Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 653 -- taken from Closed Captioning Text

-- Brother Phil Enlow: I have a thought on my heart that's pretty simple. But somehow, I believe that it's something that we all need to constantly hear until we really get it, because it makes a tremendous amount of difference right where we live.

You know I believe there's times when it's right to preach about doctrines and really educate God's people about the great doctrines of the faith. They form a framework for the way we look at things, but I believe that if that's all our faith is, is just a collection of beliefs about things, then it's not really--it's not very practical. It doesn't really mean a lot in our lives.

And the faith that God desires us to possess and to use every single day has got to be something that's practical. It's got to be something that is relevant to us right where we live. And that's the thing that I sense the Lord wanting to do in a greater sense for me. I mean, I've been very, very conscious of several incidents in the last few days in which the Lord has just had to remind me. You know, I know you don't feel like this...I know...you know circumstances are such and such and this, that and the other. But you know, what are you going to do with this circumstance?

And the Lord had to remind me that I needed to simply do what I knew was right by faith. And surprise, surprise, I found out that the Lord helped me. But these are things that we need to constantly learn and be reminded of if we're going to be successful as Christians. Otherwise, we are going to spin our wheels, and we're going to constantly live in a state of frustration and defeat.

God wants His power to believe Him in every circumstance, to become something that is deeply personal. And it has become so real in our minds, and in our behavior and in our life that it has truly become ours. Now it doesn't start out that way. This is not something that you and I are born with. We're not born with the ability to do this. We have to receive that ability from God.

But once we receive it in our minds and in our hearts and, as I said, we begin to put into practice, now it has becomes ours. And that's what God desires for every one of us to teach us. You know we know from the Scriptures the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant. In the old covenant, God gave laws through Moses and He told the people what He expected out of them and there were the whole series of rituals and punishments. The whole deal was a matter of laws being imposed upon people from the outside.

But the new covenant is one in which God writes His laws in our hearts and in our minds. It's something where God wants you to know what He says and what He thinks about everything that affects you and me. As I say, it's not simply a collection of doctrines. It's not a collection of do's and don'ts. It is a revelation of what God says and what He thinks because we are born into a world where the minds have been corrupted by sin.

As we've said so many times, we love what God hates, we hate what God loves, by nature. We just learn to live for self. We learn to think and look at things and to react to situations in natural ways that are basically self-centered. And it's...first of all, what our natural condition is that we think wrong. We think wrong, and as a result of thinking wrong, we act wrong.

Everything is geared the wrong direction and so when God wants to go to work on us, He does not simply snap His fingers and we're absolutely changed into what we'll ultimately become. There is, first of all, the foundation laid of the new birth in our hearts. That gives us the foundation for actually doing something and for being Christians.

But there is a life-long work. And the further I go, the more I understand that it is a life-long process of God teaching me what He thinks about all of my circumstances, as opposed to what I'm inclined to think. And so in every instance, every little thing that I confront from the time I get up in the morning until the time I go to bed at night, every little thing consists of incidences and situations and thoughts and feelings in which my thoughts and my ways come into conflict with His thoughts and His ways. And my question is, which am I going to choose? Which am I going to go by?

Now the fact of the matter is, if you're honest, I think you'll realize that much of the time we just do the wrong thing, but without even thinking about it.

( congregational amens ).

We have deep needs, and the further we go, I think the more we realize just how deep the needs are. And I believe if we understand we quit looking for some quickie little experience that's gonna make all that go away. God is going to have to teach us step by step and it's not gonna be just classroom work. This is not just something where we come together on Sunday morning, we learn Christian doctrine, and then we put it back on the shelf. Wrap it up all nicely and put it on the shelf, and then we go back to living our real lives. No! God wants this to become my real life.

( congregational amens ).

And so that when I live and walk, I don't live and walk by what I think and how the people of the world react. I live and walk by what He says. I live by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

But you know, in order to have that we're gonna have to stay in a place, and I don't just mean a geographical place, I mean a place in our spirits and in our attitudes where we are receptive and open, desiring God to speak to us. Because we realize how desperately we need to have Him do what He said He's going to do, namely, to write His laws in our hearts and in our minds. You know I think a lot of times our problem is there are certain areas of our lives that we'd just as soon not hold back. Lord, I kind of enjoy this part of my rebellion.

( laughter ).

Now you would never admit that. Lord, I kind of enjoy this just a little bit. There's aspects of this I really don't want you to touch. You know, may God give us grace to say, Lord, touch everything. And where I am even struggling with my will about something, help me to be willing.

( congregational amens ).

And if I can't even say help me to be willing, help me to say, Lord, help me to help me to say that I want you...you know we have to start right where we're at.

( laughter ).

( congregational amens ).

God...and the thing is, God understands where we're at. He doesn't regard us as some stern lawgiver, He regards us as a loving Father. He says, "Like as a Father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." And we don't have to come to Him and think of Him as--oh God, I'm just cowering before this terrible, awesome being that's just gonna smack me down the minute I think a wrong thought.

My God! He understands. He knows where we're at. His hand is not coming at us like this. His hand is coming at us like this. My child, I love you. I gave my Son to die for you. I've blotted out your sins. But I want you not just to be a Sunday-go-to-meeting Christian. I don't want you just to be one who knows the doctrines. I want you to be a victorious Christian. I want you to know how to handle it in your day-to-day life so that you're not just constantly beaten down and defeated. And I don't know any other...I mean this is such simple stuff. But God help us and help me to learn how to just simply learn to go by what He says. I mean, we're told in the Word that the weapons of our warfare are, what?

-- Congregation: Not carnal.

-- Brother Phil Enlow: They're not carnal, but they're mighty through God, to what?

-- Congregation: Pulling down strongholds.

-- Brother Phil Enlow: Pulling down strongholds. Is there a stronghold in your mind? God has given us the ability to pull those down. Now, I believe that that is, first and foremost, a promise to the ministry that God has given us the weapons that can pull down strongholds out here. But I'll tell you, that gets right down to personal use too, because we--everyone of us, that has looked to Christ and called upon Him, we have His Word residing in here. And if we will simply learn how to confess, and quote, and stand on, and agree with the Word of God in the face of these other things, God is gonna enable us to break some strongholds in our lives.

We can't do it in ourself. We can't just say, oh God, somehow magically change me. God's gonna change us, all right, but we're gonna be part of the process. He wants us not to be just dumb animals that He just does something for, or robots. We are intelligent creatures. We have wills. We have all the attributes that He created us with as His children. But He wants us to learn how to intelligently take hold of His Word and apply it to the realities of our daily living. That's what He's getting at.

I don't know, I thought of...there's nothing complicated about this. But yet, do you ever stumble over this? Yeah. I do every single day. I just beat my head against the wall, then I suddenly realize what I'm doing. I'm just reacting like a natural man does something to a situation, or I'm too tired to do what I know I ought to do. So what do you do? I mean, sure there's times to rest, I'll grant you that. We can't be idiots about it. But I believe there's many times where, in fact all the time, we are gonna have to go against something if we serve God.

( congregational amens ).

We cannot sit back and expect that God's gonna smooth our path. We can't have the attitude, well Lord, if you really wanted me to serve you...

-- Brother Chip King: You'd make it easy.

-- Brother Phil Enlow: You'd make it easy. That's right. And so, the fact that you haven't made it easy, just proves to me you just don't really love me. You don't really want me...that's nonsense. That's nothing...I mean, where do you find that in the Word? Paul, when he went back to establish the congregations that God had used him to establish, he went back to confirm them and to strengthen them and to help them and to teach 'em. One of the main things he told them was, we must, what? Through much tribulation, enter into the kingdom of God.

We are going to have to fight through obstacles every day, if we're gonna serve God. Now if we were called upon to do that with our own strength, our own understanding, our own resources, that would be an awful, impossible burden. But God has given us His Word that is more powerful than all of that put together. It brings...if we exercise His Word and believe what He said, it absolutely turns the switch on that brings His strength into the picture. And we find ourselves able to do things that we cannot otherwise do.

I don't know, there's so much in the Scriptures. I know others can pick up on this. I thought of a simple incident when the Lord called the disciples. I think it's in Luke chapter 5. But it illustrates some simple things here that have to do with what God says. And I'll just sort of summarize this. Jesus was teaching by the lakeside and the people were crowding around Him and listening. It was getting kind of crowded, so He saw a couple of fishing boats sitting there.

Now the fisherman had been out all night and they'd come in, and they were over there washing their nets. And so here's a couple of fishing boats and He asks the owner of the boat, one of the boats, who was named Peter. That's the first time He'd met Peter. He asked Him if He could use the boat. So they rowed just a little way off shore, and He sat there in the boat and taught the people. Now maybe we aught to invent a church like that where we all sit by the lakeshore and the pulpit is on...no!

( laughter ).

The pulpit is in a boat. But the Lord took advantage of a practical situation. And He got into a boat and He was able to...and every body was able to see Him and He was able to not be pushed back into the water. And so, He taught them and they got done with that and in verse 4, He said to Simon who is Peter, "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch. Simon answered..."--the way any of us would have probably answered--"...Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything." (NIV).

Now just think about that. You think about the practical situations you and I face every single day. Isn't that oftentimes our natural reaction? Circumstances, lack of ability, lack of results. Lord, I've fought this battle a thousand times and I've lost it a thousand times. I'm batting...well a thousand in losing, I guess. But, Lord, look at the circumstances. Look at the impossibility. Look at my weakness. Look at somebody else. It's their fault. I mean a thousand and one natural circumstances we immediately point to, to say this doesn't make sense...what you're telling me.

That was his reaction. But listen to what he went on and said. He said, "But..."--one of those glorious 'buts'--"...because you say so, I will let down the nets." Now notice. He didn't do it because he thought that...well just maybe we missed a bunch of fish out there and just maybe one more time--you know, the hope of the fisherman. This wasn't that. I mean he'd gone beyond that. He'd gone beyond the point where he just...they were tired. There was no natural reason for them to do what they did. They were tired. They'd been up all night and were completely frustrated, completely defeated. There was no natural hope in anything that they did. There was no grounds for them to do what they did, except for one thing, because Jesus said so.

( congregational amens ).

That, I believe, in a nutshell, is the position God puts us in deliberately time after time in our lives. And if we could just understand it, it would make our lives a lot easier. Lord, if you love me, you just wouldn't keep putting me in these situations. That's because He loves you that He puts you there.

Now look at what Jesus accomplished in this circumstance. Nevertheless, "...But because you say so, I will let down the nets. When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat..."--Hey, fellows come out. We're drowning out here--"...To come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink."

Now when did this circumstance happen? Did it happen on up in the night because of their cleverness, because of their diligence as fisherman? No! It happened long after all human resource was gone. It happened when they felt a sense of futility, of weakness, every resource was against, every circumstance was against what had been proposed to them to do, and God used that as the point of opportunity to say, now let Me show you what I can do. If you will simply believe what I said in the face of what you are looking at, in that circumstance, let's see what I can do now.

How many of you have been through circumstances like that? You know you've...God brought you to a point where you just gave up. You threw up your hands and there was no hope, but you saw God intervene when you said, Lord, help me.

( congregational amens ).

Yeah. But you see, it's not just the big issues. It's not just the grand scheme of things. This gets right down to young people in school trying to get their homework done, trying to cope with the teacher they don't like, trying to cope with friends and, you know, what people think of you, and a whole lot of things.

It comes to people in business trying to pay bills and trying to deal with the problems of business in the world and people on jobs and families, and relationships--every single thing! God is gonna constantly bring us to a place where every natural thing just feels like slugging through peanut butter and where we're gonna have to learn how to say, oh God, help me just to take hold of what you have said about this circumstances and how I should deal with it.

And the more we learn to do that, the more it is going to become 'our' faith. It's not going to be simply something the preacher said. Something the preacher said by itself is not gonna help you a bit. It's not gonna get you in the kingdom. It's not gonna help you live as a Christian life. But until we learn to take hold of what God says to us...and I'll tell you, if our hearts are in the right place, we will hear Him speak to us.

God knows how to speak to the human heart that is tuned to Him. And He can speak to you in the quietness of your own heart in all kinds of circumstances. He can speak to you in prayer. He can speak to you as you lift your heart in the middle of the storm. He can speak to you here. He can bring out something from the pulpit the preacher doesn't know anything naturally about. We've seen that happen over and over and over and over again. It's just a reminder that God is here to help us in spite of what we are.

Trust me. It's not in me and it's not in you either. We have a wonderful, faithful God who wants to prove Himself faithful. And I'll tell you, unless we are brought to a place where there is no natural help, there is no natural hope, I mean in the smallest situation, we will never learn how faithful God is to our hearts. We will never acquire that faith and that strength and that experience and that maturity that God desires to bring us to.

I mean there is nothing complicated. There's nothing we haven't heard before in what I'm saying this morning. But I catch myself constantly stumbling over this and I suspect there's a whole lot of times I'm not even aware. I just plow right ahead, stumbling along and failing, and not even realizing that I have a resource beyond all human imagining, if I'd simply look to what God says and keep my heart tuned to Him and say, Lord, because of what you say, I'm gonna do different than what I feel. I'm gonna go against what I see. I'm simply going to obey what you say and I'm gonna trust you for the strength.

I mean, I've seen it in simple things like coming into prayer meeting at night and just feeling really dry and empty and, you know...but my flesh just doesn't want to be there, sometimes. And it's just...well my flesh never wants to be there. Let me honest about it. But you know, by faith, the Lord has helped me more than one time, more than one instance, consciously to say, Lord, help me just by faith to yield myself to you and to look to you and before you know it, He's come in and He's helped.

( congregational amens ).

I wasn't even...almost wasn't even conscious of it happening. It's just that I began. You know a lot of times we begin and we're looking for something. We're waiting for a feeling. We're...oh God, I'm doing it! Where are you now? The Lord's there. He's just wanting us to continue to persist, to go in faith.

You know that was something about this. Simon didn't just say, Yeah, Lord, I know you can help us with this. I agree. Let's keep on cleaning the nets and go home. We're tired. There was an obedience. There was an action. This was not a mental thing. This was an act of doing something, and he had to do it before he saw the result.

And it's going to be that way in your life, and your life, and your life, and your life, and mine. God is always going to put us in a situation where every natural thing is against doing what we know is right in God's eyes. And we are going to have to slug through and just simply trust the Word of God. God is going to give us victory over this world by that means, and by no other. It is going to be our faith.

It's a faith that starts with Him to be sure, but we're gonna have to listen--to learn to listen to what His voice says and we're gonna have to learn to co-operate with it, if we are going to have what we need. And we will. I'll tell you, we are gonna need this. I just sense in my spirit. This world is headed for catastrophe. I don't know what it's gonna be like. I've said this many times. I do not know what it's gonna be like as the Lord allows Satan to be loosed. I do know this. God is gonna be with us. He's going to give us what we need.

I believe that certainly on a global scale, we're seeing this right now. He is going to give His people victory when they're called upon to lay down their lives for Him. He is going to be the hope and the strength of His people. But we're gonna have to learn how it works. And God is putting you, and you, and you, and me to the test right now in little things.

Let me just give you some things that I mentioned in the prayer meetings this week. I had some E-mails come into my hands from a large native organization that operates Gospel ministries in the Far East. I believe that the Lord is doing some tremendous things through some of these folks. I thank God for it. I believe there's a harvest among people that have never before heard the Gospel. It's in outlying areas. But there's a lot of persecution going on right now.

I believe the first incident is something that happened this past Sunday. That's the wonderful thing about E-mail, you can hear stuff real quick. But we got a flash--I got a flash message, a prayer request that a certain man and his wife, a minister and his wife, had been threatened by a local mob. And, he was told, don't you go to the church and hold service on Sunday. If you do, we are going to kill you in front of your wife and child. And they went to all the church members one by one and said if you go to the church this Sunday, we are gonna break your arms and legs.

Now, put yourself in that circumstance. This is not theory. This is not something that happened way back in history. These are things going on right now in places in the world. And there was a word that went out--pray. Well, you know God brought them through that weekend. As a response to prayer, God reached out through prayer and they didn't have the church service in the church but they did gather elsewhere. And no harm came to them.

Well, it was just a couple of days later there was the word came about two men that had been...two ministers who had been baptizing people. You know a group of thugs came around and beat them, and kidnapped them. And one of them escaped. But at the time the message came out, the other guy was still unaccounted for. They didn't know what had happened. And I got a word a day or two later that he, himself, had been released.

God is...these things are real that we're gonna have to face. But before we face those kinds of things, God is helping us right now. The things that you and I face every day are relevant. If we cannot face our little trials, how do you think we're gonna fare in those times? God is absolutely...He can see down the road. He knows what's coming. He knows that you and I are gonna have to have the goods inside.

And it's not...you know, a lot of times we hear about things we've got to do and got to be, and we just have this sense, oh, I can't. And the truth of it is, you can't in yourself. But I'll tell you, God is our refuge and our strength and our help. His grace is enough. Whatever God ever calls us to go through, His strength will be enough to take us through it.

Look at the heroes of faith in chapter 11 of Hebrews...all of the things that they did. Some of them won great victories and great battles. Other times they stood faithful before God being...well, one of them was sawed in half. How would you like to be stretched out and tied down and sawed in half? I'll tell you what. I think I'd be crying out to God and saying, oh, God, give me the strength to never doubt You, to stand faithful to You.

You know, I got another E-mail the other day from a young brother in...it was in Africa. I don't remember which country right now. But he was talking about his circumstances and how he could barely find enough to eat two meals a day...and just in poverty, and need, and struggling. I mean, he was to the point where he was saying, he just wished God would go ahead and take him home. But yet at the end of his message, he said, but I'll tell you I'm not gonna...I can't remember the words. But he said, I'm not gonna give up. God give me the strength not to doubt Him, not to bail out. Those are my words. But not to give up but to stand fast in my faith and to trust in Christ.

You know we complain about a lot of things, don't we? And I don't think we know the half of it. We have gotten it so easy. I was thinking about that yesterday. I said, Lord, look at what Your people are going through in other parts of the world and You're helping them. You're strengthening them and they're seeing victory in their lives. And here I am complaining about the little things that I experience. My God, forgive me and help me. Help me to learn to just simply take hold of what you said...every circumstance, every little thing, to be conscious of You and conscious of what You have said about it, and to take the right attitude and to believe like Paul. "...I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." (KJV).

Instead of constantly complaining and confessing defeat, to take the attitude, Lord, with Your strength I can do what You put before me. Help me, Lord, to walk in the reality of Your Word and to learn how to walk by faith. This is something we can't escape if we're gonna serve God. I'm so glad that God has brought us to a place where He constantly, though He puts us in circumstances where we're in water over our head, He's never gonna let us drown. He's never gonna let us be lost. His hand is always right there.

If our eyes could somehow be opened to see--to see the eyes of our loving Father looking down upon us, and desiring, so earnestly, that we'd be brought out of the darkness of the way we think, and react, and look at things. May God help us just to see what a resource we have in what He has said, and learn to go by it in the face of the things that we face every single day. I'll tell you, we're gonna...we have an opportunity to glorify God in a dark world.

And that's the only way we're gonna do it. We're gonna have to be different. And what is it that sets us apart? What is that sanctifies God's people, which means to set 'em apart? It's His Word. If we will have that in our minds and in our hearts, and then it comes out in our action. it's gonna set us apart from this world, and we are going to be a light for Him. And we're gonna bring glory to Him in this world. Praise God!

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