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Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 480 -- taken from Closed Captioning Text -- Brother Phil Enlow: Praise God! I don't know what--I'm not absolutely certain what the Lord has this morning. But I know when I got up this morning and I was shaving...I just had this sense in my spirit. The Lord wants His people to know the simple reality that He's with us to the end of the age. It's something that I don't think we ever get tired of hearing or ever run out of the need to hear. We live in a dark and a difficult and a dangerous time and a scary time and thinking about...you know, human beings naturally tend to think of all the scary things that might come. Of course, we have helpers from the dark side that love to whisper in our ears and tell us all kinds of bad things. What about this? What if this happens? What if that happens? Or what if I'm held up in front of a firing squad, or a thousand and one things? I know the scripture said...actually Jesus Himself in telling us about the end of the age spoke of a time when men's hearts would be failing them for fear...for looking after those things that are coming upon the earth. But I believe with all my heart God's people do not have to fear. There is nothing that pertains to this earth that should cause us to fear. Now, I know those are things that sometimes we have to work through and exercise ourselves concerning, but God's Word is absolutely unchanging and uncompromising. There's no question about where God stands upon this. He has given us a place in Christ where we do not have to fear. And I'm just so thankful! Of course, you could go from one end of the Bible to the other to see the things that the Lord has said--examples of how the Lord has been with His people. Of course, we know Jesus Himself specifically told the disciples to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth. But He said, "And, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." ( congregational amens ). And all we have to do is look at history--some of it modern history, but much of it from the scripture itself, and we can see how the Lord has never once failed His children. Jesus even said on one occasion, don't fear them who can kill the body. See that's one of the things we fear, naturally. We're very protective of this earthly frame that we've been given. But the Lord said, don't be afraid of that. When they've done that, that's all they can do. What God has done and is doing for us is something that will absolutely last forever. And we are safe. Boy, the songs, one behind the other, that we sang coming in here had that same theme--it's the safety. And I believe above all things God wants us to know--those who've truly given their hearts to Him, that we above all people--we're the only people on the face of the earth who have utter and complete safety in this hour. And I'll tell you what. I don't know what's gonna happen. I can't tell you what's gonna happen tomorrow. I don't know what lies down the road. I hope the Lord comes today. But you know, if there's a time frame, if things in the world get worse, there're gonna be times when the devil's gonna be whispering in our ears, "Oh my God! What's happening?" And the people of the world...some of them are gonna start looking around and they're gonna start being terrified. But you know something? We've got a place. We've got a safe, utter place. You think of the circumstances that arose when the children of Israel first arrived on the banks of the Red Sea. Now, first of all, the body of water was impenetrable so far as they were concerned. They didn't have boats. It was too deep to wade. They certainly couldn't have taken a whole 3,000,000 people and all their belongings across by any natural means. And on top of that--and I believe God fixed it this way--God wanted to do something that would demonstrate to the world who He was and show His power through the hardness of heart of this wicked king--this wicked pharaoh. And so, God allowed it to come into his mind and into his heart: "Boy, what a fool I've been! Yeah. What a fool I've been to be out here and let all these slaves go. I had this free labor to build all of my great buildings, do all of my big projects, and now I let them go. Boy, what a fool! What are the other emperors around gonna say about my weakness and who I am?" And so that proud stiff heart rose up in him and he went chasing after them across the wilderness. And suddenly the Israelites found themselves backed up against the Red Sea and the mightiest army on the face of the earth rolling across the desert to crush them. And there they are. Now we know the story, so we can sit here and just say, well, great. Big deal. God opens the sea. But they didn't know that. -- Congregation: That's right. -- Brother Phil Enlow: They didn't know that--they didn't know that. And, boy, I'm sure there was a lot of shouting and squawking and crying out, and my God, what're we gonna do? And the Lord anointed Moses to stand up and say, "Stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD." And the first thing He did was to send forth a cloud and a pillar of fire. It was the very presence of God in the midst of His people. Pharaoh had no idea what he was up against. And, I'm afraid to say a lot of the people didn't know what they had going for them. But, I'll tell you, the Lord wants us to know. But we can look back now and we can see how that cloud came down, the pillar of fire. And the Egyptians would loved to have just come on in and finished the job, but they couldn't. There was a barrier of fire in their way. And all night it stayed there. They were in a perfect place of safety. From the natural standpoint they could not have been in a more vulnerable place, but for one thing, and that's God! ( congregational amens ). That makes all the difference. They were in a place of perfect safety. You know God said of His people, "I bare you on eagles' wings." I'll tell you, when God sets out to do something, there is no natural barrier that can possibly stand in the way of His purpose and His plan. And it didn't there, did it? And so we know that they were kept separated and then we know the story how Moses was told to stretch forth his hand over the waters and they parted. And the Israelites were enabled to go through on dry ground. That'd been something else to look over there and see the fish swimming beside you! You ever walked through one of those aquariums where you're in a tunnel? I don't know if it was like that or not. But whatever it was, it must've been something--it must've been something. But whatever it was, God did what He had to do to get them through. And, of course, the Egyptians said, well great! We've got the waters...we've got the way open, we'll just charge right in after them. That didn't work, did it? The Lord used that to destroy the enemies of the people of God. ( congregational amens ). I'll tell you, we need to know who our God is in this hour. We need to be able to get up in the morning and know that we don't have to live a life of fear and of worrying about anything that comes. ( congregational amens ). God is faithful! God, who has called us into this wilderness, as it were, He knows the way to the Promised Land. You know, a lot of times I think we think we've got to know things. We've got to be able to see down the road. We've go to be able to figure it out. You've got people, religiously speaking, that are just studying this book like crazy trying to figure it all out. You could ask me a thousand and one questions about what's gonna happen out in the future and I'd just have to say, I don't know. That's the simple honest truth. I don't know. But, you know, we don't have to know. There's one thing that we have to know and it's not a thing, it's a One. We need to know the Lord and we need to honor and cultivate the sense of His presence. That's the one place of safety that we have in this world. Turn to Hebrews chapter 11. The writer here gets into sort of a summary toward the end of the chapter, verse 32, "And what then shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: Who through faith subdued kingdoms..." (Boy that's what I want, I want to be able to get out there and subdue kingdoms. Sounds great!) "...wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens." Boy that's really, man that's heady stuff there. We're just gonna be mighty warriors for the Lord! Nothing ever gonna touch us. That's what faith is. Is it? Well for those people it was. God honored and that was His purpose in their particular lives. God was with them in that manner because it was His purpose for them, but what about the rest of this? Well it says, "Women received their dead raised to life again: and others...." Now here's some others listed right along with these same people. It said, "...others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment." You mean somebody could be a hero of faith and be locked away in a prison somewhere? Yes. Yes. Paul spent many years in prison, wrote many of the letters that we have today in prison. Amy Carmichael was a wonderful woman of God. I know some of you ladies probably are familiar with some of her writings. She spent a good deal of her life sick in bed in great pain and yet God brought such wonderful fruit out of that suffering and out of her continued faithfulness toward God. Where others served Him in one way she served Him in another. But the same Lord kept His hand upon her in every single thing. He never once failed her. And I'll tell you what, you look at some of these things and we referred to them, "others had trials of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented (Of whom the world was not worthy)." That's how God looked at these people. Now I'm sure there were people of the world who looked at them and said, "Boy, what a bunch of losers. Here they are trusting in God. They could have taken their talents and used them and they could have gone a long ways in this world but they chose to serve a God somewhere way off somewhere and look where it got them. He failed them. What a bunch of losers!" Were they losers? -- Congregation: No. -- Brother Phil Enlow: No because the thing that God is doing for us on the inside is something that is eternal. When we're begotten of the uncorruptiable seed of the Word of God the very life of God is begotten in us on the inside. That is a life that, like God, cannot die. There is something absolutely indistructable and when we are in His hands we are in the place of utter and complete safety. Praise God. I mean you can go from one end of the Bible to the other and I don't want to needlessly extend this. I did think of one scripture though earlier and it's I think in Isaiah 43. This is the only place of safety that there is. It's to know Him in this hour. ( congregational amens ). Boy, I tell you, if you're here and you don't know Him, you're in awful danger. My God, what a dangerous world this is! God has already declared that He's gonna burn this world up. We need the place of safety. We need a hiding place but He's given it to us, hasn't He? So anyway His word is, "Fear not." Why should they fear not? He tells you right behind it, He says, "for I have redeemed thee." This is something God initiated. God has done something for us when we could do nothing for ourselves. It did not originate with us. It was His own good pleasure as Jesus said, "to give us the kingdom." It's not something we worked for. It's not something we deserved but He determined before the foundation of the world this was something He was going to do. That's what He's brought us into. That's why we don't have to be afraid because this isn't something where we're constantly on probation with God. "Oh my God, at any moment I might say or do the wrong thing and I'm gonna be out the door." When God sets His love on us, "He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." Well that's all it takes. When the day of Jesus Christ comes it's gonna be over! ( congregational amens ). We're gonna be ready to inhabit the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwells righteousness. All the weaknesses, all the sinfulness, all the everything that we have now that we have to contend with, it'll be gone. There won't be any devils whispering in your ear anymore. God will have finished the job He started. Praise God! "Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine." That's what it's about. That's what the gospel message is. It's to go out and to reveal to people that they're His and to tell them what Jesus has done for them, that though we have done nothing to deserve Him, He paid it all and we can come and we can cast ourselves before Him and enter in to eternal rest in Him. Praise God! But we still gotta live here don't we? And that's why He says in the next verse, "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee." Now notice something. He does not say if you happen to pass through some waters I'll be with you, He says when--when. See a lot of people have the false idea about the Christian life--nothing bad should ever happen. But that's not the way it is, is it? He says when you pass through the waters. There's gonna be waters that every one of us is gonna have to pass through in this life, things that we naturally fear, things that we just, that are the very thing that just really get our goat and get to us. We all got those kinds of things. But the Lord said when you pass through the waters, I'll be with you. Does that make a difference? It makes all the difference! It makes all the difference. The Hebrew children had to go through the fire. I don't think they were looking forward to that but they knew one thing--their conviction was they were gonna serve God. They didn't know if God was gonna save them or not. For all they knew they were gonna fry. But I'll tell you, God saw their faith and when the king looked in there he said, "I see four men loose and walking and the form of the fourth is like the son of God." I'll tell you what, what a wonderful testimony! The reality of it is that we are going to have to contend with things in this life that would naturally terrify us. I don't what we may face as we come down to the end of age. I have no idea, but I know that one thing God wants us to have a bedrock conviction about, that He's with us. And regardless of how it all comes together and works out we're never going to abandoned, never going to be left alone, never going to be in a place where we cannot look up, where we cannot call upon Him, where we cannot say, "Lord. I cannot handle this, I don't have the strength, I need you." Never are we gonna be in that place where we do not have a perfect resource and we're not in perfect safety. Praise God! "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee." That's a glorious promise, isn't it? And I believe it's to us. It's to His people. So Jesus said, "Lo, I am with thee always." Always, always--there's no exceptions to that are there? That's pretty comprehensive word. That just doesn't say most of the time, if you walk the straight and narrow, if you don't mess up. It just says "always." The Word is full of those kinds of expressions. And in another way, He says it in a different way. He says, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." We occupy a wonderful place in one sense that we can look back at the history of God's dealings with His people. I defy you to look back and point out a time when God abandoned one of His own. It simply did not happen. Now they might have died, might have burned at the stake, but I'll tell you the people that were called upon to be burned at the steak, they had the grace, they had the strength to do it. You and I don't have that but a God who can call someone to have to go by that means will give them the strength and be with them. And how many people have done that and had the strength to give God glory and praise in the midst of that! I can't do that but you know if God calls on me to do that there'll be divine strength. That's the thing. We are individuals. There is no formula. Our formula if you want to call it that, is to simply look to Him every moment, every day, and to trust in Him and to know. That is the hiding place that we have in this world. That is the place of safety, the place of His presence. 
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