vile person is despised," — and it doesn't mean there that you're condemning, in that negative sense, the individual, but you despise the actions, you despise the wrong — "but he honors those who fear the Eternal; he who swears to his own hurt and does not change;"
Somebody who gives his word and when his word turns out to be detrimental to himself, doesn't change, but he sticks to it. He hangs in there. Have you ever had somebody who changed up the rules of the game, after you had already agreed to it, because it suddenly didn't suit him?
I worked at one time with an individual who said, okay, we're going to work together and I'll do this and you'll do that and so we made an agreement that that's the way we were going to work together, and when things didn't quite come out the way that he had anticipated, he changed the rules. And then it's like, well, thanks a lot — and I went and built my plans on a certain agreement and now you change it — well, that affects me very directly, doesn't it?
But, you know, somebody who dwells in God's house is going to have a thought process of, I made a promise, I made an agreement, and it's not working out the way I had hoped, to my advantage, but if I made a foolish agreement, why should somebody else suffer for that? Why should somebody else be hurt? I'd take the hurt before allowing somebody else to take the hurt for my foolish agreement.
You see, that's a heart, that's a way of thinking that shows respect and love and consideration. It's dwelling on love rather than selfishness.
Vs. 4 — "He who swears to his own hurt and does not change."
Vs. 5 — "He who does not put out his money at usury," — he is not looking to take advantage of people with abusive interest rates — "nor does he take a bribe against the innocent."
It's just wrong. You don't think that way. You don't think, well, I can be enriched if I just take this bribe, even though it's going to hurt somebody else; that's a wrong way of thinking, a wrong way of dwelling.
Vs. 5 — It says, "He who does these things" — thinking the right way, acting the right way — "will never be moved." He will dwell in God's holy hill.
Psalm 23 — over a few pages. Psalm 23 and in verse 6 — again, DavidKing of Israel, killed the giant Goliath with a sling and stones, a man after God's own heart, only turned from God in the matter of Uriah the Hittite (1 Kings 15:5), had an affair with Bathsheba, Messiah would come from line of David, main author of Psalms and highly musical. writes:
Psalm 23:6
Vs. 6 — "Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Eternal forever." "I will dwell in the house of the Eternal forever."
The point is this: If you want to dwell in the House of God, then we need to dwell on the things of God. If you want to dwell in the House of God, we must dwell on the things of God.
When we are called out of this world and into the Body of Christ, our thinking changes; our thinking about doctrine changes, our thinking about people changes, our thinking about the whole future and the whole society, everything changes in the way that we think; and the change of our thinking is so dramatic and so radical, it's as much a change in our thinking to be converted, as the change in dwelling place of the people of Israel is, when they came out of Egypt.
They'd dwelt in Egypt for hundreds of years and they had to change their dwelling place to come out of Egypt and move on to the Promised Land. Just like we, when God calls us, we have to change what it is we dwell on. We have to change where it is that we dwell, because the carnal mind is hostile against the things of God, it isn't "subject to the things of God and neither indeed can be." And we have to change our dwelling and it's as radical a change in our thinking, as leaving Egypt was a change in the dwelling for the people of Israel.
So, the question for us is: Where do you dwell? We know where we want to dwell, but where do we dwell?
You ever hear somebody say, "I'm in a bad place right now"? What do they mean? It doesn't necessarily mean that their circumstances are particularly bad. Usually, when people say I'm just in a bad place right now, they're in a foul attitude, aren't they? They're thinking negatively. They're angry. They're hostile. They're depressed. Whatever it is, I'm just in a bad place right now. Maybe you've said it yourself sometime.
And the first two little pigs were dwelling in a bad place. It wasn't a secure place. It was a place that was going to cause them to be destroyed and when we're dwelling in a bad place, you know what? If we stay there, we're going to be destroyed. We need to get out of that place. Go to the good place to dwell.
Well, people will often dwell on a bad place and it's like dwelling in Egypt — a place that was going to get destroyed, because God was going to send the winds and the floods and the destruction was going to come on that house of Egypt — and if you're dwelling in Egypt, you're going to get eaten up by the big bad wolf. Not a place you want to stay.
But, God called His people out of Egypt and He brought them to a Promised Land. A land that was flowing with milk and honey; great blessings and abundance, peace on their borders, those were the blessings that God had provided, and in one year or less, God brought them across the Sinai Desert, right to the borders of the Promised Land, but what happened when they got there?
Well, they sent in a bunch of spies to check out the land to see if it was really as good as God said it was going to be for them. And, they probably went off with great anticipation to spy out the land and they spent forty days searching out this land and they came back and they said, you know what, it's as beautiful a land as God said; it's got great giant fruit, it's got beautiful valleys, it's a land that flows with milk and honey, it's just the way God said, but, oh, but you know what, there are big dudes up there. There are giants that dwell in the land and so ten of the spies came back and they said we can't go in there. There are giants in the land. Only two of them came back and said wait a minute. What are you thinking people? What were they thinking, after all?
What happened was some of the spies and all of the people that they reported back to started dwelling a certain way. They started dwelling in fear, instead of in faith. They started dwelling on the fact that their little guys and the people that lived there were big guys, and how were they ever going to get them out of their cities, instead of dwelling on the thought that God just brought us out of the nation that was the most powerful nation; the most powerful nation on the planet. God brought them to destruction and we walked out without having to fire an arrow. Now, wouldn't that be a more profitable place to dwell?
You would think, if God could crush the most powerful army in the world, destroy it in a great flood, bring us out, provide us food and water through the desert where there isn't much, bring us all the way out here, what's a city with some big guys compared to the mightiest army on the planet that God just wiped out? That's how they should have been dwelling, but they didn't dwell there, they dwelt in a house of sticks. They dwelt in a house of straw. And, instead of moving on into the Promised Land, they ended up dwelling in the desert for forty years, in the desert of indecision, in the desert of fear.
Where do we dwell? Some people dwell in the desert of indecision, never able to exercise the faith necessary to really move forward, to really trust God, take Him at His Word and to move forward as they should.
Some people dwell in fear. Some people dwell in doubt. Some people dwell in disbelief. Some people dwell in their hurts and it doesn't mean that there aren't justifications for our hurts. Many times there are, but some people dwell there; that's where they live and they don't come out. Some people dwell in sin. Some people dwell in error and aren't willing to confront the error. Some people dwell in a spirit of judgment and criticism. Some people dwell in bitterness. It's like a bondage to dwell in bitterness and hurt.
Some people — you know, I live in Tucson, we get a lot of snow birds there — some people dwell in two places and when it gets tough in one place they just move on to another. It gets too cold up in Michigan, they come down to Tucson. It gets too hot down in Tucson, they go back to Michigan. They don't dwell anyplace for very long. They just kind of — and I'm not saying snow birds are evil people, please understand, they're wonderful people and a lot of them are pretty smart people to get out of a town, you know, you see the evil coming from afar off and you get out of there, that's a good thing, but, you know, it can be a bad thing too, if you're not willing to stay where God says to stay and face the challenges where you need to face them. That can be a bad thing — dwelling in two places.
I used to have spiritual discussions with my grandfather when we were coming into the Church. He was a lifelong Catholic and he knew his ScripturesThe divinely inspired writings of both the Old and New Testaments. The term Scripture is used in the New Testament to refer to both the Hebrew Bible (Luke 24:44-45) and the new apostolic writings accepted as inspired (2 Peter 3:16; 1 Timothy 5:18). pretty well and he loved to argue the ScripturesThe divinely inspired writings of both the Old and New Testaments. The term Scripture is used in the New Testament to refer to both the Hebrew Bible (Luke 24:44-45) and the new apostolic writings accepted as inspired (2 Peter 3:16; 1 Timothy 5:18). with us, and as soon as we got him, you know, narrowed down to where he couldn't—he couldn't — have an answer for us, he jumped. He couldn't admit that he was wrong. He just jumped to another subject. It's like he couldn't dwell in error, admit it and do something about it, he just jumped. He was like a snow bird. It got tough in one place and he moved to another; when it got tough there, he moved back again, back and forth, back and forth. We need to, sometimes, build, settle and build where we are, instead of being nomads.
Some people live or dwell in a land of their own makeup, make believe, where they're not in touch with reality. They just dwell somewhere else, instead of in reality.
So, where is it that we dwell? Where do we dwell?
Abraham was told to get out of the place where he dwelt in Ur of the Chaldees and to go to a place that God would show him. Isn't that what God says to us? He calls us out of spiritual Egypt, of the bondage of the wrong ways of thinking, the wrong ways of belief, the lies that we may have grown up with. He calls us out of all that and He says come to the place I'm going to show you, a place that flows with milk and honey.
Israel dwelt for hundreds of years in Egypt. It was a bad place, but God wanted to bring them out to a good place. It's interesting, when you read the history of Israel, how many times God says to His people, "come out" to a place that I will show you, and we need to exercise the faith to follow where God will lead.
After Abraham came out of Ur of the Chaldees, he eventually moved on down to the territory that God had promised him and he lived there as a sojourner. His son, Isaac, continued to live in the same territory. Their families grew wealthy in the trade through the area, but there came a famine in the days of Isaac, and when famine comes, you know, things at times get tough, don't they? It's like the winds start blowing and you start to get nervous and you go to someplace or you want to find someplace that's more secure, or you think is more secure. Isaac was dwelling in the land and there was a famine and so he started to move.
Let's turn to Genesis, chapter 26. Genesis, chapter 26, starting in verse 1, it tells us this:
Genesis 26:1-6
Vs. 1 — "There was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech, the king of the Philistines, in Gerar."
Now, why did he go to Gerar? What was he thinking? What was he dwelling on?
If you know the territory, the geography of the Middle East, here's Israel, and then over here — next to Israel, of course, is the Mediterranean — I should do this the other way around so that I'm looking at the map my way — here's Israel and here's the Mediterranean Sea, down here is Egypt. Gerar is here.
So, Isaac is dwelling in the land of promise in Israel, moving up and down the trade routes along the north-south spine of that territory, and then he starts to move down to Gerar. Why is he moving to Gerar? Because his intention is he's going to Egypt and Gerar is where you have to get by in order to go to Egypt, but God stops him in Gerar and he says in verse 2:
Vs. 2 — "The Lord appeared to him and said: 'Do not go down to Egypt;' — he said — 'live in the land of which I shall tell you.'"
Vs. 3 — "'Dwell in this land, and I will be with you and bless you; for to you and your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will perform the oath, which I swore to Abraham your father.'"
He said this is the territory I promised you. Don't go to Egypt. Isaac was saying, boy, it looks a lot better in Egypt right now than it looks here. There's a famine here. They have a river that continually floods and provides them with food, you know, a regular food supply. I can go to Egypt and I can eat. God said don't go to Egypt. Don't dwell there. I want you to dwell here.
Vs. 4 — "'And I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven; I will give to your descendants all these lands; and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed;'"
Vs. 5 — "'because Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.'"
Vs. 6 — And "So Isaac dwelt in Gerar."
He did what God said. He didn't fall into the trap of going to Egypt, even though Egypt looked appealing.
When you're in a trial, when the winds start blowing, spiritually speaking, do you sometimes have the tendency to want to go somewhere else that looks like it might be easier? I just don't want to deal with this. I'm going to go where it's easier. Isaac thought I'm going to go where it's easier. God said no, don't go there, it's a trap. I don't want you there. I want you to dwell here. Egypt looked particularly appealing at that time. It looked safe. God knew it wasn't. Sometimes we want to go someplace to escape, but it's not necessarily where God wants us. It's not where God is going to bless us.
And we know that later on, in the next generation, the family of Jacob did move down to Egypt. Of course, Jacob's son, Joseph, was sold by his brothers into slavery there. Ultimately, God blessed him, enduring another famine. Then, the family of Jacob, the family of Israel, did move down to Egypt but, you know, isn't it interesting, they came down there, they were given by the Pharaoh the beautiful territory of Goshen — not in the heart of Egypt, it's kind of on the border.
Spiritually speaking, when you get out of a tough place, do you kind of go part way but you don't want to go all the way into what you know isn't right, you just kind of want to go part way? Israel went part way, they went into Goshen and there, for awhile, it was comfortable. There, for awhile, they prospered and everything seemed to be just fine; but, ultimately, what happened, they became slaves in that land and they built, with bricks, and, ultimately, what had to happen for God to dwell with them, it says in Exodus, chapter 29, they had to come out, because Egypt was not where God ultimately wanted them to be. It wasn't their permanent dwelling.
God had already promised them their dwelling and Egypt wasn't it. Exodus, chapter 29 and verse 46. Well, starting in verse 45 God says:
Exodus 29:45-46
Vs. 45 — "I will dwell among the children of Israel and will be their God."
Vs. 46 — "And they shall know that I am the Eternal their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt" — "I brought them up out of the land of Egypt" — "that I may dwell among them. I am the Lord their God."
God wasn't going to dwell among them there. Egypt was a house of straw. Oh, it looked good, but it was going to get blown away. God didn't want His people there. He had something more permanent in mind than that.
Now, consider another individual who ended up dwelling where God didn't want him to be. Consider Lot. Abraham and Lot's flocks grew large and to the point where they couldn't share enough territory and Abraham said look, Lot, let's go over to this mountain and we'll look over the territory; whichever way looks good to you, you go that way and I'll go the other and that way we'll have enough room for all of our flocks. And so Lot looked over the land, he saw the valley was well watered, good pasturage down there and he said I'm going to go to the valley and Abraham said fine. They separated.
Well, what happened when we next read about Lot, he's not in the valley anymore, not in the pastureland, he ends up in the city down there and it's in a bad place. Lot ended up in a bad place. Now, it looked appealing, at the first place, it looked like a good thing to do and, yet, it ended up to be a bad place for Lot and he had to be called out of that bad place.
Later on, Judah of the Kingdom of Judah — Jeremiah, chapter 42 — Judah came into captivity by Babylon many, many years later — Jeremiah, chapter 42 — and after Nebuchadnezzar came down and took the king and the majority of the people out of the land, out of the territory, there was left a remnant of the Jews in and around Jerusalem; they came to Jeremiah and said, what's the Lord say for us to do, and it says in verse 9 of Jeremiah, chapter 42:
Jeremiah 42:9-16
Vs. 9 — He "said to them," — or God through Jeremiah — "said to the people," —the poor remnant that was left of Judah after the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon — He "said to them, 'Thus says the Eternal, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your petition before Him:'"
Vs. 10 — "'If you will still remain in this land, then I will build you and not pull you down, and I will plant you and not pluck you up. For I relent concerning the disaster that I have brought upon them'" — the disaster of capture, domination by the Babylonians.
Vs. 11 — He says in verse 11, but "'do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid; do not be afraid of him, says the Eternal, 'for I am with you, to save you and to deliver you from his hand.'"
See, they were dwelling in fear, in fear of the king of Babylon, instead of dwelling in faith in God and so God is encouraging them to dwell in a safe place, dwell in faith, and it's right here in the land that I gave you.
Vs. 12 — Verse 12 says, "'I will show you mercy, that he may have mercy on you and cause you to return to your own land.'"
Vs. 13 — "'But if you say, "We will not dwell in this land" disobeying the voice of the Eternal your God,'"
Vs. 14 — "'saying, "No, but we will go to the land of Egypt where we will see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor be hungry for bread, and there we will dwell" —'"
Vs. 15 — "Then hear now the word of the Eternal, O remnant of Judah! Thus says the Eternal of hosts, the God of Israel: 'If you wholly set your faces to enter Egypt, and go to dwell there,'"
Why would they want to go to Egypt? I mean they knew what happened years ago to their ancestors when they went to Egypt. Why would they think, well, this is a good time to go to Egypt? Well, because Egypt was way on the other side from Babylon. Babylon just took them captive and they thought, boy, this guy's going to come down and he's going to make life even more miserable for us. We're going to go the other way. We're going to take refuge in Babylon's enemy, Egypt. Egypt will protect us. See, it looked like an attractive option for them. God said nope, wrong thinking, wrong thinking. Don't do that.
Vs. 16 — He said, if you go there, "'you will die.'"
Vs. 17 — "So shall it be with all the men who set their faces to go to Egypt to dwell there. They shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. And none of them shall remain or escape from the disaster that I will bring upon them.'"
God was going to huff and puff and blow the house of Egypt down. He was going to do that to Babylon too. They were going to be houses that were going to get blown away and He said to His people don't dwell there. Don't dwell there. God says to His people, continually, come out.
Well, if you're in a bad place, if you're in an Egypt, spiritually speaking, if you're dwelling in a bad place, what brought you to your bad place? Maybe you were born in a bad place. You were born into a situation where you had no choice, but you were going to grow up in a perverted, weird way of thinking that was going to be unprofitable. Hey, we all grow up in a world that's been deceived by Satan and living in the fruits of this way of life of this world. In that sense, we're all born into this world. What about that?
Abraham was born in a bad place. He was born in Ur and God said come out. He called him. We have to come out, if we're born in a bad place. Maybe we are driven to a bad place. Have you ever known people that were driven into a bad place emotionally? Maybe by abuse that they've experienced and because of that they've got patterns of thinking, emotions, that they struggle with and it's not healthy. It's a bad place to dwell, but they were driven there. Kind of like the famine in the land drove them out into a bad place.
People that suffered great hurt or great abuse often dwell in bitterness or adopt a lifestyle that is unhealthy spiritually or pick up addictions that are hard to dwell with. It's a bad place to dwell and they were driven there, just like Isaac was almost driven to Egypt.
Maybe you were drawn to a bad place. You know, it didn't look like a bad place to go for Lot when he thought the pasturage was nice down in the valley. It looked like a good idea and so he went, but over time, somehow, he got magnetically attracted to the city of Sodom and he was drawn in there and it turned out to be a bad place. You know, sometimes an idea looks good or an option looks good and we go there and it turns out to be an unhealthy thing for us in the end.
Maybe we're drawn to a bad place but, you know, whether we were born in a bad place, whether we were driven to a bad place, or whether we were drawn into a bad place, if we're in a bad place, however it is that we got there, God says come out. Come out and dwell with Me.
