Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Hello and welcome to another episode of Line Upon Line Ministries Podcast. I'm your host Mark Williams. Line Upon Line Ministries is committed to the expository ministry of the Word for the life of the local church.
On today's episode, we've got a couple of good things for you. First, we're going to talk about everybody's favorite topic, conflict, and how to handle it.
And then we also are going to share another classic sermon by Brother David Miller, this time called God's Restraining Grace from Hosea Chapter two. But before we get into the main content, I want to share a couple of things with you. First of all, if you haven't been to our website in a while, please go there. Check it out www. Lineuponlineministries.com. you'll find that Brother David's sermons, newsletters, things like that to help you. Also check out our Facebook x YouTube, all those different social medias and interact with us there. There's been a lot of good interaction on Facebook recently. We just recently passed the thousand subscribers on YouTube. So thank you. If you're one of those, thank you for your support there, but go engage with us there. Love to answer any questions you have, comment dialogue with you as we have opportunity.
Also very excited to share that our next book of sermons by Brother David should be coming out soon.
Ish planning for this fall, hopefully by within the next month, but maybe within at least the next six weeks or so.
The working title of this particular book is called Contending for the Faith and it is 10 sermons that brother David preached through the Book of Jude.
So be on the lookout for that. I'll be sharing some cover sneak peeks and different things and definitely making sure everybody knows about that. It might be by the next podcast so hopefully by then.
Thank you all so much for the support for the last book on the doctrines of grace.
Continue to pray for us as we finish this project on the new book in the Book of Jude.
So for this podcast didn't have any interviews and so wanted to discuss everybody's favorite topic, conflict.
Conflict is something we all have to deal with, something that we have to live with because we live in a fallen world. As you know, if you follow along in our podcasts or on on social media, you know that I have most recently published the Handling Conflict God's Way book and so I want to discuss some of that with you just briefly on this podcast.
We all struggle with conflict. There's conflict in marriage, in the family, potential between friends. It happens in the church, at work, in Ministry conflict is unfortunately inevitable in this fallen world.
So the question becomes not whether or not we're going to experience conflict, we're all going to go through it, but how does God want us to handle it?
And so that's what I cover in my book. And so I want to share just a few points with you today from the book of James.
James, chapter three, beginning in verse 13 and through verse or chapter four, verse three gives us God's way of handling conflict.
Now, many of you know that the Bible is broken down by chapters and verses, but those were not original. James didn't write verse one, verse two, verse three, you know, chapter two and so on. Those were added later so that we could.
So that it would help us in studying and memorizing and keeping these things organized. Unfortunately, I think this is one of those areas where they put the chapter break in the wrong spot, because chapter four begins with that. What causes quarrels and what causes fights? Almost like it's starting a new topic there. But actually it begins back in chapter three, verse 13.
That question at beginning in chapter four, asking those questions is pointing back to what he just talked to. So picking up in chapter three, verse 13, it says, who is wise and understanding among you by his good conduct, let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom.
So James begins this section on dealing with conflict. God's way with asking a question, who is wise and understanding among you?
See, conflict reveals what sort of wisdom we live by.
James isn't asking people here, hey, smart people, please identify yourselves. Please raise your hands. Who's wise and understanding among you? He's not. He's not wondering that he's. He is. He's asking the question, who among you is wise according to Scripture, wise according to God?
And that's important because conflict reveals the wisdom that you're living according to.
A lot of us can sound pretty wise when everything is going our way. And we can talk about humility, we talk about forgiveness, we can talk about unity, we can talk about loving one another. But what happens when somebody disagrees with us? What happens when they criticize or they misunderstand?
[00:05:56] Speaker B: Or
[00:05:59] Speaker A: when somebody does something that we think is not fair to us, or we think maybe somebody's getting in the way of what we want?
Conflict reveals what's really there.
It shows what sort of wisdom we're living by.
James says, by his good conduct, let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. True wisdom works out in the way you live.
True wisdom reveals itself. It shows itself.
It doesn't just stay in your head. It comes out in the way that you live, listen. And that is important in, in handling conflict. Because when we're in the midst of conflict, our natural instinct is to try to prove that we're right. That's our aim whenever some sort of conflict takes place. But the point is that James is making here is that you can be right about the facts. You may be arguing, but still handle the situation sinfully. You can have a legitimate concern about whatever it is that you're. You're talking about or fighting about or quarreling about.
You can be right. You can have legitimate concern, but still be prideful in the way that you respond. So you can see a real problem.
It's not that conflict is about fake things. You can see a very real problem. But instead of responding the way God wants you to, you can do so in a way that dishonors him. So the question isn't, am I right or not? The question is, am I walking in the meekness of wisdom?
See, by his good conduct, let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom.
So then, James presents here in the next few verses two different kinds of wisdom.
You're going to live according to one of them.
He says here in verses 14 and following. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder in every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure and then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere, and a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
So James then shows here, after asking this question and showing that that wisdom will reveal itself, says there's two kinds of wisdom that are, that are operating within this world that God has made. There's. There's the wisdom that comes from below, that is on the earth, that is earthly, worldly. And there is the wisdom from above that is godly, Biblical.
So then James describes the wisdom of the world as from below, as being bitter, jealousy, selfish ambition. He's using strong language here to talk about the world, the wisdom that comes from the world.
And then he says that this wisdom is earthly, unspiritual. That's bad enough. And then he says demonic.
And where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder in every vile practice.
This is the wisdom from the world. This is the wisdom that comes from, in our own hearts. This is the wisdom comes from friends and family, those who are unbelievers, those who are in the world. It can feel very convincing.
You, you can hear some of this wisdom and feel justified in your position. And, uh, it sounds reasonable. When somebody agrees with you, when you, when you start to rehearse your side of the conflict in, in your head, you can convince yourself that you are right. And this is the right stance to take.
And unfortunately, you can even do that by using biblical language, religious language even.
But bitterness doesn't become harmless when it is hidden.
Just because you can't see that you're bitter doesn't mean that it's not there.
Envy does not become righteousness because we name it concern, Selfish ambition does not become spiritual because we found three other people who we think are godly and they all agree with us.
And conflict has a way of exposing all those things.
It shows us that that's what's driving us.
It's exposing that. Maybe, maybe I just want control. I just want to be recognized, vindicated. I want somebody to admit to tell me that I was right.
Or maybe we just simply want to get our own way.
But James says there's another kind of wisdom. He says in verse 17, the wisdom from above is first pure and peaceable and gentle, open to reason, full of mercy, good fruits, impartial, sincere.
And that's the wisdom that we need when we're dealing with conflict.
Because that kind of wisdom, as it's described here, seeks God first. It seeks first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. It wants to be godly. It wants to be biblical. It wants to be righteous more than it wants to win, it's seeking to be peaceable. It doesn't. It's not without, without compromising truth.
It seeks to be gentle and yet not being weak about it. You can be strong and gentle, and this kind of wisdom is open to reason. You can, you can hear what the other person is saying. You're able to listen, you, you're able to be corrected.
You can actually entertain the possibility that you may be wrong or, or maybe not wrong, but you didn't understand everything the way that it actually is, and so you were working with false information.
This kind of wisdom is full of mercy because Christians, we understand what it means to live by mercy. We have been shown mercy, and so we should be able to be merciful.
James concludes by saying, harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
Biblical peace is not just getting everybody to Stop.
It's not just getting the everybody to quit arguing with each other. That. That's not biblical peace. Biblical peace is. It is the harvest of righteousness.
So then, then chapter four, verse one comes up.
Then we see this question being asked. Now we see what's the real source of the conflict.
He says, what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?
Is it not this that your passions are at war within you? James goes straight for the heart.
He asked the question that is maybe the most important thing that we need to ask whenever we find ourselves in conflict.
When James is talking about conflict here, he didn't begin by asking, all right, who started it?
Which one of you has the better argument?
That first question there, who was wise and understanding among you? It wasn't about finding out who was better or smarter. He wasn't trying to figure out who the reasonable people were and who the unreasonable people were. He was simply pointing to the heart of the problem. Where do these quarrels and fights come from? And he says that they come from the desires that are at war within us.
There is a war outside of us, between people, between families, between churches, between different things. These conflicts happen. There's a war happening around us because first and foremost, there's a war happening within us.
That doesn't mean the other person hasn't sinned. That doesn't mean that the circumstances are unimportant.
And it certainly doesn't mean that scriptures ask us to pretend that the sin is not sin.
None of that's true. But Scripture requires us to deal honestly with our own heart first before God. It reminds us of what Jesus said in Matthew, chapter seven. We need to remove the plank from our own eye so we can see clearly. To see the speck and remove the speck from our brother's eye, we have to deal with our own heart.
That's where we often go wrong. In conflict, it's in conflict, we look outward. We're always looking at what other people have done.
It's what's going on outside of me. What is the problem? It's out there. It's got to be. What did he say? What did she do? Why are they treating me like this?
Did you hear about what so and so said about me? These kinds of things, it's always outward.
That's where our conflict often makes us look. But James says here, that's the wrong direction. What is going on inside of you? What do you want? What are you trying to get? What are you afraid of? What are you afraid you're going to Lose here.
What is it that you have decided that you have to have in order to. To be satisfied?
So what I want to do with a few more minutes is I want to make this very practical.
I want us to look at ourselves and look at a practical guide for working through conflict. Again, if you have my book or you've read through it, you'll recognize this. This is at the end of the book. I give a practical guide for how to work through conflict with by utilizing what, what James has taught us here in these verses.
Whatever conflict you're in, whether it's with your spouse or your children or a church member, a friend, a co worker, whatever it is, how are you to handle this? What are you to actually do? And so here are 10 biblical steps for working through conflict. And these apply no matter what. And we could talk about wisdom from other parts of scripture for how to deal with relational issues or communication issues or things like that. And those are important. But, but this is a practical guide for working through conflict, regardless of what the situation is.
Because as we've said, we have to begin with ourselves before God.
Here are the 10 biblical steps from James first, name the conflict honestly. So you have to ask the question, what is the actual conflict? Not, not how have I exaggerated? Not. Not trying to figure out what the other person meant. None of that.
You can't try to. You can't know another person's heart. You can't try to know the unknowable. All you can do is name what happened honestly, what happened, what was said, what was done done. Be honest about what has actually taken place. Then to identify the surface issue.
What started the conflict?
Was it a decision you made? Was it somebody, what somebody said? Was it some behavior towards you, some action? Were you disappointed? Was there a misunderstanding, difference in preferences? Was there a correction gone wrong? Or was there offense? Whatever it is, that there may be a genuine issue that needs to be addressed and biblical self evaluation. What we're doing here doesn't mean pretending nothing happened. But you have to identify the issue clearly if you're going to address the issue properly.
The surface issue is usually not the whole issue.
James wants us to go deeper.
So then step three is examine your conduct.
Ask yourself, how have I responded in thought, in word and in deed? Did I speak harshly towards them? Have I gossiped? Was there bitterness, whatever it might have been?
Before you start rehearsing in your mind everything that the other person or other people have done, ask what your conduct in this situation is revealing of your heart?
Does your response show the meekness of wisdom, like James says. Then step four. Now examine your heart.
Now, you can't see your heart, you can't know your heart perfectly. Jeremiah 17:9 explains that to us. But we can examine what's going on in our heart by, once again, like what James says here, by. By. By looking at the wisdom that we're living according to. So we can ask ourselves questions that will help us to see what what what the problem in our heart is. Things like, what did I want here? What was I afraid of? What? What did I believe that I needed?
What was I? Here's a question.
What was I willing to sin to get?
Or what was I willing to sin because I did not get?
So here's a simple exercise that I recommend in the book.
Finish this sentence. In this conflict, I wanted blank.
Fill it in. Honestly. This is you working between you and the Lord, examining your heart. Lord, show me what it is in my heart. In this conflict, I wanted blank. Maybe it's respect or control or appreciation, comfort, recognition, whatever. You just wanted them to agree with you. It doesn't matter. Whatever it is, that's honestly the truth.
Fill in that blank. In this conflict, I wanted blank.
And here's what's interesting. What you wanted may not have been sinful in and of itself.
In fact, it's not necessarily wrong to want respect like from a spouse.
It's not wrong to want somebody to listen to you, a friend or somebody who's close to you.
It's not necessarily wrong to want things to go a certain way. But the question is, was the desire that you had submitted to God, or had that desire become a ruling desire?
A good desire makes a terrible God.
So examine your heart. And then, number five, test your wisdom.
Take your response to that question and lay it down by James, Chapter three. Does the way that you're handling this conflict look more like James 3, 14, 16?
Does it look more like bitter jealousy, selfish ambition, disorder, all those things? Or does it look more like James 3, 17, 18? Pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy, impartial, sincere.
That's a better question than just asking, am I right or am I wrong?
You may be right about the issue again, and wrong in the way that you're actually handling it. So test the wisdom that you're living according to Number six.
Pray rightly. Now, I could have put this earlier. You should be praying all along.
But honestly, if you haven't examined yourself and done some of these other things yet, your prayers, oftentimes in conflict, are prayers against the other person, God, get them, fix them, make them see that I'm right. Those kinds of ungodly prayers, honestly.
So step six here then is to pray rightly.
And this can be uncomfortable.
You're not just asking God to change the other person. You're not just asking God to fix the problem.
Ask the Lord, Help me.
Search me like David prayed in Psalm 139. Search me, O God.
Lord, convict me where I have sinned. Forgive me where I've sinned against you. Lord, give me your wisdom. James, chapter one, verse five already explained that if anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask.
Lord, help me to be wise.
Give me wisdom from above. Help me to seek your word. Help me to handle this the right way.
Lord, help me to desire what you desire.
A better prayer than Lord, fix this situation, Lord, get them as Lord, what do you want me?
What do you want to change in me? What do you want me to do through this situation?
And so number seven is continuing on with that.
Confess your sin to God.
If God exposes. If he answers that prayer and he exposes sin in your heart, he shows you where you have been wrong.
Confess it specifically.
Don't just say, lord, forgive me for anything I might have done wrong. Name it.
Lord, forgive me for my anger, forgive me for my bitterness, for jealousy, for pride, for for my fear of. Of man, for my selfish ambition, my gossip, my slander, my my lack of prayer, my unbelief.
Don't try to rename your sin as something else. Don't try to soften it, don't try to excuse it, because what so and so did, their sin doesn't excuse yours. Confess your sin before God. What is the promise from First John, chapter one, verse nine? If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and purify us of all unrighteousness.
So pray, confess your sin to God. And then number eight, seek forgiveness.
This is where now you go outward, regardless of the conflict. If you've obviously seen that there is a war within yourself and you have sinned, you've clearly sinned in this situation, then you need to go to the other person. Even if you feel like again, as it started out, they were the one that was wrong.
As you've gone through this process, you see that there's sin in your own heart that you need to ask for forgiveness for too.
So if you've sinned against the other person, go to them and own your sin without excuses.
Don't say, well, you did this, but I'm asking you to forgive me. No, Simply confess your sin to them.
Here is another sentence for you to just fill in the blank with. I have sinned against you when I blank.
I've sinned against you when I was angry. I sinned against you when I was harboring bitterness. I sinned against you when I gossiped. I sinned against you when I yelled at you.
I have sinned against you when I blank.
Will you please forgive me?
Did you notice what's missing in that confession? That often pops up when we forgive other people?
There's no if in it.
Oftentimes our sorrys look like, well, I'm sorry if I hurt you.
That's not taking responsibility.
And there's no but. I'm sorry I said that, but you really made me angry. That's not confession.
Don't use your apology, don't use your asking for forgiveness as a clever tactic for accusing them. Again, deal with your own sin.
Speak truth in love if needed.
Now, self examination, which has been the major thrust of this, doesn't mean that the other person's sin should never be addressed.
Remember, as Matthew, chapter seven, Jesus said, to remove the plank from your own eye. Why not so that you just forget the other person's speck, but so that you can see clearly to help your brothers remove the speck from their own eyes.
So there's times when in loving God and loving others, it requires us to go to that other person.
If that person has sinned and it needs to be addressed, you've got to go to them humbly, biblically.
But remember, the goal is not to win an argument, it's not to humiliate them. It is for restoration. That is the biblical reason for addressing their sin. To address. To restore the communion between you, the fellowship between you.
So we go then with this godly wisdom from above. We go peaceably, we go gently, we go open to reason, we go full of mercy. We go to speak truth, but we speak it as one who has already stood before God and dealt honestly with our own heart.
And then number 10, pursue peace through righteousness.
Don't settle for false peace.
Biblical peace is not just silence. It's not distancing yourselves. It's not the absence of an argument.
You see, a husband and wife who are in conflict and are trying to deal with it might stop arguing because they've stopped talking altogether.
That's not biblical peace.
Or you have maybe two church members who sit on opposite sides of the sanctuary to avoid each other so they won't fight. That's not peace.
And friends might smile while they're in public, but they are harboring bitterness.
That's not peace.
James says a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. So the kind of peace that comes through truth, repentance, forgiveness and obedience, we need to seek that kind of truth.
Those who are peacemakers, what God calls His people peacemakers, don't just want conflict to stop.
They want righteousness to take its place. They want Christ likeness. They want to be. They want God to be honored. They want their sin confessed. They want to speak the truth. They want forgiveness to take place. They want relationships restored and ultimately so that Christ is magnified and glorified in their lives.
So James 3:13 4:3 gives us a very different approach to handling conflict than the world gives us.
The world tells us to defend ourselves, prove ourselves right, gain people to come on your side, make sure that nobody takes advantage of you. And James says the opposite. Ask what kind of wisdom is governing your heart. Look at the desires that are going on within you. Ask whether your response to this situation reflects the wisdom from above or below.
And then pursue the harvest of righteousness that is sown in peace.
Don't ask, how can I win this argument? Ask, Lord, make me wise.
What is my heart wanting? Lord, help me
[00:31:12] Speaker B: now.
[00:31:13] Speaker A: Ultimately, resolved conflicts find their ultimate resolution in Christ.
We can't talk about reconciliation without talking about Jesus.
James is not just giving good techniques for how to deal with difficult people.
Christ came to reconcile sinners to God through His perfect life, his his substitutionary death, his resurrection from the grave. Jesus accomplished reconciliation that sinners like you and me could never accomplish for ourselves.
And so because of Christ, because He is our life, because he is with us, because of him, we can handle conflicts God's way. We can handle conflict differently than the world because we've been forgiven, we forgive. Because we've been shown mercy, we can show mercy.
Our standing before God isn't dependent upon whether we win an argument.
Our standing before God is not dependent on whether our reputation with other people is preserved.
We can humble ourselves because in Christ we are secure.
Christ has made peace between us and God through the blood of his cross. We can be then peacemakers.
We must keep Christ central in all of this. And ultimately that's what it means to handle conflict God's way.
I really hope that this has been helpful to you. I know that conflict is such a huge part of ministry of life, even within the church. But God has not left us without answers if we will deal with things his way, we can find the resolution that would honor Christ will give God glory.
So I do have my book available if you're interested in picking up that or if you have any questions about this, I would love to dialogue with you and help you any way that I can. You can email me Line Upon Line Ministries gmail dot com. Love to be able to help you with that if I can.
And now another classic sermon by Brother David Miller, this time from Hosea, Chapter two on God's Restraining Grace. Enjoy
[00:33:45] Speaker B: you tonight. Please find the Old Testament, Book of Hosea, Chapter two, Hosea, Chapter two.
The title of my sermon tonight is God's Restraining Grace.
All of us are familiar with redeeming grace.
We have been saved by grace, and we are familiar with benevolent grace.
It just seems like the Lord's always doing something good for us, always blessing us.
This is benevolent grace grace.
But in my sermon tonight, I want to help you to see the grace of God manifested in the way that he sometimes hedges up our way with thorns and makes a wall so that we cannot find our path and sin against Him.
Would you agree with this statement?
When you and I are at our very best, we're still bad enough.
Does that make any sense?
When you and I are at our very best, we are still bad enough.
But the truth is, we are not nearly as bad as we would be if God were to take away all of the restraint and turn us loose on our own.
And that's the theme of my sermon tonight.
Let's begin. Have you found the text?
Chapter two, verse one.
Say ye unto your brethren am I.
And to your sister Ruhamah, plead with your mother. Plead, for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband.
Let her therefore put away her whoredom out of her sight and her adulteries from between her breasts, lest I strip her naked and set her as in the days that she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst.
And I will not have mercy upon her children, for they be the children of whoredoms, for their mother hath played the harlot.
She that conceived them hath done shamefully.
For she said, I will go after my lovers that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.
Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns and make a wall, and that she shall not find her paths, and she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them. And she shall seek them, but shall not find Them.
Then shall she say, I will go and return unto my first husband.
For then was it better with me than now.
I have divided the passage under three headings.
In verses 1 through 5, I want you to see the sin of Gomer.
Now, before I go further, I'm just going to tell you that when I get home to heaven, I intend to inquire.
What in this world did parents have on their minds when they named a new baby girl Gomer?
That just doesn't seem right, does it?
Nevertheless, they did.
And we're going to talk about the sin of Gomer. In verse six, we're going to talk about the sovereign grace.
Now, you are aware that the phrase sovereign grace is a redundancy.
All grace by its nature is sovereignly dispensed, otherwise it ceases to be grace at all.
But since I'm the one doing the preaching, and since sovereign grace fits into my alliterative scheme, tonight it's going to be sovereign grace. Can you live with it?
And then in verse seven, I'm going to talk about the saving goal of this text.
Now, the sin of Gomer. I want to show you three things. First, I want you to see the sin of Gomer. Listen to it. Verse 2.
Let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight and her adulteries from between her breasts.
Hers was the sin of immorality.
It was the sin of whoredom.
I want you to notice three things about the sin of Gomer. I want you to see her punishment announced.
In verse two, he threatens her, or, pardon me, in verse three, he threatens her with degradation and disgrace. Look at it. Lest I strip her naked.
In Hosea's day, if a man discovered that his wife had been unfaithful, he would strip her clothing and open the door of his house and force her to walk out of the house, out into the street, exposed.
All who saw her knew immediately, here is a woman unfaithful as a wife and unfit as a mother, and she would experience tremendous social and moral degradation and disgrace in the community.
Now, obviously, I am not suggesting that we revert to such a policy in our day, but neither do I believe that such immorality should be commonplace in the church.
Number two, he threatens her with destitution.
He says, lest I strip her naked and set her as in the day that she was born.
In Ezekiel 16 chapter, he speaks of the birth of the nation of Israel. And he says, when I first saw you, you were like a baby whose mother did not love it.
She did not wash Its blood. She didn't sever its navel cord. In an unconscionable act, she cast it from her person and walked away and left it out in the desert. And when I passed by, I saw you in your blood.
And I said unto you, live.
Yea, I said unto you, live.
Now, I don't know about you, beloved, but that's an apt description of where God found me.
Do you know of anything more destitute, more helpless, hopeless than an infant left to itself out in the desert?
God says, gomer, you need to repent.
I'm going to reduce you to a state of destitution. And number three, he threatens her with desolation. He says, I'll make her like a wilderness and set her like a dry land. This meant economic recession and depression. And number four, he threatens her with death itself. He says, I will slay her with thirst.
Now, I confess that I don't know all that much about the sin unto death.
I certainly don't know as much as some of my preacher friends seem to know.
But I do believe the Bible is unequivocally clear. It is possible for a person to die a premature death, go to an early grave when they persist unrepentant in their sins.
And so he announces her punishments.
Now put that aside. And I want you to see a second thing about the sin of Gomer. I want you to see her posterity affected by her sin. Look at verse four. And I will not have mercy upon her children, for they be the children of whoredoms.
For their mother hath played the harlot, she that conceived them hath done shamefully.
Are you aware God sometimes punishes children because of the sins of the parents?
I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children under the third and fourth generation.
I wish God hadn't said that I am a parent.
I am a grandparent. This puts us in the dust.
It humbles us.
Our sins are bad enough if they only affected the individual that commits them.
But the tragedy about sin is so often it affects those we love the most and would hate the worst to be affected by our sin or posterity is affected.
But I want you to see a third thing.
Not only is her punishment announced and her posterity affected, I want you to see her persistent attitude. Look at verse five, the last half of the verse.
For she said, I will go after my lovers that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink wouldn't you have thought that when Gomer came face to face with the judgment of God, when she realized the negative impact of her sins upon her own children, wouldn't you have thought that she would have plowed up her fallow ground?
That she would have rent her own heart into two pieces, sought the Lord in tears? Wouldn't you have thought that?
But it's not so. Just the opposite is so. She is persistent in her attitude. Now, to put it in the vernacular, here's what she said.
I don't care what you think.
I don't care what you say.
It's my life. I'm to going, going to do as I please.
Sit down and shut up and butt out.
A persistent attitude.
Now, Bible preaching does four things.
It explains the text, it illustrates the text.
It sometimes argues the text, and it applies the text.
And so I wonder tonight, beloved, have you, as a child of God, in your sanctification process, ever experienced a persistent attitude towards.
Have you? I tell you, there have been times in my life as a Christian, as a Baptist preacher, when I've grown weary and exasperated with my own heart and mind.
There have been times when I've known the far reaching impact of my sins and the consequences of those sins.
And yet it seemed there was a compelling compulsion, a strong inclination, a mighty bent toward sinning against God. Have you ever experienced that?
Where would Gomer have been?
Yea, where would you and I be tonight were it not for God's restraining grace?
Now this brings us to the good stuff. This brings us now to the good part of the text.
Do you know why I'm just now getting to verse six?
Any of you?
The reason I'm just now getting to verse six is you can't get to verse six except. Except through verses one through five.
And that's the problem with Bible preaching verse by verse.
You have to deal with verses one through five first. But I've dealt with it. Did you see it?
The sin of Gomer. Her punishment is announced.
Her posterity is affected.
She has a persistent, consistent attitude. I'm going to go after my lovers.
But now I want us to talk about the sovereign grace.
Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns and make a wall so that she cannot find her paths.
What does the Lord mean by this? The Israelites recognized this analogy.
They often would plant a row of hedges with thorns in such a way that when they matured they could be used as a fence, as a corral to keep the cattle or the sheep in at night.
But now I would Imagine that many of you in this room, like myself, grew up out in the country, and you know enough about livestock to know that some cattle won't ever be kept in by a fence of hedges with thorns.
Periodically, when I was growing up, we'd get the cattle into the lot around the barn.
I don't remember a time that we ever did that when there wasn't at least one cow in the bunch.
No sooner would you get her into the lot and close the gate till she would be walking around the fence looking for a place to get out.
And if she couldn't find a suitable place ere long, she would get up ahead of steam and just tear through the best fence you could build.
Now, it would leave her bleeding and bellowing in pain. But when you had retrieved her, it wouldn't be long till she'd be trying to get out again.
And so the Lord says, gomer, I'm going to hedge up your way with thorns. But if that's not enough, I am going to build a wall.
The analogy here is to an old fashioned rock fence or rock wall.
I live in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. My son and I have a little farm in Stone County, Arkansas. If ever a county was aptly named, it is Stone County.
You can't turn one spade of dirt on our place without digging up a half a dozen rocks. Years ago, when the farmers were breaking new ground, they take the larger rocks out of the field, out to the edge of the field and literally build a rock wall. We still have two of these old rock fences still standing our farm.
Now, it occurs to me that a rock wall can serve at least two functions.
It can serve as a wall of protection or a wall of prevention.
Now, what's God saying to Gomer? He's saying, gomer, you are persistent in your attitude. You have said, I am going after my lovers. But I have got some news for you. I can be more persistent than you. I'm going to hedge up your way with thorns. But if that's not enough, I am going to build a rock wall across your path. And in your rebellion, in your disobedience, you are going to discover that you are beating your head against a rock wall.
Now, beloved, if you beat your head against a rock wall for a while, you might look up and say, lord, are you trying to tell me something?
This is the grace of God restraining us.
Now, I've come to very important juncture in my sermon and I need to ask you a theological question.
Is that permissible?
After all, we're at church.
And the church is the pillar and the ground of truth.
Now get yourself pulled up to your best height and get your shoulders back. Back. And look me right in the eye.
It's important that you get the question.
Are you aware it's going to be better for us in the judgment if the Lord says you never did get the answer right than for him to say, you folks didn't even know what the question was?
Here's the question.
Have you ever noticed that sometimes when the temptation to sin is strong, that the opportunity to sin is not present?
Have you ever noticed that?
Nod your head up and down like this. Back and forth like that. Around like this. If you're confused.
Sometimes when the temptation to sin is strong, the opportunity is not present.
Now, conversely, have you ever noticed that sometimes when the opportunity to sin is present, that the temptation to sin is not present?
Why is this?
I. I tell you, beloved, it's the grace of God.
It's not the common course of nature that befalls the sons of men. It is God in restraining grace, hedging up our way with thorns, making a wall.
I was saved when I was 16 years old.
I lived alone when I was 16, from January 1962 until June of that year. My nearest family member was 500 miles away.
Now, don't feel sorry for me. I had a nice place to stay. I had everything I needed. I wasn't living under a bridge or eating out of a garbage can. I'm not writing a book. I hadn't got anything to say. Hell, I'm sorry.
I lived alone and I was serious and I was sober minded about serving the Lord. I attended all of the services at church. I taught a Bible class, I gave my tithe. I sought aggressively to witness the Gospel to my friends and I progress in sanctification.
You don't have to wait until you're 50 years old before you begin to make progress in sanctification.
But if I were to tell you the whole story, I'd have to tell you there were some times when the temptation to sin was strong.
But so often when the temptation was strong, the opportunity was not present. And on other occasions when I happened to be in a situation where the opportunity was present. Do you know what God did? He either did not allow me to be tempted at all or he did with the temptation also make a way to escape, that I might be able to bear it. I tell you, beloved, we cannot live the Christian life on our own.
We are dependent upon the restraining grace of God. Now, I believe this to be A fair and honest explanation of the text.
Having said that, now I want to make an exhortation.
And it's twofold, negative and positive.
This text eliminates boasting in the flesh.
Did you ever hear some of these folk testify?
I mean, you've invited them during a revival service to give a three minute testimony.
And being cognizant that of Murphy's Law, you explain it to them further. You tell them, now we know that you've been to the Holy Land and you've got that set of slides and we're anxious to see them. Oh, we're just dying to see them. But not tonight.
Tonight we want you to just get up, speak up and brag on Jesus. Just tell us about the grace of God in your Life. Take about three minutes.
And 15 minutes later they're still talking, telling where all they've been and what all they've done.
And I'm sitting out there thinking to myself, behold, one greater than Moses is among us.
Behold, Solomon in all of his glory was not so accomplished as this dear brother.
And as he talks on, I begin to wonder, will the kingdom survive after his demise?
Did you ever hear any testimonies like that?
A brother came to pastor in our association.
He had had the wonderful privilege of obtaining formal education, theological training for the ministry. I don't know why, but he thought he was God's gift of wisdom to the poor ignorant saints in the Little Red River Association.
I remember the first executive meeting he attended.
We did not have an opportunity to properly formally introduce him before he had shared some of his great wisdom.
And every time we met the thereafter he shared his great wisdom.
It got to where we couldn't pass a resolution saying we love God and hate to death without him sharing his great wisdom, wanting to improve our sin tags.
And he would quote Robert's Rules of Order.
O my, would he quote Robert's Rules of Order?
I discerned early on, here is a brother who knows more about Robert's Rules of Order than he does about the spirit of a New Testament church.
And some of the brethren came to me and they said, david, by virtue of your position as our leader, it is incumbent upon you to either speak to this man privately or we are going to speak to him publicly.
And I picked up on their drift.
And to tell you the truth, I was like the monkey that kissed the skunk myself.
Did you hear about him, the monkey that kissed the skunk?
He said, I have not had all that I want, but I have had all I can stand.
And I Hadn't had all of the wisdom I wanted.
I had just had all I could stand from this one brother.
And a few days later, he was in my study sharing his great wisdom.
He took me back in our history and pointed out our failures and mistakes.
He showed me how that our projections for the future were totally misguided.
After a while, I interrupted him. I said, brother, can you stop for just a moment? I would like to ask you a question.
At what point in time was it when God made you the depository of all wisdom?
When did that happen?
And furthermore, I want to say to you in the words of job, to his three friends in chapter 12 of his book, no doubt but that you are the people, and when you die, wisdom will die with you.
Do you ever know any folks like this?
I learned years ago that because I have a physical handicap, and I don't know why it's referred to as a handicap, it's not handy, nor is it a cap, but because I have one, folks were a lot more interested in hearing my personal testimony than they were in hearing me expound the Scriptures.
I learned that if I would announce early in the meeting that on Friday evening I'm going to give my personal testimony, and I build that up and I tell them how I've lived with this crippling and killing muscle disease. Now, if you got to miss any night, don't miss Friday night.
Investors, invite your neighbors. Bring your friends.
I'm going to give my personal testimony Friday night.
Well, I discovered we'd have the largest attendance of the meeting on Friday night. Now, it didn't matter that I'd been preaching on the grace of God or the atonement of Christ.
We'd have the biggest meeting on Friday night, and I'd give my testimony.
And every time I ever did that, one or more people would approach me like this. Oh, brother Miller, how do you do it?
You are something else. I mean, you just go on.
Nothing seems to bother you.
You're married to a beautiful lady.
You have a family.
You seem to have such joy and fulfillment in your life.
Brother Miller, you act just like a.
Well, preacher. You know what I'm trying to say? You act just like a normal person.
How do you do that?
Now, look, I have been tempted, and I've been tempted when the opportunity was present.
You know what I've been tempted to do?
I've been tempted to say, sit down there, brother, and I'm going to tell you how I've done it.
Now, if you would read your Bible as much as I read mine.
And if you'd pray as much as I pray, and if you'd give as much as I give, and if you'd spend half as much time as I do out there in the heat of the day bearing the burden of the Lord, sold out like I am, well, brother, you would have the same joy and fulfillment that I have.
I've been tempted to say that, but I never have said it.
Now, some of you might have thought just said it, but I didn't say it. I just told you what I'd been tempted to say.
I've never said that.
Oh, I'm glad I hadn't.
I'm glad I've never said that. You know why? I know my own heart too well.
I know there have been times when I've read 16 chapters in the Bible, and when I got through, I still bent out of shit, I still aggravated, I still hopping mad.
And I've wrapped the towel together and thrown it in.
I've said it out loud. My secretary's heard it. My wife's heard it.
I don't care.
I don't care what I'm supposed to do today.
The last thing on God's earth I want to have to endure today is having another Baptist come to my study for counseling.
I am up to my eyeballs.
Did you know women that want to come see the preacher and sometimes they'll even want to know about. About their sex life.
Did you know that?
You know what I tell them?
Go see your great grandma. She'd been there and done that. Leave the preacher alone.
Leave him alone.
Last thing I want to have to do today is go somewhere and preach.
I'm tired of folks telling me how inspiring I am.
Bless the Lord. If they don't ever get inspired again till I inspire them, they're going to die uninspired.
I throw the towel in.
Any of you ever done that?
Just throw it in.
And I head down the road of discouragement and disobedience.
But glory, glory.
I don't get very far until I discover there's a hedge of thorns.
Now, there have been some times when I've been rebellious enough I just lower my shoulder and stiffen my neck. Get me up ahead of steam and tear through a hedge of thorns.
That might leave me bleeding and bellowing, but I'd keep right on going.
You ever been there?
But hallelujah.
I don't get much further till I discover there's a rock wall across my path.
You beat your head against the wall for a while, you might look up and say, lord, you trying to tell me something now? The Lord never has spoken to me audibly, has he? You don't answer that.
Lord, these days, somebody stand up and go to giving a revelation.
God never has spoken to me like that, nor has he you.
But I have had these impressions.
David, you give up too easily.
God's not going to let you go without a fight.
And the Spirit of the Lord would be urging me, turn around, come on back home to the Lord. And I get up, I turn around, I repent.
Aren't you glad? God has set in place a mechanism for getting right with God?
It's called repentance.
And I'd come back home to the Father's house now, beloved, if there are any in this room who have reached any pinnacle of success or victory or maturity in the Christian life, let us take the crown off our head and lay it at the feet of Jesus.
This eliminates boasting.
And positively it excites us to brag in the Spirit.
It excites us to say stuff like, naught have I gotten but what I received, grace hath bestowed it. Since I have believed boasting excluded pride, I abase I'm only a sinner saved by grace.
Only a sinner saved by grace.
Only a sinner saved by grace.
This is my story.
To God be the glory. I'm only a sinner saved by grace. I tell you tonight, beloved, the more you and I know about the grace of God, the more it will eliminate boasting in the flesh and the more it will excite us to brag on the Lord in the Spirit.
Now put that aside for a moment. And I want to talk about the saving goal of the text. Listen to it.
She shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not find them.
She shall seek them and shall not find them. Then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband. For then was it better with me than now.
Things are never so bad and bent out of shape as when a child of God leaves the family.
The Father and the fellowship.
God was a witness to Gomer's debauchery.
God smelled the stench of her sin.
But in wrath God remembered mercy.
And even the punishment was dis designed to bring her back home to her family.
And she said, things will be better with me when I get back home. Things will never be so well and warm and wonderful as when a backslidden child of God comes home.
The Father will see you coming a great way off, run to meet you.
He'll put his arms around you. He'll say to the family members, bring forth the best robe and put it on him.
Kill the fatted calf.
We're going to have a celebration this My child has come home.
And so I end my sermon now by asking you, have you torn through the hedge?
Are you bleeding?
Are you hurting on the inside? Perhaps no one else knows, but you know and God knows.
Perhaps you're butting your head against the wall.
Turn around and come on back home. Things will be better with you when you come back home. The Lord see you coming. There'll be a celebration.
It's part of sanctification that when we turn aside, the Lord brings us back.
It's grace.
It's all of grace.
[01:14:29] Speaker A: What a wonderful reminder from Brother David of God's restraining grace towards us once again. Be sure to check out our website, follow us on social media. Be sure to like and share with those you think would be encouraged. If you have any questions about anything, feel free to email me at lineuponlineministriesmail.com thank you again for watching this episode. I pray that you have been encouraged by it. May God bless you as you continue to study and minister God's word, line upon line.
[01:15:01] Speaker B: Sam.
