Open—Paul House
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Turn please to Nehemiah Chapter 9 and enjoying the UH.
Ezra Nehemiah Lee.
And I would like to speak this morning.
A little further.
Along the lines of what our brother just brought before us.
I stand here not as one that has achieved anything.
But as one who has a desire.
To please the Lord Jesus and I trust that each one of us are here this afternoon because or this morning because we have that same desire. We want to please the Lord Jesus in our lives and we just.
May it be that each one of us would be encouraged. So Nehemiah, Chapter 9.
Israel had been.
In the Promised Land, God had blessed them.
But because of their unfaithfulness, there'd been that captivity.
They'd been in the land of Babylon for 70 years, and then there was a returning to the land. Nehemiah was used of God to build the wall around Jerusalem.
And there was tremendous blessing to the few that were able to return.
But Nehemiah was able to take a very low place. I enjoyed what Bill said about that.
Nehemiah took a low place. He confessed the weakness.
And why they were there in that weakness. Let's start with.
Verse 21 of Chapter 9 The a 40 years stood thou sustained them in the wilderness, so that they lack nothing. Their clothes wax not old, and their feet swelled not. Moreover, thou gavest them kingdoms and nations in this divide them into corners.
And so on verse 23 their children also multiplied thou as the stars of heaven, and broadest them into the land, concerning which thou hast promised to their fathers, that they should go in to possess it. So the children went in and possessed the land, and thou subdued them before them, the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gave us them into their hands with their kings and the people of the land, that they might do with them as they would. And they took strong cities in a fat land.
Possessed houses full of all good things, all goods wells, digged vineyards, and all of yards and fruit trees and abundance. So they did eat, and were filled, and became fat, and delighted themselves in thy great goodness.
Now this verse. Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against Thee, and cast Thy law behind their backs, and slew Thy prophets, which testified against them, to turn them to Thee, and they wrought great provocations. Therefore Thou deliverest them into the hand of their enemies who vexed them, And in the time of their trouble, when they cried unto thee, thou Hearst them from heaven, and according to Thy manifold mercies, thou.
And saviors who saved them out of the hand of their enemies.
But after they had rest, they didn't go again before thee, therefore left to thou them in the land of their enemies, so that they had dominion over them. Yet when they returned and cried unto thee, thou heardest them from heaven and many times.
Dost thou deliver them according to thy mercies? So this morning I want to talk a little bit about deliverers.
We just had about overcomers. I wanna talk now about deliverers.
This is individuals that God used to deliver his people in time of need.
Time of need because of departure.
And I stand here.
As one who is weak.
And we are weak.
We're no better.
Than perhaps we could say we're no better than Israel was in their day. Why? You know, we have received so much good so freely from the hand of God, but what have we done with it?
And have we cast the things of God behind our backs?
Are we too busy?
Sad to say, often I am too busy.
Perhaps there's other things in your life.
That are overcoming you.
You know, I don't have a I don't have trouble with video games.
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I did.
When I was a young person, the video games.
Were very trivial games.
The engineering that was in the software at that time was very, very low end. The graphics were pathetic.
But I still enjoyed them. There was something that drew me into it.
Things like Tetris, you say, well, you like that. So yeah, I enjoyed that. It was a challenge to me and thankfully I didn't get sucked in by it. But, you know, there might be somebody here today and you are sucked in by it. You're overcome. So what do you need to do? You need to be delivered, and perhaps there's somebody here today.
And you wanna be a deliverer for the Lord?
I wanna look at a couple of examples of people who delivered the people of God.
But they had to be low first.
They had to be low first in order to be used by the Lord to deliver.
Perhaps you are over being overcome.
But you know, with the Lord's help, that can change.
That can change and to me that's so special in the Word of God because you know God and his love to us. He gives us examples of people in his Word that didn't do too well the beginning.
But God used them in the end for great blessing.
Before we get to a couple of people I like to look at, I want to just read a verse in Second Corinthians.
2nd Corinthians.
Chapter One.
And there was a brother who shared this verse with me.
And it starts well.
First hand, it's part way through a sentence, but I'll just read verse 13 because it says verse 10 of chapter one. Who delivered us from so great at death, and doth deliver in whom we trust that He will yet deliver us.
Now the brother that shared this verse with me was my father.
And you say, well, why did you say it that way? That a brother shared it with me? Well, a lot of us here today have fathers.
We love the Lord Jesus to.
And I know some of you have a father, an earthly father who you're very close to and who you speak to about the Scriptures. And that's very good, very commendable.
But a lot of you perhaps don't.
But that's a resource that you have available to you.
And I would encourage you young people particularly, whose fathers are godly men.
To turn to them and look for help in the scriptures from them. So my dad read this verse to me and he explained it this way.
You know the Lord Jesus, He went to Calvary's cross.
And He delivered us from the wrath to come.
And then it says.
He doth deliver.
Every day of our life, and you know there's a day coming when we will be delivered from this world. The Lord Jesus is gonna take us home to be with himself. And my dad suffers physically. And so that was the tenet of his conversation with me. He looked forward to that day when he would have a changed body.
But I just enjoyed that so much from my dad and you young guys.
Talk to your dad, you young sisters, talk to your dad, talk to your mom. Share the scriptures together. We need help. I gave one example of video games. But there's many other things that we can have in this world before us that can be a real trouble in trial and can take us down. And so this this morning, what I would like to do is look at a couple of people.
That have been a tremendous encouragement to me in my life. So let's turn to Acts Chapter 7.
Acts Chapter 7. This is Stephen speaking to the Jewish people that he was being held by.
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He was Speaking of Moses.
And let's go back.
We know the story of how Moses sought to be a help and he went out.
There's uh.
25 For he supposed his brethren would have understood how the God by his hand would deliver them, but they understood not. And the next day he showed himself unto them as they strove, and would have set them at one again, saying, Sirs EB brethren, why did he wrong one another? But he did his name. But he that did his neighbor wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made the ruler and a judge over us? Wilt thou kill me as thou didst the Egyptian yesterday?
Then Moses then fled. Moses that that same at this saying, and was a stranger in the land of Midian, where he begat two sons. And when 40 years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai an Angel of the Lord, and the flame of fire, and a Bush. When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight, and as he drew near to behold it, the voice of the Lord came unto him, saying, I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
Then Moses trembled, and durst not behold.
Then said the Lord to him, Put off thy shoes from thy feet, for the place where thou standest is holy ground. I have seen, I have seen the affliction of my people which is in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and I'm calm down to deliver them. And now come, I will send thee into Egypt. This Moses, whom they refuse, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? The same did God send to be.
Ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the Angel which appeared to him in the Bush. He brought them out. After that he had showed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and in the Red Sea and in the wilderness. 40 years. I'll turn to Chapter 11 of Hebrews, please. We'll read a verse that a little more detail of.
Moses.
Verse 24. Hebrews 11. By faith. Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt. For he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.
By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.
So I deliver.
A deliverer, he made a choice in verse 25.
This morning.
God has seen fit to have each one of us be here this morning.
And I put out a challenge to us in this way.
Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
What will your choice be?
Will you choose to suffer reflection with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a moment?
For a season.
US steam the riches of Christ, greater riches, and the treasure treasures of Egypt.
By faith.
He forsook Egypt.
This is what's necessary.
There's going to be overcoming.
If there's gonna be deliverance.
And we're gonna be a deliverer.
We need faith.
First of all.
Do you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior?
If you do, then you have a new life from the Lord and right now the Holy Spirit is tapping you on the shoulder and you're and saying, yes, what the word of God says is absolutely true and you can be delivered and you can be a deliverer. You can overcome. You can, but it's by the power of God.
It's by having faith and having the source, the Lord Jesus Christ.
In your life, you know Moses made this choice.
He had everything in this world available to him. He had power and money and prestige and everything we naturally want. But he made that choice. And so I present that to you this AF this morning.
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Here's somebody.
That we can follow their faith.
We can read these verses whenever there's a challenge in our hearts, whenever the devil puts something before us, whenever we're tempted to hit the on button.
Whenever we're tempted to open the magazine, whatever it may be.
This verse is here choosing. It's a choice that we make each time.
May God put in our hearts the desire to be a deliverer for the people of God. You know Moses did it in his first, in his strength at first. And so that man called him out. He said, Who made thee a ruler? Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?
40 years went by.
Moses was in the desert, in the wilderness with the Lord.
And then God could use him to be a deliverer for the people of God. But he had made that choice himself, and the result was that then he could be a help to others.
We know each other pretty well, don't we?
The people you're sitting beside you've known for years.
And you have a pretty good idea how they're doing.
And you need to have a pretty good idea what they're into.
You know, there's a couple of people here. I don't wanna name them, but they've been my friends all my life. They know me pretty well.
Few of them have done this to me.
At times they stuck their elbow out when I needed it.
You know if the Lord helps us to be an overcomer.
Can we help our friends?
Our brothers, our sisters, the ones that we spend time with, can we help them too? You know, that's what Moses did. He helped the people of God. You know, we love our friends.
What better way than to encourage them in a spiritual and spiritual things?
Now let's turn back to the Book of Judges for another one third chapter.
There's many that the Holy Spirit refers to as deliverers in the scriptures. Will Passover verse 9 where it speaks about He was a deliverer.
We'll go on to.
The 12Th verse Judges chapter 3. And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord.
And the Lord strengthened Eglon, the king of Moab, against Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of the Lord. And he gathered unto him the children of Ammon and Amalek, and went and smote Israel, and possessed the city of palm trees.
So the children of Israel serve Eglon, the king of Moab, 18 years.
It's a long time, 18 years.
Probably people that are here right now that think they're pretty grown up that are 18 years old.
But 18 years they served. I want to make another application. How many years have you been into the sin that you're into?
Maybe it's 18 years.
Now, I'm not speaking to everybody here, but there's probably some people that have been into the thing that's over overcoming them.
For a long time.
But it doesn't need to be that way anymore. There can be deliverance. And God, in his goodness to Israel, when they had departed from Him, raised up another deliverer.
Verse 15 But when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised them up, a deliverer, Eva, the son of Guerra, a Benjamite, a man left-handed. If you look in your margin, it says a man shut up of his right hand.
And by him the children of Israel sent a present on day along the king of Moab.
And verse 16 he had made him a dagger which had two edges of a cubit length, and he did gird it under his raiment upon his right hand, and he brought the present. I think we know the story that this man was used of God to kill the king of Moab, and he was a deliverer to the people of God.
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We heard how that we need to go down.
I don't wanna read too much into this.
But I think this man might have been handicapped.
He was left-handed.
He brought this present or he used his left hand to kill this king.
And he looked.
Like, not much of A threat.
Here's this man that his right hand was worthless, perhaps.
You had a left hand, so the servants of the King of Moab was like, no, no harm in him, he can't do anything anyway. But he had prepared this sort. The dagger, he had it under his cloak.
And to me, I I just really enjoy this.
You know.
Were insignificant.
Followers of Christ, but there are things that we can do and this man.
Prepared this dagger. He had a purpose and he used the sword very, very successfully.
Perhaps this would speak of applying the Word of God at the right moment, at the right time to be a help to the people of God.
Israel needed a deliverer.
Because of their state.
There's been people.
The Lord is used to help me.
To deliver me when I needed help.
I trust that the Lord will use these few words.
To tap us on the shoulder.
To be willing to be used by the Lord to help others.
To be a deliverer.
To deliver them from situations. You know this man of this king of Moab, he was a really fat man.
And there's lots in this portion that we can meditate upon. But he was a fleshly, overindulgent person.
This was the enemy of God's people.
And this man was a deliverer from this lusty fat king and from all of his overweight people that work for him. They were eating all of Israel's food.
And God used this man to deliver his people. You know, this morning, God's desire.
I really believe, as we heard before, that we would overcome, but that we would have a desire to be a deliverer for God too, and to help others.
#32 in the back.
All right.
All right.
Give me a few minutes. I want to make a.
Thank you, our gracious God and loving Father.
We thank you for this little time together.
To be with those with those of like precious faith.
To hear by word.
Our loving God and Father, that which Thou would provide for us in these few days, we might have our ears opened and our hearts open to receive that which helped us have for us.
Those of all ages might receive something from thee that can we can make it good to our souls. I might grant grace the walk and the truth that thou has given to us. We thank you for the.
Reminder of thy work on the cross, Lord Jesus, that has made us overcomers positionally before the loving God and Father.
And we would seek Thy grace that we might be overcomers practically in our walk and way here in this scene. So we thank you for the word that we had before us, reminding us that we can be overcomers in the Lord Jesus.
Thank you too, that we can look beyond this scene down here to that time when we will be with thee, Lord Jesus, and like thee for all eternity.
What a joyous hope.
That we have before us a certain hope of being forever with thyself above in the Father's house. While we're here, we need Thee. And so we looked at the independence, our loving God and Father, for Thy help and Thy care. For each one say it will be here this day. We thank you for our brethren here to invite us. We pray that Thou would continue to help them here to meet their needs and encourage their hearts and strengthen them.
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We ask these things, our loving God and Father, with Thanksgiving and the precious and the worthy name of our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.