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Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 682 -- taken from Closed Captioning Text -- Brother Tony Talbert: I believe God wants His people to enter into a greater rest. That's what my belief is. I believe that...you know, "...the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." God gives us what we need for that day, but I believe He wants us to enter into more rest, and it's not our rest. It's His rest. There is only one rest. We'll never have rest in this flesh. It's only in Christ. We enter into His rest. Hebrews 6, let's start here. 'Just got two scriptures. I'll be real brief. You know as the end time nears, the oppression of the enemy is gonna get greater. But, you know the Word says that the Lord would lift up a standard against him. It says when the enemy shall come in like a flood the Lord will lift a standard up against him. We're not--we are not by ourself. God has not left His people by ourself. Let's just go to verse 13. I'll break in on a thought here. "...When God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself." You know, there is no greater than God Himself? He stands and does what He wills. His Word says He sits in the armies of heaven and does as He pleases "...and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?" "Saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee." You know, we need to have faith ministered to us, and it comes by hearing, and it comes as God anoints and He speaks to us. We need to know that He is gonna bless us. ( congregational amens ). He has not left us. He's not, as Elijah said one time, maybe he was sleeping, or something. Our God is on the job 24/7. Even when we're sleeping, He's watching over us. "Saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. And so, after..."--This is the problem we have--"...after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly...." He was wanting to make sure that we had a hope that went beyond what we have in this life. He wanted to do everything that was necessary. It said "Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise...."--That's us, beloved--that's us. He wants to make sure we know. "...unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath..." In other words, there was no way that...whatever He said was going to happen and we can stand on that. We can take that to the bank! "That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation...." That's a comfort, beloved! That's something that'll carry you through the thickest storm you run through. It don't make any difference. It's the light. It's like the song that the group sings in North Carolina. It's like the Lighthouse. You can have a storm. I don't care. It'll carry you through it. And the two immutable things, I believe, is His Spirit and His Word, and it's what we need. Man should not live by bread alone, beloved. We don't live by what we see. We live by His Word. ( congregational amens ). "That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge..."--That's us. We're fleeing to Christ for our refuge. He's our only refuge--"...to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor..."--and it's an anchor, beloved. It'll hold. It'll grip the solid rock--"...both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil." And then it goes on, "Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec." And then turn to Timothy--2nd Timothy. I don't know... I feel a sense in my spirit that the Lord wants His people to come to a greater...to enter into 'His' rest, to realize that He's in control of all these things. I don't care how bad your situation may seem. God's grace is sufficient. I'm just gonna break in on a scripture in verse 12 there. This is what Paul said. He said "...nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know...." This is the thing we need in this hour, beloved. We need to know whom we have believed. We can't have a theory of Him. It has to be something that you know. You know whenever the rubber meets the road, you come down to a place to where you're being tossed and all hope is gone, you got to have hope in Christ! Or if not, you're gonna be blown about by every wind. Everything that takes place will blow you about. For "...I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." The Lord hasn't left us, beloved. As the song said, He hasn't brought us this far to leave us. He's with us. Let's look to Him. Let's take heed to what we hear in this meeting. He's preparing us for what's ahead. He'll never send us into battle with something that we can't handle. Let's look to Him. ( congregational amens ). -- Brother Phil Enlow: Well brother, the bases may be loaded; I guess maybe I can contribute a bunt here. ( laughter ). I'll tell you, I'm so glad we've got the Lord on our side. ( congregational amens ). That's one of the things I feel like the Lord is teaching me as never before and it's given me greater rest. It is simply, how much of this is Him and not us. I mean we just so naturally look to ourselves, to our weaknesses, to what we're able to do, how smart we are, how strong our wills are, every thing in the world about us and we think it's somehow, even though we hear that it's in Him, it's all in Him, it's all His strength and all of that, we don't act like that. And, you know, the further we go and the more I sense the Lord coming--not because of us, but in spite of us, the more confidence I have in Him. How do you suppose Paul acquired the confidence that Tony was speaking of earlier? I'm persuaded, he said. I'm convinced in my mind. No devil in hell can shake this conviction that has been formed in my mind that I can trust God. I have committed everything in my life into his hands. He's able to keep it. ( congregational amens ). You know, I was sitting there right about the time or shortly before Tony got up and I was just saying, Lord, what's this about tonight? What's going on here? And the one simple thought came to me. There's a storm coming. Well, we've heard that several times here tonight. There is a storm coming. And I believe that God wants us to know that, because we need to know. He wants His people to be armed and forearmed in their minds and awake and aware. But I also believe that He wants us to know that He will be with us in the midst of whatever storm comes. He will never abandon His people. He has never abandoned His people. ( congregational amens ). People have gone into impossible situations in Him, and He has never failed them. If God calls you and me to go sleep with a bunch of hungry lions, we can do it. ( congregational amens ). If God sends us into the midst of a burning fiery furnace...now that's not an appealing thing to my flesh. I'm not gonna look at it and say, yeah, that's where I would like to take a vacation. ( laughter ). But you know if God puts us in the middle of that thing, He will be with us there. ( congregational amens ). You know, I think of somebody else that faced, in a sense, in principle, what we face, and that was Noah. He lived in a time when judgment was impending. God had determined that the world had reached the point of no return and He was determined to destroy it with a flood and He did. But He never abandoned Noah for one minute and what did Noah do? Did Noah have to come up with a solution? -- Congregation: No. -- Brother Phil Enlow: No. God told him step, by step, by step what to do. He did it. It's not complicated. It's exactly what Jim was saying. It's not rocket science...to use Jerry's expression. But praise God! See I get a lot from the preaching from Florida, and I appreciate it. I thank God though, for what I believe He's teaching us. Because the more we learn to trust in Him, the more rest we're going to have. And that rest, that confidence, will indeed be an anchor that will hold us. ( congregational amens ). Because the storm is coming. It will come. There's nothing you and I can do to stop the storm, but I'll tell you what, we can put all of our hope in the One who is absolutely in charge. ( congregational amens ). Praise God! So, if you have been going through things in your life that have been challenging your faith, you'd better thank God. Because the God who put that thought into my heart that the storm is coming, knows it's coming and He knows you and I are gonna need more confidence and rest in Him than we have known in the past. We have come into a body of truth that we have more or less inherited in many senses. But God wants us not to simply possess it here. God wants you and me to possess that in the depths of our souls so that no matter what jumps up in our faces, we can rest in the Lord and not be excited--and not be as the Word says, dismayed. You noticed how many times God told Joshua when he was about to lead the people into the land...don't you be dismayed. That would have been the natural human reaction. Oh my God, these millions of people that just got all kinds of opinions and lots of things wrong with 'em, and we're marching into giants, to deal with giants. This is too much for me, Lord! I can't handle this. He says, don't you be dismayed. You just do what I tell you, and you walk with me, and you trust me, and I'll be with you. ( congregational amens ). Every person in the Bible...it's not just Elijah who was a man of like passions. Every single one was a man of like passions as we are. All they did was learn how to listen to what God said and believe it, and God poured His life through them. ( congregational amens ). We need to learn the thing that Paul learned. It's no longer I; It's Christ who lives in me. Praise God! I have what He has, if I will just learn how to trust Him and yield my vessel. I don't have to come up with spiritual things to go try and get done. That's not what it's about. We need to learn how, as Jesus did, simply to...He looked to the Father. How did he operate? He simply went to God and looked to God, and the Father told him what to do. He went and did it! It's real complicated, isn't it? And that's what God wants us to learn to do. Just exactly what Elijah did. God told him everything he needed to do. And you know something, everything God puts in our pathway...there is such an incredible balance with God. God's not gonna give you mountains of faith if there's nothing to use it on. But if he puts the mountain there, He'll give the faith. Everything is exactly balanced. You and I, maybe not have the faith to stand before a firing squad this moment. But, I'll tell you, if we ever have to face that He'll give us the faith. We don't ever have to worry about God not coming through with what we need, when we need it. That's when the supply happens. ( congregational amens ). That's when the supply, and the things of God happens in our lives. You don't have to fear anything. I don't have to fear anything that we face in this life. ( congregational praise ). Because it doesn't matter in the end--what will any of this matter when we reach the other side? Oh, I'll tell you what. You sign on with the Lord, you sign on with something that's sure and steadfast. There is an anchor. There is an anchor that reaches all the way into the throne and holds in every storm. ( congregational praise ). Praise God! The imagery that God used in the Old Testament, Isaiah 28, I won't turn to it. But you know where it says that God laid a sure foundation. Everyone who puts their trust on that foundation, they'll never be put to shame. Is that where your trust is tonight? Is that what you built your life on? Praise God! Then you're in a good place--you're in a good place. You're not depending on your own wisdom to figure everything out. You don't have to run to the self-help section of the bookstore and listen to what the latest guru says about how to succeed in life. How do we succeed in life? We listen to what God says, and we do it. It's real complicated. Praise God! Oh, I'll tell you a child can do that. That's what's so wonderful about this. We don't have to be smart. We don't have to be anything except just simple child-like trust in our heavenly Father who will never leave us nor forsake us. I'm gonna go ahead and preach from a hymn tonight. I just want to read this, because I believe that this is the kind of a hymn that we sing with great sentiment. And I'm sure, whatever sincerity we have, perhaps at our particular stage of spiritual development. But this is the hymn "'Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus." I had this come to me...well, I don't know, sometime in the last two or three days. And it certainly fits what the Lord has been saying tonight. You know this was written by some saints of God...I noticed whoever...one wrote the words, one wrote the music. They died in 1917, 1921. There are some saints of God, folks, who have been down the roads that we travel. And they got to a place in their lives where these things were no longer theory. They didn't just fly off the handle at every little thing. They just reached a place where they just rested. Do you know what a branch has to do to get sap out of the vine? Oh, please, please, oh, please vine, give me what I need. Oh, I need this so, please. It just takes it. It understands the relationship. It says, I belong to the vine. I'm one with it. The life that's in there belongs to me. I can just thank God for everything that I need. When I need it, it's there. ( congregational praise ). I don't have to be afraid. Praise God! And I believe that's something that these saints learned. "'Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, Just to take Him at His Word..."--Real complicated stuff--"...Just to rest upon His promise; Just to know, 'Thus saith the Lord'." That's all it has to take anyway. Boy, we don't have to be so smart. Do you know God can show us what we need to know? Has the devil put all kinds of questions in your mind about this and about that and you're just all in a stew about it? Do you know God can show you if He wants too, if it's important enough? That's just a trick of the devil. Praise God! We need to let all those things go and just say, Lord, I'm trusting in You and I'm gonna keep it simple. I'm gonna just believe You. "O how sweet to trust in Jesus, Just to trust His cleansing blood...." Do you walk around with guilt hanging over you because you just can't quite let go and grasp the simple fact that He paid it all? Praise God for what He did for me and for you! ( congregational praise ). Oh, bless the Lord! Bless the Lord! There I stood before the judgment, as it were. And all the sins, all the thoughts, all the wickedness that had ever poured through this unworthy vessel...when all the charges were read, every thing was laid out there. And the judge said, how do you plead? And I opened my mouth and another stepped in and said, I plead guilty. Praise God! Praise God! I couldn't even lift up my head, as it were. I knew I was guilty before God, but He stepped in and He said, I'm guilty. I plead guilty to everything you just read about that sinner. Oh, folks, if we ever grasp what He's done and that our sins are gone because they've been put upon Him, we can rest in these things. ( congregational praise ). We can find peace and forgiveness. We don't have to just wallow in our sins and our failures. We can bring them to Him. Praise God! ( congregational praise ). "...And in simple faith to plunge me 'Neath the healing, cleansing flood!" These saints knew something about this. They didn't walk around...what's gonna happen next? "Yes, 'tis sweet to trust in Jesus, Just from sin and self to cease...." It didn't stop with forgiveness. They found victory in practical living by learning how to trust God. God is putting us in a school, folks. The things that you and I go through every single day are designed to bring us to what this is talking about, so that we don't just have to sing this as a theory or as something that we hope to maybe experience a taste of one day. God wants this to be the rule in our lives. Because there is a storm coming and He knows that we need to be ready. He's making us ready. Oh, praise God! We can trust Him to do exactly in us what's needed. "Just from sin and self to cease." Oh boy, I can't do that. I need Him. Hey, He's got to do that in me. His power is the only thing that can do those kinds of things in me. Praise God! But they can. "...Just from Jesus simply taking..." That's the vine and the branches. "Just from Jesus simply taking Life and rest, and joy and peace." It's ours. It belongs to us. There's no devil in hell that has the right to deny us the things that Christ purchased for you and for me. ( congregational amens ). They belong to His people. We have been made worthy and righteous before God through what Jesus did. The devil has no right to oppress God's people the way he does. ( congregational amens ). Praise God! It makes me angry. ( congregational praise ). What we let him do. It makes no sense when you think about it. We have every right. We don't have to say, oh, I've got to somehow make myself worthy now so God can bless me and give me this thing that He says is mine. It's mine! ( congregational praise ). I have every right to expect it. Praise God! Life and rest. "...Simply taking Life and rest, and joy and peace. I'm so glad I learned to trust Thee, Precious Jesus, Saviour, Friend; And I know that Thou art with me...." Do you know that? Or are you just sort of, I hope so? God wants you to have that kind of a confidence. If you and I will submit to being students in His school, He'll bring us to the place where we have that kind of a confidence. We can be that people in the earth or some of them anyway of whom it is said, "...The people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits." I don't know what God wants to do, but we limit ourselves. We just think of ourselves as somehow fundamentally different from those people in the Bible. We're not. There's nothing God could not do through members of this congregation right here if we will come to the place where it's not us anymore. It's just Jesus in us. He's not limited. We're the ones who are limited in our unbelief and our understanding, but God can change that. Oh, the more He gets us out of the way, the more He's gonna be able to come through and we're gonna be able to do things we never thought about. Praise God! I don't know what lies ahead, but you know, more and more I have a confidence that when I face something, God's gonna be with me and I have that confidence about you, too. God will be with you. Don't you be dismayed in the face of anything. You trust God. He won't fail you. "...And I know that Thou art with me, Wilt be with me to the end. Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him..." Now here's the line that tells me how they got to this place to be able to write this song. It says, "...How I've proved Him o'er and o'er!" ( congregational amens ). This is experience, folks. This is not 'an' experience. This is experience. You see? You know the difference. I know you know the difference, 'cause some of you are going through it. "...Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus! O for grace to trust Him more!" Even these folks here, they knew they hadn't arrived. I just praise God, tonight. I praise Him because of what I see Him doing, what I sense Him doing. ( congregational praise ). Praise God! Praise God! ( congregational amens ). We are a victorious people tonight. ( congregational praise ). And we are a victorious people not because of what we are, not because of any attributes we possess, but because of Who lives within us. Praise God! Are you connected to Him? You've got all the resources of heaven at your disposal to meet your needs. That doesn't mean that you're gonna be without problems, without trials. You're gonna have plenty of 'em, but you're gonna have somebody inside of you and every mountain will be matched with the faith that's necessary. Every sickness, every...whatever it is, whether we need to endure something, whether we need to make it go away, whatever God's purpose is in it, we're gonna have what we need to handle that thing. And God is gonna teach us and He's gonna be with us to the end. I just praise Him tonight. I don't know what all He has for us, but I don't know, I am more confident than I have ever been. I have more rest and more faith that God is gonna be with us than I have ever experienced. And I know it's not me. I can tell you it's not me. Oh, the more I look in the mirror and say, now, what have you got to bring to the table here?--Forget it. That doesn't work. We need God to dwell in us and to act and work and I'll tell you the more that happens the more we're gonna see God move. It's Christ who has promised to build His church. We don't have to build it for Him. We can be instruments. We can be workers together with Him, but He is going to build His church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Praise God! ( congregational praise ). Praise God! And oh, I'll tell you, I don't believe it's gonna be much longer. We're gonna see Him return in clouds with power and great glory. And oh, I'll tell you, that's not a time of terror for us. It will be a time of sadness and terror for the world. But, oh, we'll be able to lift up our heads and praise God and shout. ( congregational amens ). Our feet will leave the ground. We'll rise to meet Him in the air and we'll ever be with the Lord. Folks, if that isn't a hope, I don't know what is. Praise God! ( congregational praise ). Praise God! 
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