Date:  February 12th, 2012

Speaker:  Pastor Kevin Sndyer

Title: When Heaven Seems Silent

Text:  Genesis 12-18

 

Introduction

• Dad – Mom was a big believer in divine healing, Dad wasn’t healed
• Quitting – prayed for husband for years, quit coming because “got tired of coming alone”
• Single woman who wanted to be married – never did; got MS
• Young Couple prayed for healthy child and gave birth to autistic baby (T & L – chromosome defect – baby died in hospital – dedication service in hospital just day before baby died)

 

All of these stories get at an experience we may have gone through….what do we do when the heavens seem silent….When the answer is slow in coming.

 

Let’s look at the issue and some of our typical responses

 

Chart 1

 

Now our desire is to close the gap between hope and reality. 

What are our responses? 

1. DETERMINATION APPROACH

Chart 2

 

Abraham     

In Genesis 12 Abram is promised by God that he would be the “Father of a great nation.”

The text tells us he was 75 years old when he gets this word.  His wife Sarah has never given birth to a child.

 

While time goes on and the gap between HOPE and REALITY doesn’t seem to be narrowing.

So Abram attempts to close the gap.

a. Gen 15 – Abram seeks to fill the gap by appointing one of the trusted servants in his household as his heir.  But God says:

Gen 15:4-6 – “This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir.” He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars – if indeed you can count them” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.”

     Well, he believed at least for awhile.  But again his impatience gets to him and he and Sarah seek to again close the gap between hope and reality.

b. In Genesis 16, (Abram is now 86  (v.15) (11 years later) Sarah says:

 “Being I haven’t given you any children why don’t you taken my Egyptian maidservant, Hagar as your wife and I will give you children through her.  Abram agrees and has a child through Hagar named Ishmael.   That doesn’t work out very well and is the kernel story of the conflict between the Arabs and Israeli’s.

 

Application

It is hard to live in the DESERT between HOPE and REALITY.  And one tendency is to try and close the gap on our own.

• You leave no stone unturned.
• Money means nothing to you.
• You are convinced someone somewhere knows how to fix this.  By sheer force of your will, by mobilizing prayer, you are going to make this happen. 
• Your adage is: “Heaven helps those who help themselves.” 

2. DESPAIR

It is a short journey to the next response, and that is despair.  It follows when no matter what we seem to do, the gap doesn’t seem to close.  We face the prospect of continued failure.    And so to stop hurting we give up HOPE.

DESPAIR removes the tension between hope and reality by lowering its expectations.  It gives up hoping and gives way to cynicism.  Nothing will change.  This is all it will be.

Chart 3

No Hope

Reality

Time

Hope

        

i.e.

Sarah gives us an example of this response

In Gen 18, 3 disguised divine visitors come to Abram and Sarah.  They show them hospitality and the one visitor says:

Gen 18:10-15 – “Then the Lord said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.”

Now Sarah was listening at the entrance of the tent, which was behind him.  Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years, (24 years after the promise), and Sarah was past the age of childbearing.  So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my master is old will I now have this pleasure?”

Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, “Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the Lord?  I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son.”

Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said “I did not laugh.”

But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.”

 

Sarah had a cynical moment.  She got tired of hoping.  It hurt too much.  Her solution:  Lower the hope level.  The laugh was a cynical one that had accepted the impossible. 

 

Interesting that a year later when she had a child God transformed her cynicism into joy.  She mocks her cynicism by giving her son the name, Isaac, which means “he laughs” (Gen 21:6)

Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears this will laugh with me.”

 

Application

Many have done what Sarah did. 

• They’ve given up hope. 
• It hurts too much. 
• It’s taken too long.
• They give up hope that God will bring that wayward child around.
• They accept that their spouse will never change and quit hoping and praying.
• They can’t see that answer ever coming and so give way to despair.

It is another response to those desert times in our lives. 

3. DENIAL

There is yet another response….called DENIAL

In this response instead of giving up hope we deny our present reality.

 

Chart 4

 

Unreality

Hope

Time

Hope

      

 

To sidestep the suffering we deny it.

ie.

Paul - had lung cancer...

Well-meaning Christian believers who believed that as a Christian you should experience health and wealth.  They believed that if you weren’t experiencing those one of two things were wrong:

• Lack of Faith
• Un-confessed sin in your life

These well-meaning Christians came and prayed for Paul and told him to “claim” his healing.  To live “as if” he was healed.  To act in faith…how he felt would change if he acted on it.

Paul called me as his Pastor because this dealt a blow to his confidence and through him into a struggle.  He said, “If the Lord has healed me, shouldn’t I feel it.  Do I need to deny how I feel?”

Paul died of lung cancer.

 

In this case we substitute faith with “psychological hype”, and try to close the gap by denying our reality.

 

Interesting thing in Abraham’s case, that despite these periods of determination and despair he was a man of faith.  He always kept one foot in reality.

 

Romans 4:19-24

19 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. 20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. 22 This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” 23 The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, 24 but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.

 

Faith is not ignoring or denying reality.  Faith is believing in spite of reality.  Isaiah 50:10 – “Even though I walk in the dark yet will I trust him.”

 

But it is one way that many people try to deal with the Desert.

 

All of those approaches are inadequate. 

HOW OUGHT WE APPROACH THOSE DESERT TIMES? 

 

As I reflected on this I came up with 1 biblical principle that can guide us in these Desert times. 

1. BE “FAITH-DRIVEN” , NOT “MOOD-DRIVEN”

Luke 18:1 – “One day Jesus told his disciples a story to illustrate their need for constant prayer and to show them that they must never give up.”

The story is about an unjust judge who answers a widows request because her persistence.  He says don’t you think God who is just and gracious is even more willing to respond to the persistent prayers of his followers. 

But then he adds this curious phrase:

v. 8 – “But when I , the Son of Man, return, how many will I find who have faith?”

You see, one of the struggles is to not to be mood-driven in our prayers.  Because often when you get praying for a situation or person often things don’t immediately get better, they get worse.  Things break out even worse.  If we are mood-driven often when that happens we quit and start thinking “ what is plan B?”

 

But faith is as Isaiah says:

Isaiah 50:10 – “Even though I walk in the dark yet will I trust him.”

 

Hebrews 11:1  defines faith as “the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see.

Hebrews 11: 13 adds about these great heroes of faith:

“All these faithful ones died without receiving what God had promised them, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed the promises of God.”

 

Prayer that prevails is faith-driven not mood driven.  It hangs on to the promises and power of God despite the evidence to the contrary.  It continues to hope even though reality doesn’t show it.

 

One of the evidences of our faith is persisting…keep on believing and praying.

 i.e. 1

J Hudson Taylor – “prayed the money in”. 

One day the cook at the hospital he was running in China came to him and said “Mr Taylor we are on the last bag of rice and it is disappearing quickly.”  There was conjecture that the hospital would be forced to close.  But Taylor kept praying.

His response: “Then, the Lord’s time for helping us must be close at hand.”

 

And sure enough before the bag of rice was finished he had a check for what was then a very significant sum.

The story was the man’s dad had died and left him a considerable fortune and that God had put such a heavy burden on the man to give this that he  sent  a cheque with a note saying more would come…totally unbeknown of the last bag of rice.

(Spiritual Awakening, p.77)

 

i.e. 2

John Wimber – founder of the Vineyard churches which put a big emphasis on healing, and signs and wonders.

Wimber says he longed to see answers to prayer like what he read in Scripture.  Felt same God was alive today.  And so they began to pray.  They prayed for healings and signs & wonders.

Interesting – prayed for 2 years before they saw first miracle of healing.

If you are mood-driven you quit long before that.  You give way to cynicism.  The evidence of  Wimber’s faith is displayed by his persistence to keep praying.

 

You see, without these desert times we are moody Christians.  The desert develops faith.  If we got everything right a way, what faith is created?

The desert changes us, it builds faith, it creates perseverance. 

2. THE DESERT CHANGES US

Sometimes the desert doesn’t change the situation it changes us.

Sometimes the answer doesn’t come….we’ve prayed and the person died.  We have interceded and the person never comes to Christ. We have prayed and their seems no spiritual breakthrough.

The situation doesn’t change but we do.

 

2 examples:

 

a. Old Testement – Habakkuk

Starts with

“How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?

God responds “Look at the nations and watch – and be utterly amazed.  For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe even if I told you…”

By the end of the book the situation hasn’t yet changed but Habakkuk has.

There is a new depth.  A new trust.  Faith  that is no longer conditional…(If you come thru I will believe but if you don’t I won’t)

 

Listen at the end of the book:

I heard and my heart pounded,

my lips quivered at the sound;

decay crept into my bones,

and my legs trembled.

Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity

to come on the nation invading us.

17 Though the fig tree does not bud

and there are no grapes on the vines,

though the olive crop fails

and the fields produce no food,

though there are no sheep in the pen

and no cattle in the stalls,

18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord,

I will be joyful in God my Savior.

19 The Sovereign Lord is my strength;

he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,

he enables me to tread on the heights.

 

 

Habakkuk comes to a point where even though it hasn’t happened he can rejoice…he has changed.

 

Example 2: Paul

The Apostle Paul prayed 3 times to have a “thorn in his flesh removed”.  Not sure what it was.  But God respondednot with an answer to remove the thorn.  But rather “My grace is sufficient for you.”

 

i.e.

Fish at bottom of ocean

Grace to match the pressure from without.

God will provide what you need for whatever you are going through. 

Sometimes we think “I could never go through that.  I’m not strong enough.  I would  come apart.”

The promise of this verse is that God will supply the grace to match whatever the challenge is that you face.

And so sometimes God changes the desert…and sometimes God changes us in the desert.

 

WRAP-UP

 

What do you want to see changed? – In you?

In someone else – spouse, child, sibling?

Situation or circumstance?

 

Want you to reaffirm in prayer  this morning 2 things: 

a. Your Persevering Faith

Not give in to cynicism, to doubt, to your mood….but will keep lifting them up regardless of where it seems right now.  God would give you faith to keep praying on and not grow weary and give up.

b. Your Confidence In His Grace

Lord, even if I never see the answer yet will I praise you…rejoice in you…trust you.  I know you will supply what I need  regardless.

 

Bring those 2 things to God in prayer

 

 

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The New International Version. 2011 (Ro 4:19–24). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

The New International Version. 2011 (Hab 3:16–19). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.