Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 442 -- taken from Closed Captioning Text

-- Brother Phil Enlow: The devil is very slick at backing up his lies and causing them to appear to be very reasonable. If your heart is wanting to go in the wrong direction, don't worry, Satan knows how to couch his lie in such a way that it will seem to be in line and in harmony. And what it'll do is kind of feed that thing and give you a reason--it'll give you a reason for doing and going in the wrong direction. It will make you feel okay. Well I know this isn't quite right, but. He is real good with those buts. He loves to interject them.

So what...now let's see what...let's sort of examine for a minute what the devil said here. Says, "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil." So now he's explaining through his mind why God told her what He did. And what he did was to sow a seed of doubt--just a little seed of doubt. God's not really concerned about my welfare, is he? He's got His own plan. He's got His own agenda. He's just telling me this for His own benefit. He's holding me back. He's keeping me from something that's good.

Jimmy quoted a scripture from the Psalms: "No good thing" --or he referred to it--"No good thing shall he withhold from them that walk uprightly." There's not one good thing. You think that God who has got all these things planned for us, Who sent His Son to die, you think He really is going to withhold good things from us when they are truly good.

-- Congregation: No

-- Brother Phil Enlow: The problem is, we set our own definitions of what we think is good. And Satan was appealing to her mind right here--got the wheels turning a little bit. And suddenly she began to consider. You know something, maybe God hasn't really got my best interest at heart. Maybe I'd better do something about it. I'd better...you know, the whole thought of mankind today is, "Nobody's going look out for you. You've got to look out for number one." Isn't that kind of in a capsule form the spirit of this world? Everybody's got to look out for himself. Praise God, I'm glad I've got one looking out for me!

( congregational praise).

Praise the Lord! You see the seed of doubt that was sown in her mind right here was simply a distrust of God. She no longer trusted God to do the right thing by her. That is at the heart of human rebellion. If you come to a place where you don't trust God, that's what sin is all about. That's why people are going to hell. This is the difference between faith and belief--faith and unbelief. Anyway you know what I'm trying to say. Just keep your ears tuned right and you'll be able to sort of translate all this gibberish that is coming out of my mouth! But, praise God!

Anyway, so here the devil begins to appeal to her on this basis. And what he's saying is you can't trust God. But you know that's what we say when we say, "Yes I've given my life to God but..." and then something comes in there. Something comes in and begins to intrude into our mind and our hearts and our desires begin to run in that direction. And then all of a sudden the devil's gonna start giving you reasons why that's okay.

But you know what it really comes down to is, I'm not willing to trust God with this thing. And that's what--that's at the root of what happens in all of these cases. You've got somebody that grows up in the church and they say, I going to trust--I've trusted God with my life. But all of a sudden they reach this issue and suddenly they got the reins in their hands. Don't you dare take them out. I'll tell you what, if we cannot trust God with things like this, how can we trust him with our soul?

( congregational amen's ).

There's nothing more important than that. This is the issue that divides humankind this night. We are rapidly, as Jimmy said, approaching the end of the age. And when the end of the age comes, you're going to find every man, woman, boy, or girl in this world in one of two camps. They are either going to be in the camp of those who don't trust God, don't believe God.... In spite of all that He said, all the word that He spread throughout the world over these last hundreds, thousands of years. He's manifested His word to mankind and mankind has said, we don't want it. I don't believe you. I don't trust you. I'm going to do it myself. I'm going to do my own way. That's the spirit that is absolutely ruling in this world.

And I know that real Christians can be sidetracked with things and God can work with their hearts and bring them back. But sometimes it's a symbol--it's a signal of something else going on. I tell you the Bible talks about those who received the word with joy. You know He says that certain--all kinds of people hear the word of God. But there are some who hear it and anon with joy they receive it, don't they? They like what they hear. There's something that's positive. They like the idea of forgiveness of sins and peace and joy, and going to heaven one day.

But somewhere--somewhere along the line is an issue that comes up. They are offended by the Word. Something comes in that crosses their will and they're not able to lay that thing aside. The next thing you know, they're gone. You see what happened was they never, never really trusted God in the first place. All they did was just kind of try to take hold of something.

This is kind of migrating. I hope the Lord is migrating it, but into some things that I had thought of and I'll try to be just as brief as I can with them. Because I see in the life of Abraham, the father of our faith, the father of faith, the one in whom God first really dealt with the principle of faith and what it really means to believe God. He's the one, and it's something that's just kind of become real to me and real to my heart in Chapter 15--that I think illustrates some of this. And you can contrast that with what Eve did in the garden. It really illustrates, I believe, the difference.

Now we know that God had called Abraham out. And of course this goes right along with what Jimmy was saying. The call of Abraham was to come out of his country, to leave his kindred. It was to break every earthly tie and just simply believe God and go where He said. Abraham, did what? He did it. That's an act of faith. That's an act of obedience. That's an act of trust.

And so, we see him come through a number of circumstances, a number of situations. And it says, "After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, fear not Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless..." How is all this stuff going to happen, I don't have a child? "And the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?" I've got this foreign guy running my affairs. And if anything happens to me, he's the one that gets it all. I mean, this is... you're saying all these wonderful things but it just doesn't look like anything's happening here.

"And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir. And, behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall they seed be."

Now here is one of the key verses in all of scripture, right here. This is the key. "And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness." You see what Eve did, she moved into a place of distrust. That's where paranoia came from. You just don't trust anybody. Human beings just do not by nature trust, not truly, not really, not enough to let go. But, you know when we come to God, real faith is letting go.

Now I notice one thing it does not say. It does not say Abraham believed the promise, does it? It doesn't say that. Abraham believed in the Lord. It was personal. He had such an appreciation, such an understanding of Who was talking to him that his faith was in the person and not simply in the promise.

How do we know that? You follow down in the story later on and you'll find out that God put him to the test, didn't He? Miraculously he brought forth a son when there was no natural means how this could have happened. It was a miracle son. Just a witness to us that the miracle of the new birth that it takes to even become a part of God's kingdom. It is the same kind of miracle. God has to intervene, just as he intervened in that case.

And then the young lad became, you know was growing up and then one day God spoke to Abraham and said, "I want you to take your son"--and interestingly enough He says--"thine only son." That was the only one that God recognized. Take thy son, thine only son and basically go off to Mt. Moriah and put him to death in a sacrifice. I'm having to paraphrase this as I certainly can't quote all that.

But you know, think about that. Boy, if you had a ground or a time when if you were harboring doubts that would have surfaced, this was that time. This was that time. God, you told me.... Now here's the devil whispering in his ear, boy, I told you, you couldn't trust that fellow. This is crazy. It doesn't make a bit of sense.

I tell you, that doesn't have anything to do with it. Trust in God is trust in God, period. It's absolute. It means we trust him. It means we put everything in his hands and we take it...we step back and say, Lord, I'm yours. And I'll tell you Abraham did it. He went to the mountain. He went up and his own son asked him where is the sacrifice? He said, the Lord will provide.

You know there's other places in the scripture where there's a suggestion that you know in Abraham's mind, he may have thought, well, I guess I'm going to have to go through with this and God's gonna raise him from the dead. You know we reason out how we think things are gonna happen. But in this case the reasoning didn't interfere with what he was supposed to do. He actually got to the point of raising the knife. And the Lord spoke. He said, whoa, wait a minute. Now I see that you will not withhold anything from me. He saw what he referred to back here, believing in the Lord. He trusted the person. That's what is going to make all the difference in every life--all the difference. Dare I say a hell of a difference, because it's a difference between heaven and hell.

( congregational praise ).

It's people come to the place where they absolutely turn everything over, and say, Lord, my life is yours. I don't have the answers. I don't know about the future. I don't know if you want me to have a wife or husband at all, but I'm willing Lord. I want to do your will, period, and I'm willing to trust all of these issues with you. It doesn't mean we won't be tried. It doesn't mean that we won't take side steps and have problems and issues to go through, but God will....

There's something fundamental that happens when we reach that place, when we trust. Think of Job. I had an interesting thought about Job today, and I really believe that part of what God is doing--just one little aspect of what God is doing among mankind, and particularly his people, He's demonstrating to the devil how wrong he was in what he did.

And notice when the devil actually came with the sons of God before the Lord. Now who was it who brought Job up? How did Job become part of the conversation? God drew the devil's attention to Job. He said, "Have you considered my servant, Job? There is none like him in all the earth. He is a righteous man." And the devil being natured as he was, he said, "Sure. I mean give me a break. You've blessed the guy. What do you expect him to do?" That's the modern version. But that's essentially what he said. He's serving you because you are blessing him.

All right, go ahead, take everything he has; we'll see. God put Job as exhibit number one before the devil. Job didn't know what was going on. But notice something that Job said early on in all that happened to him, not only his possessions but his family. Everyone but his wife and she wasn't much help. But everyone--maybe the devil knew she wasn't going to be much help and left her. I don't know.

( laughter ).

Certainly it had a lot to do with his friends. They weren't much help. But anyway there he was, boils. I mean, talk about miserable! None of us has any right to complain if you're going to look at Job. But what did he say in the midst of that? He said, "Though he slay me" what? "Yet will I" do what?

-- Congregation: "Trust him."

-- Brother Phil Enlow: Trust Him. That's faith. That's what God is looking for from every single one of us. It is a personal trust that simply says, God my life is yours. That's the end of it. I'm in your hands. Help me to be your servant. Just give me what I need to get through this world and to be what I'm supposed to be. But Lord, it's over, I'm serving you. I'm casting my lot one hundred percent with you and one hundred percent with your people. That's the end of it.

I tell you the end of the age is drawing near. And I see in the parable in Matthew 25, I see that there were ten virgins there and it says of them that they went forth to meet the bridegroom--the best I remember. I'm going to have to look up that one... that one up. Matthew 25. That's what it says, "Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom."

Now I don't know if you ever really noticed this before but there is something that precedes this that's understood, that is sort of implied. Every single one of these people had already heard about Christ's coming and had responded to the message about it. That's where verse one starts. That's already happened. They didn't just do this out of thin air. God had somehow manifested His word saying, Christ is coming! You need to get ready. And these were all people who got--who said they were going to get ready.

But the problem was only some of them were. And I believe that there is a connection here between what faith really is and what it's not that has everything to do with the fact that some of them were ready and some of them weren't. You know you can do a lot of things outwardly. You can go along. You can do the right things. Do you know what the word acquiesce means? Some of you do. It's a French word I think. I'm assuming that it is. It sounds like one. But basically it means "to go along with." It's something that you externally do.

If you were to get into a conflict with somebody who was maybe over you, and they were saying, you know pressing you about a certain issue and you just decided well this battle is not worth fighting. Yea, okay, I throw my hands in. I'll give in. I'll do what you say. See, what's happened there? Do they really believe it down here or are they just kind of going along?

I think there's a lot of people who try to serve God issue by issue, by issue, by issue, by issue. And sooner or later the right issue is going to come along and they are going to bolt. Instead of saying Lord, here are the reins, help me with the issues. I know there are going to be issues but Lord, I know you love me. I trust you. You see the difference. You understand the difference? Some of these people had outwardly gone along, professed I want to be ready. Yes, I want to do and probably did all the right things.

So did the children of Israel, by the way. A lot of them did a lot of right things. There were some of them who survived many of the judgments and the early murmurings. And they went right along. They kept... they served God, you know seemingly. They certainly all rejoiced at the Red Sea. Who wouldn't? You just walked away from your enemies through walls of water and watched those walls of water come crashing down on them and end them. Anybody'd rejoice at that.

But I'll tell you the issues really--the issues of life are where the feelings are gone and we get crossed real good. That's what proves who has the real thing on the inside. And God knows how to bring that out. I don't want to go along through that particular parable, but I believe that that is really fundamentally what makes the difference between those who believe God and those who don't.

I'll tell you it is a sober time because there's going to be a time when the door is shut. You know it's like I can see the Lord through the age and it happens--it's happening in a general sense with humankind as I said earlier. It's happening--this pattern of God speaking to the world and the door being held open. But it also happens with individual lives, individual nations, individual peoples, all down through this general process. But it's like God is holding a door open. Look, here you live in darkness. You are part of the world that is controlled by the spirit of the devil, of sin. You're headed for destruction but I've made a way of escape. That's the message of the gospel.

But to have that--to have righteousness is not a matter of measuring up to laws. It's not a matter of feelings. It's not a matter of a lot of things. It's a matter of just coming to a place where you surrender. You trust me. You undo what Eve did in the garden. You come back to that place where you trust me completely and I become your God and you become my child.

But what happens when He says come, and He says come, and He says come? Eventually He says, "All right, you've made your choice." That's real close to where this whole world has gotten. Most men have made their choice. And they've chosen to stay in the darkness and say no, I don't want that. I want to have my own way. God has left them in that condition. We're real close to that. But it's a sobering thing to say--to examine our hearts and say have I really ever trusted?

But I want to just drop this thought into some, because I know that there are some that this happens to, who really and truly have given their heart to the Lord, but the devil assaults them. I've heard Brother Thomas many times after an altar call say this, "Don't you doubt the Lord." Because what the devil will do is come in and he'll make us the issue. How we feel, what happens, a whole lot of ups and downs, and this's and thats, and suddenly we just get thrown all off stride. And what we really need to realize is that if we ever really put our trust in God, do you really think--do you really think that He's going to violate that trust.

-- Congregation: No.

-- Brother Phil Enlow: Somebody that puts their trust in Him. We can rest in that. Did you ever really, really, really given Him your heart. He's got it. Thank Him. Trust Him. Praise God!

( congregational praise ).

I don't know--maybe that'll help somebody. It helps me because I need this too. The devil talks to me, a lot. But you know we need to learn to stand on this. Boy, he'll make us the issue all day, but it's what Christ has done for us. Is there anybody in this universe who is trustworthy apart from Him--utterly, utterly, completely trustworthy. He is worthy of our trust tonight. I just praise Him! That's a good question to ask ourselves. You know, a lot of these other things are symptoms sometimes, Jimmy. Because God has called us out. And there is a fundamental just unbelief in people.

You know Hebrews chapter 3 warns about--well praise God, I had it in my head ...an evil heart of unbelief. I thought of it just by opening the page. Sometimes that's all it takes. But the Lord warns about an evil heart of unbelief. That means somebody who has down here, they've never trusted God with their whole life. And yeah, they've gone along here and they've gone along there. They've done this and they've done that and they've done the other, and outwardly everything looks fine. But way down here they've never let go. That's what he's talking about.

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