How God Gets Our Attention - Part 2

Dr. Charles Stanley: If Christ is my life, there are no accidents. There are things that God may allow, there are some things that God sends. There are attention-getters that God brings into our life. No such thing as an accident. God who is able to keep us, to protect us, to provide for us, and to guide us, there is no such thing as an accident. God is sovereign and powerful enough to protect us in any and every given situation. When God wants to get our attention and He allows something unusual to happen, we are to look to say, "Lord, what are you saying?"
Guest (Male): God intends to lead us and guide us, but sometimes we are simply not listening. We might be praying, but our focus is really on something else. Welcome to In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. Before the Lord can communicate with us, He often has to get our attention, and that is what we will learn about as we continue our series on listening to God. Let us listen in to Dr. Stanley’s message.
Dr. Charles Stanley: If I am walking in the Spirit and listening to Him, I am going to be able to perceive what God is saying to me at that given time. The problem is we do not always walk in the Spirit. We are not always living in the Spirit or by the Spirit. There are times when we choose to do things our own way, make it go our own way, do our own thing. We have got our own plans and sometimes we are headed so fast in a given direction that if God spoke, He could not be heard because we are not listening to Him. Sometimes we are so prone to listen to what other people think, other people's opinions, their attitudes, getting their approval and their praise, we cannot even hear God speak. What I want to talk about today is how God gets our attention when He wants to speak to us. Looking at Exodus, chapter three, verse one: "Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed." Listen to this: "So Moses said, 'I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.' When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, 'Moses, Moses.' And he said, 'Here I am.'" Out of a situation unlike anything he had ever experienced before, God got his attention. He had never seen anything like that. Something so unusual he had to stop and ask. Then God spoke to him. What you and I must do is to learn to live and look for the presence of God in every circumstance of life. You hear people who are looking for demons behind every bush; forget it. A child of God walking in the Spirit is to look for the handiwork, the footprint, and the handprint of Almighty God in every single situation of life. If God is sovereign and you and I are His kept children, there is no such thing as an accident in the life of the child of God. If we have the life of Jesus Christ within us, He said, "Christ who is your life." If Christ is my life, there are no accidents. There are things that God may allow, there are some things that God sends. There are attention-getters that God brings into our life. No such thing as an accident. God in His sovereign will, He said God is able to keep us. God is the keeper of His children. That is why He said Jesus is the Shepherd and we are the sheep to protect us, to provide for us, and to guide us. There is no such thing as an accident. God is sovereign and powerful enough to protect us in any and every given situation. When God wants to get our attention and He allows something unusual to happen, we are to look to say, "Lord, what are you saying?" For example, suppose you went in tomorrow morning and your boss said to you 30 minutes after you got there, "I want to tell you, hate to tell you this but as of right now, I am having to let you go. I'll give you two weeks pay and that's it. I don't have any real explanation, that's just the way it is." You may do one of three things. You may begin to wring your hands and think, "How am I going to do this? What in the world is going to happen? What is my wife going to say? What are my friends going to think? What are my fellow employees going to say?" And then you may say, "God, why are You doing this to me? Why have You allowed this to happen to me? I go to church, I give my tithe, I try to be obedient." Listen, the response is none of that. The response is, "Lord, what are you saying?" Because if God is in everything, and if He is not, He is not God, He is in everything in some fashion, form, or the other. If He is in everything, the natural, normal, proper response for the believer, whatever the situation is, is, "Lord, what are you saying? I just want to hear from you." Because the same God who gave the man the job, the same God who allowed the job to be taken away or who took it away Himself, is the same God who has got something else in mind. Consider the goodness of God, the blessing of God, and the unusual things that happen in life. In the seventh chapter of Joshua, let me give you a little background. The nation of Israel, now 40 years later, all the adults have died, and they have come to the Promised Land. Their first responsibility is to take the city of Jericho, a walled city. They do exactly what God says: once a day they march around the city, the seventh day seven times, blow the trumpet, shout, and the walls come tumbling down. They had a tremendous celebration praising the Lord. The next challenge is Ai. Ai is just a little old town up the road not too far. If you can wipe out Jericho, Ai is a pushover. So they send up a small band of soldiers to take care of Ai. What happens? God gets their attention. They come back humiliated. They lost a number of men. It is interesting what the Bible says in verse five because when Jericho’s walls came tumbling down, the fear of God penetrated every single nation within the realm of the Promised Land. They were on the home ground of their enemies, men who were trained in battle. The defeat of Jericho put the fear of God in the hearts of their enemies, but listen to what these people felt when they came back after Ai, a little small city, having been humiliated into defeat. The scripture says in the last phrase of verse five, "So the hearts of the people melted and became as water." These who before were like steel and like iron, "We are walking in the will of God and God is going to conquer this nation for us," and now that same steel heart becomes water. Their hearts melt and become like water; they were scared to death. Is that not a description of us sometimes? When God has blessed you spiritually, when God has blessed you financially, when God has done something super in your life, whatever its nature may be, that is the time to remember Ai. I do not mean to be afraid, but His blessings should bring about the response of thanksgiving and praise and a very precise, exact attention because following a great blessing from God, the next step must be in the right direction. We must be sensitive to the voice of God, lest we become proud, egotistical, take-for-granted, self-dependent, self-secure, and take God's blessing and ruin the whole thing. So what does He do? He lets failure come. How many men in business have experienced failure and they have said, "I don't understand this. I can't figure out what's happened." They just turn around and go right back into it, not to stop to think, "Lord, what are you trying to say to me?" Now listen, there is a difference in failing and being a failure. My failure in this given instance may prove to be the greatest stepping stone to success in my life if I am wise enough in the midst of that failure to say, "Lord, what are you saying? You must be trying to get my attention about something in my life." If failure today can make you a success tomorrow, are you not willing to fail in a small thing to succeed in a larger thing? Having failed does not make you a failure, but having failed and responding properly can be the stepping stone to the greatest success in your life. They failed only to be successful thereafter. Another way that God gets our attention, if we had our way, probably this would be one of the last ones you would choose: sometimes to get our attention, God dries up our finances. Is it not amazing God knows exactly what it takes, does He not? In the book of Judges, the whole theme of the book of Judges is this: every man did what was right in his own eyes, had his own thing going, doing his own thing. The whole nation of Israel did. Time after time after time, they were falling into idolatry, intermarrying with the heathens of their day, and the scripture says the sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hands of Midian seven years. Remembering that these were agricultural people and herdsmen, it says that the Midianites prevailed against them, drove the people of Israel into the dens, the mountains, the caves, and the strongholds. For it was when Israel had sown that the Midianites would come up with the Amalekites and the sons of the east and go against them. They would come against them and destroy the produce of the earth as far as Gaza, leave no sustenance in Israel as well as no sheep, ox, or donkeys. They would come up with their livestock and their tents, they would come in like locusts for number, but they and their camels were innumerable, and they came into the land to devastate it. So Israel was brought very low because of Midian and the sons of Israel then cried to the Lord. When did they cry to the Lord? When God took away every material possession they had and drove them into the dens, the caves, the mountains to hide for their lives. God knew exactly what it would take to get their attention, and that was to take away all their material possessions. Has God ever dried up your finances? It may have been that at one time in your life it was like an ocean. God started drying it up, then it became like a sea, then he dried it up to a river, then it dried up to a creek, then he dried it up to a stream, then he dried it up to a little fountain and finally cut the whole thing off. You ask the average man what is the toughest way for God to get your attention and he will tell you if God dries up my finances. That is a tough way to have to hear from God. There are people seated right here today that I know personally whom God dried up everything they had. I mean He dried it up; it was like gunpowder. There was not anything left. He got their attention, but it took God getting their attention to force them to face an issue in their life. You see, if God wants to bless you, I am not saying that He is going to bless everybody the same financially; that is not God's plan. He knows exactly what you and I need and He knows how much we need. He can dry up a poor man's small salary to get his attention just as quickly as He will dry up a rich man's wealth to get his attention. The issue is not how much; that has nothing to do with it. The issue is what is the way and the means God can use to get our attention to say, "Lord, what are you saying to me?" And drying up the finances is one way. He just dried up everything. He took everything Israel had and drove them to the mountains and the caves and the dens to get their attention. What was their response? The Bible says the sons of Israel cried to the Lord. What did God do? He delivered them from the Midianites and blessed them. Another way that God gets our attention is through tragedy. In the twenty-first chapter of Numbers, here is a scripture that is referred to in John chapter three when Jesus was talking to Nicodemus. The people of Israel had been blessed of God and verse four says they set out from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient because of the journey. They did not want to bypass the Edomites, but God did not want them fighting the Edomites. So they had to bypass the Edomites. It was a rather long and difficult journey. The people spoke against God and Moses, and here is what they said, "Why have you brought us up out of the Egypt to die in the wilderness?" Is it not a strange how short our memory is under the whips of the taskmasters of the Egyptians and here they are free? God's provided for them. Listen to what they are complaining about: "Why have you brought us up out of the Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no food, no water, and we loathe this miserable food that you keep raining out of heaven. We're sick and tired of that." Oh, is that right? So what does God do? The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and bit the people and many of them died. And what happens? The people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned because we have spoken against the Lord and you. Intercede with the Lord that He may remove the serpents from us." And Moses interceded for the people and God answered their prayer. You say, "Does God send tragedy to get our attention?" You and I have no right to look at anybody else's circumstances and say the reason that happened in their life is God is trying to... we don't have the right to do that. But we should look at every tragic situation to ask, "God, what are you trying to say?" When tragedy takes place, you and I need to ask ourselves the question, "Lord, what are you trying to say?" Let me mention one last way. Second Chronicles, Hezekiah was a pretty good king. Same thing happened to him as happens to lots of folks. The Lord had blessed him. They had just come through a tremendous victory, 185,000 Assyrians. 185,000 Assyrians had been wiped out in the wink of God's eye. One angel took care of the whole crowd. The scripture says, "So the Lord saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib the king of Assyria and from the hand of all others and guided them on every side, blessed, bless, bless was Hezekiah." But listen to what happened. "Many were bringing gifts to the Lord at Jerusalem and choice presents to Hezekiah, king of Judah, so that he was exalted in the sight of all nations thereafter. In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill, and he prayed to the Lord, and the Lord spoke to him and gave him a sign, but Hezekiah gave no return for the benefit he received because his heart was proud; therefore God came on him and on Judah and Jerusalem." Somebody says God does not ever make anybody sick. Go back to David's son. He struck him with sickness. Hezekiah became mortally ill. Why do you think he became mortally ill? God did not just put that in between two verses that talk about his pride. One of the ways that God gets our attention is through sickness and through affliction. For example, how did God get the attention of Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus Road on his way to destroy the church of God? He blinded his eyes. And for three days he could not see anything. You do not think that got his attention? You better believe it did. Now let me say this. I do not think we can say God uses any one of these on anybody. He may use a combination of them. I know in my own heart the two that He uses most on me is number one, a restlessness in my spirit and number two, if I do not listen to that, He just lays me out physically. It is things I bring on myself. I cannot blame anybody. You say, "Well, did God make you that way?" I will tell you what, listen to me. When you and I are not listening to God and the conflict is within us and God is trying to get our attention in the restlessness, we make foolish decisions physically. Too much work, not enough rest, no recreation, whatever it might be, until finally God just lays us out and gets our attention. Now listen to me carefully. I believe in healing. I don't believe that God's for healing lines. I believe that God will do it any time He says He will. He says if there is anybody sick, call for the elders of the church, let them go, lay hands on them, anoint them with oil and pray, getting their hearts cleaned out first before you can ask for any healing to go on because more than likely, what brought it on was something spiritually internal anyway. You ask any medical doctor, he will tell you 75% of the people in the hospitals are there because of something going on on the inside of them that has resulted in something physical. Thank God nobody came and prayed for me until God was finished dealing with me. We have to be very, very careful when we go to pray for somebody to be healed that we do not get in the way of God of doing what God is in the process of doing. God laid me aside to turn my life around radically, and I needed it. The worst thing that could have happened was to have been healed and missed what God did. Listen, God was not about to heal me until He straightened Charles Stanley out on the inside. And when He dealt with me, I began to get well. On the last Friday when God settled it all between myself and Him, I began to get well. God brought me to a decision that was absolutely necessary to be made, had to be made, and I am sure I would never have made it if He had not laid me down and forced me to face the issue. You say, "Well, you sound mighty rebellious and stubborn." Maybe I am. I do not want to be, I do not choose to be, but I am sure that sometimes as we move along, God knows what it takes. So that is why sometimes we complain about these things when they happen. But I hope I am in the process of learning if God lays you down, look up and ask, "Lord, what are you trying to say?" So I have given you 10 ways that God may use to get your attention. He does not use them all in the same way on the same people. Here is His omniscience: He knows exactly what it will take at this point in your life to get your attention. And I simply want to ask you one question: Have you seen any of these things occurring and reoccurring in your life over a period of time that you can say, "My goodness me, that is what God's been trying to do in my life"? Then my friend, look up and listen and tell Him that you are all ears, not just to hear, but to hear in order to obey in order that God's loving care for you may protect you for the present and for the future.
Guest (Male): You are listening to In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. Is God trying to get your attention? It may be that the problem or hardship that you are experiencing is God's effort to turn your focus onto Him. If you want to hear this lesson again, click on "Today on Radio" at intouch.org and look around our website for resources that can help you grow as a Christian. To order a copy of Dr. Stanley's complete message, How God Gets Our Attention, open our online bookstore. It is also included in our Listening to God teaching set. Our web address again is intouch.org, or you can call or text us at 1-800-INTOUCH. You can also write to us at In Touch, Post Office Box 7900, Atlanta, Georgia, 30357. Or again, call or text 1-800-INTOUCH. According to the Bible, to love God is to obey Him. Today's Moment with Charles Stanley is coming up.
Dr. Charles Stanley: If I should ask you, do you love God? Why, sure. Well, are you obeying Him? He says, "If you love Me, you will obey Me." And watch this. Not only if we love Him will we obey Him, but if we love Him, we desire to obey Him because we understand He has the best for us. There is no way to improve on God's plan. Nobody ever has; it cannot be done. And God has the best plan for your life. "Lord, I'm going to do what You tell me to do." I don't know how it's going to work out; sometimes we don't. "God, it looks like it's going to be painful, looks like it's going to be hurtful, looks like I'm going to get rejected, looks like I'm going to lose in this whole deal." But if this is what You want me to do, I'm going to obey You because I love You. Now obeying God is not always easy. But listen, if you live by this principle, you will be blessed all your life no matter what. Obey God, the Sovereign of the universe, the Author of love, the Giver of every good and perfect gift. "If you love Me," He says, "you will obey Me. If you obey Me and leave all the consequences to Me, I will take care of your consequences." And you see, for a person to disobey God, here is what they are saying: "I don't like what He wants, I don't want what He wants," or "I think I can improve on this," or "I'm going to do it my way." You cannot improve on the best. Obey God, leave all the consequences to Him. Do you realize what that means? That means you do not have to worry about a lot of things.
Guest (Male): Learn more about trusting and obeying God at intouch.org. When In Touch returns, God communicates with His children, but with so many conflicting voices today, how can you be sure when you have heard from Him? Clear guidelines are coming your way when we return on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. This program is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia, and remains on this station through the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.