Las Vegas Faith Center - Gods Word, Faith Messages, Spiritual Coaching and Religion Studies

Middle History

The Las Vegas Faith Center
Message from Sunday January 3, 1999

“Middle History”
by Tiger Todd - Sr. Pastor

I was thinking about Jesus - remember, 12 years old and they went to the Feast, and he’s there, his family leaves him, and they’re out a day, and they say, “Where’s Jesus, where’s Jesus?” Well, they find him and he’s talking to the doctors of the Law…and you know, this happened all the time when people would listen, and were amazed at his answers. They were amazed at his understanding, and just once, when I’m reading scripture, I want to seem like they did on the Princess Bride, where the guy is saying “You’re that smart, huh?” And he says, “Did you ever hear of Socrates?, Aristotle?, ....morons!!! I want Jesus to say, just once, “Do you have any idea who you’re talking to?”, because he really is that smart.

Today, we’re going to talk about what it means to be persecuted for the Word’s sake. Sometimes while reading scriptures, we read them so fast that even when we see the word “persecution”, we don’t see why the persecution comes.

I’d like you turn to 1 Peter, Chapter 2, and begin reading with me in Verse 18. Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear or reverence; not only to the good and gentle but also to the forward. For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if when you are buffeted for your faults, you shall take it patiently. I think this is very funny, because Peter is undoubtedly talking to some people, and he’s talking from his own past experience. He’s talking to some other people, and he’s saying, “You guys are coming to me talking about, “Oh, we’ve suffered, we’ve suffered”. Well, what did you suffer for? Did you suffer because you preached the Word, or did you suffer because you just didn’t make a good choice? Did you suffer because God told you to preach a message, or did you suffer because you hauled that poor waitress over to your table and tried to make Jesus her Lord. I’m remembering a time….Ron and I were at the Continental, (we used to go there for the 99 cent breakfast when we were cheap Christians). We invited a couple of other people over to our table, and that poor waitress was afraid to come over. Every time she came over, it was Ron and I in unison….“Do you know Jesus?” Fine!

So there is some persecution we get for the Word’s sake, but it sounds like we are getting persecuted for the Word. Well, that’s not how the Word says you’re supposed to do things. Remember Romans, Chapter 8, first five verses? It talks about, “there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus”. OK? If you are not in Christ Jesus, you can be condemned today, OK, but if you are in Christ Jesus, nothing that comes from the Word is ever supposed to condemn you. So whatever you hear, get through it till the end.

From our example last week, we talked about something very interesting that occured. We were talking about Samuel, and we were talking about the kids that God said you were supposed to have. He sought out all these old couples, for example, Hannah and Elkanah, as well as Abraham and Sarah. The parents of Samson were the same way. And then we found that Solomon was the son of David in David’s old age. And all these other sons that were already ruling these other countries (when they got kicked out of Jerusalem), were out there doing their own thing…Absalom, for one, and so forth. And we found that Samuel goes to God to tell God, “I need you, Israel really wants a King, so please let me go anoint one. And we ask, “What is Samuel doing? What is a man of God doing going to God with the peoples’ will? A man of God is the servant of God, but the gift to the people. So what is he doing serving the people before the God. He had that backwards. Well, I haven’t found out yet in scripture that God told him to have Samuel. He was dedicated and given up by Hannah as soon as he was weaned to the priests. He was given up as a holy tool for all the days of his life. So, I was wondering….where did these sons come from. Well, as it turns out, Samuel made his sons the judges. And it turns out that the judges, his sons, went bad, and they were the reason why Israel got tired of the judging system and said, “Give us a King like everybody else”. So Samuel had some personal pressure that caused him to do that.

Well, we find out that he had to go get Saul. He said, “Well OK, here’s the only kind of King I can find that can somehow rule you”, so he gets Saul into action. King Saul. Well, we know that King Saul was mighty, and head and shoulders above every other man in Israel, and he was a good looking KIng, but he went bad. So God removed the anointing from him to be King, and then immediately sent Samuel over to the house of Jesse, to identify Jesse’s son of his old age, David. So he anoints a ruddy youth named David as the new King of Israel. Now David didn’t begin “kinging” for awhile, but at least he was anointed, and Saul immediately began to be afraid of this David, because he knew the Lord was with him, and also knew that the Lord wasn’t with himself any more. So he starts terrorizing David, chasing him, trying to kill him. I mean, he even followed him to the next city and just kept on kicking him. He must not like this person. And that, in effect, was what was going on. And then you find out he did marry after Saul died, he did marry Saul’s daughter, and they had babies here, had kids there, and all this other stuff. And these kids were disasters…one raped the sister, one did this, one did that, one killed the brother that raped the sister, I mean, it was just like Peyton Place. Would it be like God to say, “Let’s anoint King David, let’s give him this kind of life. I love David”. No. David was beloved of God, and we concluded from last week’s message that this could not possibly be God’s plan. What it was, we are going to call “Middle History”, and that is what we are going to talk about today.

A lot of this Middle History just didn’t need to happen. Obviously, if Samuel hadn’t had to have kids, there would have been different judges. They couldn’t have put that family pressure on Samuel to get him to go to God in order to get a King. So we probably wouldn’t have had Saul as king, and the judging system would have gone on until David was an older, wiser man. If Samuel had sired better sons, Saul would not have not been King, then Saul would not have hunted down David, and David would have been King in age and wisdom, instead of youth and foolishness. I hate the fact that foolishness always follows youth. But it happens. I’ll give you a recent example. I was looking out one of the windows at my condo, and watching these neighborhood kids who were going through the trash….and these kids saw there was a blender that had been thrown away. These kids take it out of the trash, and the next thing you know, they’re swinging it by the cord and smashing it all the way down the street. I was so stunned, I didn’t think to do anything to stop those kids from beating up that poor defenseless blender, but that incident made me realize something. Youth will take a perfectly good blender and smash it all over the street, while age will wisely repair the power cord, and then puree some carrots. So, let’s look at the difference between youth and age, and foolishness and wisdom.

As you get older, you become a repairer. Just go to any older person’s garage. “Oh, that’s a perfectly good hammer (stick). I can fix that somehow. It will go with my other forty that…..” No, that really happens. Something happens with wisdom, and makes you tend to want to repair, while when you are a youth, you tend to want to destroy. That’s why young people make the best warriors, and old people tend to….I heard John Avanzini say that if he was in the war, he’d go over the ocean, drop the bombs there, and say “Oh, it was bad out there”. Young men just run into battle, like David did against Goliath, he just ran right at him with the stone, threw the thing at him, and said “Get down, bad boy”. The old men just say, “I’ve got some letters to write, some thank-you’s from Christmas”, so we have a difference here. God is looking for some wise people. Now he’s hoping that the young can be wise, but the young, you need to tie them down to give them some wisdom.

Middle History! David, especially. I’m going very quickly here, because we have tons of examples. David’s middle history…. oh Absalom, oh I don’t know, David, wait for the right woman? Bathsheba? Could you stop taking those public showers? I mean, she could have done a lot to help. But notice, these are things that happened because David was in the wrong place. The scripture in 11 Samuel, Chapter 10:l says “when Kings go out to battle, but David stayed home”. So we’ve got this Middle History, and we’ve got these disastrous events that were not part of the plan at all.

I saw a pattern here, and this is a good pattern, because this is one you can plug into every one of your lives, because anyone that needs something from God is apparently experiencing Middle History. I can say that unilaterally, because I can say this. It’s a strong statement, but if Adam had not sinned, there would have been no need for your Bible. If the Bible is a lesson of reproof, correction, instruction, and righteousness, that the man of God be perfect, and the man was still perfect, there would be no need for scripture. That was pretty easy proof, right? Just take the scripture. So really, every message that comes from the man of God, every message that comes out of your Bible is there to fix Middle History. Is everyone seeing that?

Turn to the Book of Judges, Chapter 10. I’m just going to scan the Book of Judges because I want you to see this pattern. The information in the Bible is not as important as the theme that I am about to show you, or will be revealed from the information. So the names are not all that crucial, except you are going to see some things here that are very intriguing.

After the time of Abimelech a man of Issachar, Tola son of Puah, the son of Dodo, rose to save Israel. He lived in Shamir, in the hill country of Ephraim. He led Israel twenty-three years; then he died, and was buried in Shamir. He was followed by Jair of Gilead, who led Israel twenty-two years. He had thirty sons, who rode thirty donkeys. They controlled thirty towns in Gilead, which to this day are called Havvoth Jair.

Now that was interesting. Two verses talk about three guys judging.

And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years.

CONFUSING

Take note of this. He’re in Judges 10, we’ve got just a couple of verses showing the whole life story of the guy from God’s viewpoint, and the plan of God for his life. The Bible is not a complete history book- it doesn’t talk about how many German Shepherds Abraham had, because his pets really didn’t have much to do with the plan of God, which is what the Bibleis all about fulfilling. So when you don’t see stuff in the Bible, it’s probably because it doesn’t have much to do with the plan of God. The omission of any personal history in these verses is what makes them so obvious. Here, we’ve got only a couple of verses for the lives of these people, so they have become obvious. But then something changes…

Let’s move on past these two judges, just a couple of guys, who have served God in their offices for twenty-some years. Then something else happens. It says,

“And the children of Israel did evil again (I’m in verse 6) in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines, and forsook the Lord, and served him not.

Scan with me down to Chapter 11, Verse 1, which says,

Now Jephthah, the Gileadite, was a mighty man of valour, and he was the son of a harlot: and Gilead begat Jephthah. And Gilead’s wife bare him sons; and his wife’s sons grew up, and they thrust out Jephthah and they said unto him, Thou shalt not inherit in our father’s house; for thou art the son of a strange woman”.

Now get the pattern. We’ve got judges that judged Israel some 23 years, “but the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord”, and now we’ve got all this extra scripture. And then we’ve got a hero. And now we’ve got a hero being born, Jephthah. Now we’ve got a mighty man that God is pulling out of the ranks to fix the evil. So we can go on a whole chapter more about Jephthah. Scan over here to Chapter 12, and look here in verse 7. Jephthah judged Israel…..now we’re still talking about Jephthah. But now we’re closing the book on Jephthah, but we’ve got 2 1/2-3 pages on Jephthah. And Jephthah judged Israel six years and then died, Jephthah, the Gileadite, and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead. After him, Ibzan of Bethlehem judged Israel. He had thirty sons, thirty daughters whom he sent abroad and took in thirty daughters from abroad for his sons. And he judged Israel seven years. Then died Ibzan and was buried at Bethlehem. And after him Elon, a Zebulonite, judged Israel; and he judged Israel ten years. And Elon the Zebulonite died, and was buried in Aijalon in the country of Zebulun. And after him Abdon, the son of Hillel, a Pirathonite, judged Israel. And he had forty sons and thirty nephews, that rode on threescore and ten ass colts: and he judged Israel eight years. And Abdon the son of Hillel the Pirathonite died….......

Chapter 13, Verse 1. The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and what happened? It says here, And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren, and bare not. The angel of the Lord appeared unto the woman, and said unto her, Behold now, thou art barren, and bearest not: but thou shalt conceive, and bear a son.

Now here we have the story of Samson. I’m not trying to get into the story, I’m just trying to show you a pattern. Where it says “He judged Israel seven years” and that was it, “He judged Israel 23 years” and that was it….these are the people with no Middle History! These are the people that perfectly did the will of God! These are the people that didn’t do evil in the sight of the Lord. These are the people that fulfilled their obligation as a judge for the years that they were called to be a judge. These were the people that just went and did what God said. There was no evil, God didn’t turn them over to their enemies, and thus no Middle History because they just did what they were told.

Now you have heard this before, people come into church and they’ve had all this trauma, the trials and tribulations, and they come in and say “There’s just so much to learn”. Not if you don’t have any Middle History. Adam didn’t need to be told anything. Adam didn’t have any Middle History in the beginning. God didn’t need to show him the knowledge of good and evil. He didn’t need to get into any of this stuff, because he didn’t have anything to fix. And that’s what messages, or scriptures, are for. They are there to fix stuff you broke, or that was broken in your life. So it became obvious. We go from hero to restorer. God sends a hero to restore (this is how we read it in Judges, Chapter 10), and then we have “did good, did good, did good”...but the children rebelled. OK. Now we are at evil. God builds another savior. Jephthah. OK. Jephthah gets things straightened out. The next judges that follow, “good, good, good”, but then his children do evil again. OK. Let’s build another hero. Samson. Do you see the pattern here? And the Middle History is either in what you’ve caused (and talk about that persecution for the Word’s sake). Did you get persecuted because you decided to do something, or because this kind of stuff happens? We find that there are two reasons for Middle History. Middle History happens when you cause something, and Middle History happens when God is trying to fix something.

We’ve all had Middle History, and we may even be experiencing some right now. We’ve all got stuff that just isn’t perfect. And God says it can be perfect. God says that we ought to be able to do our job without fail, without problems, without whatever else.

OK, here’s an example - Jacob and Rachel. I was reminded of the Stephen Still’s song, what was that, “Love The One You’re With”? Here’s a good example of, remember, Jacob, he worked for Laban and got Leah instead. But he didn’t turn her down, did he? “I love you, Rachel! Leah? Well, I can love you too. But I still want Rachel”.

And then there’s Bilhah and Zilpah…. What about the handmaids? Hello! Just look at the history of the children from Jacob and Leah, who became the 10 of the 12-tribes of Israel! Who thanked God for Joseph? We know the story of Joseph. He became a savior. But what did he save Israel from? He saved Israel and the whole family of Abraham from all of the problems that were caused by the children of Leah, Bilhah, and Zilpah!

Go back to Genesis, Chapters 29-30 and see that the saviour was needed because of a decision that was made by Jacob. And people say, “Well, you know, if Joseph had not been.”..and again I’m assuming you know the stories, but remember that Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers. And people say, “Well, that’s how he got into Egypt, that’s how he got to Egypt to become the prime minister, in order to save everyone from the famine”. Well, don’t you think there’s another way to get to Egypt besides having your brothers throw you in a ditch, selling you into slavery, and you going into prison. There are a lot of ways to get into Egypt, OK? It didn’t need to be because your brothers tried to kill you. And so many times we look at this negative thing like God is using this negative thing. Well, He’ll use the negative thing if you go seek Him in the middle of a negative thing. But God is not causing all these calamities. The man is causing all these calamities, so this Middle History, all this stuff….the stories are just awful about all the things that needed to be fixed.

If there was nothing broken, there would be nothing to fix. Middle History demands a saviour. To save what? What is a saviour for? The saviour is there to save the plan of God….because that man has authority on the earth. God gave it to Man. But why would God mess with it? Because he got really close to it with Israel at the time they were leaving Egypt. He got really close after the tenth time that Israel sought another God in the wilderness, or disobeyed him or tempted God, as wrote in the Book of Numbers. God got pretty close to just saying “Forget it. I’m going to start another people over here”. But the saviour was chosen because God still has sight of his Plan. And He’s saying, “Well, I can’t let this thing go, or we’ll never get THE SAVIOUR. We’ll never get MY family back together. We’ll never get Jesus back on earth like He was supposed to be in the beginning. We’d never have Jesus walking hand in hand with people on earth unless God sent a saviour at these key points to fix the Middle History that these people have caused.

Turn to Numbers, Chapter 13. The following persecution would be for the Word’s sake. I ‘m going to give you some examples while you are turning to Numbers, Chapter 13. In business, we are kind of taught to lie, but the Book of Ephesians, Chapter 4, Verse 25 says Wherefore put away lying. Speak every man truth with his neighbor. And you know, sometimes it looked like a lie might be the best thing for that person. The person you are talking to really shouldn’t know the truth. But once you knew the scripture…. Persecution for the Word’s sake is standing on what the scripture says, and then being persecuted because you stood on it and were immovable. At that point, there probably will be some persecution. “I’m going to tell you the truth. Chances are, you won’t like it”. But what happens is, when we don’t stand on the Word, a whole new form of persecution arrives. The problem is that the new form of persecution adds five more years of disaster to your life. And in this age, where we just don’t have time to mess around any more, if we’re going to the promised land, and we’ve all heard what our promised land is, then we can’t be here as Israel leaving Egypt, where Moses and God say “five days” and then have these forty year trips. And then, at the end, another forty years gets tacked on. We need to find out how to shortcut it, and the key is, getting persecuted for the Word’s sake means you have to stand on that word, on that word only, and say, “Hey, I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings, I didn’t want to do that, but I’ve got to stand here immovable. It’s better for you. It’s better for me. It’s better for everyone else”.

Well, let’s look at the Book of Numbers 13. I’m going to read a little smattering of scriptures, so stay with me….Numbers 13, This is what happened. Moses sent out twelve spies, one from each tribe, into the promised land. They went out there and said, “Certainly it’s the land that flows with milk and honey, BUT there are bunch of people there, they built a huge city, one like we’ve never seen, and we are like grasshoppers in their eyes, they’ll kill us”,... and we pick up here, and it says, And all the congregation lifted up their voice and cried, and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt, or would God, that we had died in the wilderness. And wherefore had the Lord brought us into this land to fall by the sword that our wives and our children should be a prey. Were it better for us to return into Egypt” A lot of times, if you just took a stand on the Word the first minute, the first second that you had a choice, that thought could never occur. It’s only when you compromise the stand on the Word, and to what percentage….I’m sure the numbers work out that if you stood 70 percent on the Word and 30 percent on whatever else, that 30 percent is going to haunt you until ....“Well, you should have never left that job for this one”...That 30 percent is going to tell you that you should have never taken that trip like so-and-so said you shouldn’t have. There’s always going to be a pull, and a pain, a stabbing in your back, and something wanting to make you go back to Egypt, thinking that Egypt was somehow better.

“Well, I remember that I made all that money in whatever business I was in, and now look what I did for the Gospel, and I ain’t got” ...Well, you could have stayed in that business, you know, you’d be dead, you would have been a poster child for some drug thing that happened. You know that! But see, what happens when you are only standing 70 percent, you are talking about the past, and that past comes back to haunt you. And then it starts affecting your decisions today. And your decisions today start making you think that….and so you start trying to elongate your faith walk instead of just…...promised land!”. You are just still trudging away through the heat and the cold, “Oh, we’re so foot sore and poorly shod, but at the end of the journey, there is God…in the sweet bye and bye, I’ll get my” .... Well, you won’t get your Harley in the sweet bye and bye. You’ll get it now if you want it. There won’t be any Harley in the sweet bye and bye. They’re too loud. But anyway…..

Numbers…we’re still reading in Numbers, and I’ll read this whole Verse 4. They said one to another, let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt. And Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of all the congregation of the children of Israel. And Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes because they were the only ones that came back with a good report. “Hey, they may be big giants”, they said, “but I’ve got the word of God that says it’s my land. And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land. If the Lord delight in us, then He will bring us into this land, and give it to us; a land which flows with milk and honey. Only rebel not ye against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land;...Boy, there’s a good one. None of us really rebelling against the Lord, but we certainly have feared what other people thought about our not rebelling against the Lord….for they are bread for us: their defenses departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Fear them not. So Josh and Caleb are preaching a good sermon right now….But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. Great! “We don’t want to go!” So they stoned them with stones. .. And the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel. And the Lord said unto Moses, how long will this people provoke me?

I think that God, at that time, spoke like the Terminator. “How long will it be ??? They believe me for all the sights which I have shown among them. I will smite them with pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they. And Moses said unto the Lord, Then the Egyptians shall hear it, for thou broughtest up this people in thy might from among them; and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land: for they have heard that thou Lord, art among this people.

I’m going to jump to the next page. The Lord said I have pardoned according to your words,” so Moses has this great plea, reminds God of what He said before, that He wouldn’t do, God plugs it into his own equation, and says, “All right. I’ll pardon you, but these are going to be the consequences of them that disobeyed you and me. This is an important key to Middle History. Verse 21, But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory… because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles…..and havenot hearkened to my voice; surely,.... “they’re gonna die”. Sorry, that was the short form. What happened was, all of the spies represented a tribe. Well, all those tribes had to die in the wilderness. Actually, they couldn’t enter in, they were there, but they couldn’t enter in, so they had to go forty more years into the wilderness, and they just kept wandering, learning faith, before they could go in. And here’s an important key, and I’m going to read it so I don’t quote it wrong, It doesn’t just affect you. When you compromise on the Word about a particular situation….I’m going to give you some examples that won’t rock your boat, but they ought to help you make new decisions so you don’t forecast any more Middle History in your lives.

Joshua and Caleb were saved that day, and so were the tribes they represented, but they still had to wait forty years, themselves, because of those they were with. So it doesn’t just affect you. I probably saw five minutes of the college football game while I was at the gym, and here’s the game going on, there’s the play, and the guy, the right tackle, goes in and tackles the guy. And he’s going through the middle, and all these guys jump on him because ....What’s your position on the field, sir??? “I’m a tackle”. So, you’re saying that your job is to tackle. OK. So you made a tackle. You were just doing your job. And so many times we get this thing where doing our job is a victory, and not doing our job is OK. And realize, now, the ones that just did their job didn’t get any Middle History…they were the ones who just obeyed. This is is so simple, because you say, “Well, if I didn’t know this,” I mean, wait, Jesus said “Unless you come to the Kingdom of God, or enter into the Kingdom of God as a little child, you’ll not get in”. Let me paraphrase this portion. The Kingdom of God, God’s way of doing things, will not work unless you come to it as a little bitty child. You cannot make the Kingdom of God work as a rocket scientist, because it goes against everything you’ve ever learned in science. So it won’t work if you know something. You’re going to have to “unlearn” some stuff, and that’s going to take some time. But, if you come naively, and you read the Word, and that Word says in 11 Thessalonians, If any would not work, neither should he eat, then don’t let your brother-in-law stay on your sofa for 2 years without a job and keep feeding him. Now wait. Do you see where the compromise could occur?

George Carlin talked about that thing with the brother in law, he was making fun of these things, there’s all these new little CARE organizations, non profit organizations to take care of that guy that comes over on your sofa with three days growth and just stays there for a few years….Big brother-in-law, and working with a lot of good charities, and you start thinking about, and you decide you’re going to stand on the Word. The problem is, you make this stand, and then your Christian friends come up to you, and you say, “I’m standing on the Word” If any would not work, neither should he eat. Two years is long enough. Hit the road. You stand on the Word and your Christian friends say, “Now, is putting that poor boy on the street the christian thing to do? Is that the christian thing to do? We’ve got to stop doing the christian thing and start doing what the Bible said to do, start doing what God said to do. If His Word said to do this, then the christians need a new religion…. because we are talking about your next five years.

How much of your life do you think you can just throw away? If your life was a verse, here’s the verse your life ought to be..“judgment day you go up to Jesus…you’ve pleaded the blood..the blood….the blood…and Jesus says your verse, “Well done good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord”. That’s what we want! That’s our verse! We don’t want “And I slew ten giants”....Yeah, because you had three kids that made giants. No, that’s Genesis, Chapter 6. They were giants because the sons of God (didn’t it say that those that are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of God?) Romans 8:14 Then, the sons of God, it said, got together with the daughters of mere men and they produced giants. And these giants went astray. And God said, “AAH!! AAH!!!” God’s sending the sons of God out to turn men into sons of God, not to hook up with them and make “middle history” (the polite way of calling it).

How do I get persecuted for the Word’s sake? Being persecuted for the Word’s sake is taking a stand on the Word. By His stripes you were healed. Persecution for the Word’s sake…when you are sniveling, dripping, coughing, wheezing, aching head, stuffy nose, and you decide to go to 1 Peter 2:24, and it says By His stripes you were healed. When you make a faith stand that you were healed, persecution comes when everyone else who tries to tell you that you are sick. But when you go to the doctor, and it takes the same amount of time, less time, more time, or whatever, any persecution you get did not come from the Word. And the problem is, you run the risk of Middle History. Now, I’m not telling you not to go to the doctor. You go to the doctor based on the level of your faith for going to that doctor. God’s Will is, he spoke the Word and he was healed. God’s Will is immediate, spoke a word, no touch, no physical contact. And you’ve got second best, third best, fourth best… well you can’t go to the hospital as an atheist and not have some kind of faith. Right? If you truly didn’t have any faith the hospital could do anything, you wouldn’t even go. If you truly didn’t have any faith that they could do anything, you wouldn’t take any of their drugs. So it’s all a measure of faith, and you go with the faith level you are at. Obviously, we are trying to build our faith to get to the level where we walk around healing the sick, and aren’t just sick ourselves.

So you see where the stand occurs when you take a stand on the scripture. There is going to be persecution. In fact, for people who come in here hearing me preach about healing, the persecution already comes. I mean, I just spoke these words, and someone who gets this tape, may say, “Wait a minute, is he telling me not to go to the doctor?” That’s persecution for the Word’s sake. But it’s better than me being sick. It’s better than you wondering where your pastor is on Sunday morning because he is at home coughing up a lung, and the doctor he consulted said, “Don’t move”. I mean, I might have to stuff that lung right back in, but I’m gonna preach I’ll do whatever it takes, because I’m going to stand on the Word.

Here’s one, “Forgive, if you have ought against any”. Oh, that’s a tough scripture to stand on, isn’t it? “Honor your father and mother”. Now, there’s a tough one, and kids are going to have to realize that if they are going to avoid a whole mess of messed up life. It may even be to the point where no one will even want to marry you when you are 25 because of the Middle History you caused when you were 13. I’m telling the truth, and we need to face the truth, and realize that every decision that we make today has the potential to cause more middle history if we don’t just pick a scripture and stick to it! And then, we need to find whatever way we can to stick to it!

Here’s what happens when you say “No” and then compromise. This is how all the trash happens. This is where all the misleading voices come, this is how that imp gets on your shoulders. When you say “No” to a particular scripture, that is the way, and the only way, that the devil gets into your life. When you say, “Well, I know it says “Don’t feed him”....well, it seems to me that we could fix the ghettos if the mamma’s just stopped feeding the boys that wouldn’t work. What happens when she says, “I’m gonna feed him” anyway? “That’s my baby”. She’s actually saying that she is smarter than God in this case. She is saying, “Well, God, I know that you put this principle here, but see, I know something you must not know”. Well, isn’t that the perfect opportunity for the devil to come in and help you play God? Doesn’t that test the limits of your “Godhood”? ...Because it seems like Mamma knows best. No, God knows best! And if you just listened to God, then you’d have your son back, with a job, cleaned up, and repenting in two weeks instead of having five years of him now in prison, and other families dead on drugs or whatever because there wasn’t a stand taken on that scripture. And again, I’m giving you worst case scenarios. But you’ve got to see how Middle History is created. And it’s all around us. So, I’ll honor my father and my mother. And I won’t drive Dad’s car 60 mph in a 45 mph zone.

And sure, that son might not have hit anybody, but maybe he would have. There is nothing wrong with being repentant when he might have. Thank God for that chance, but a lot of people don’t have that luxury. A lot of people don’t get that second chance. And then the problem becomes that the other family doesn’t know forgiveness. They are not standing on the forgiveness scripture. So you have two families with a mess affecting both families, and more families, and more families….and then they’ve got vendettas against each other.

Here it is. Once you say “No” to the Word, and you have opened the door to the devil. We were watching a John Avanzini video, (and if John gets this tape, I do apologize), but we were talking about how when you say “no”, you are not going to stand on the scripture. You say, “No, I’ll just handle this my way”. And then you hear this creaking in the background, and this coffin lid opens, and the devil comes up and says “Good evening. What can I help you with today? Would you like one, two, three years added onto your life…three years of misery…I’d love to count”. I mean, that’s exactly what he does, and you GET that added time! And in the middle of it, you are blaming God. Look at Adam, just the next day after not being obedient to God. God says, “What did you do?”, and Adam says, “That woman you gave me”...blame her, blame him. He could have short cut his Middle History, but instead, we are all affected by that Middle History, even today. I’d love to be the generation that just fixes it, just declares war on Middle History. I’m just going to be so dogmatic about standing on a scripture that I just look stupid to the world. But God says he takes the foolish things of this world to confound the wise..”.to bring to naught the things that are”. Well, I’m ready to do that.

I call this the “saint threshold”. The more obedient you have been, the less there is to learn. There comes a point, if you are in the middle of Middle History right now, and you are in the learning stage, you will eventually get to a threshold if you stay with it.. a threshold where you become the master of your circumstances….where you are no longer taken about by what your children do….you are no longer dragged down because of what happened at your job because of whatever. And there is going to come a point when you can now offer help, because in the midst of it all, you can’t offer too much help. And no one is requiring you to. But God is trying to raise up Samsons, Apostle Paul’s, Saviours. That’s what they were, Saviours! Saviours of Middle History. If you read the Book of Galatians, you’ll find out that because of what the first Apostles preached, Paul was sent in to save them. Peter tried to teach them all how to be Jews again, and tried to get the Gentiles to be circumcised and then Peter’s got to come on the scene,....I mean, God’s pulling someone out of the works. Well, that’s where He’s got us.

The Evening News is Middle History. Look at all of the things that happen because we didn’t stick to the Constitution. And what do we call a compromise? An Amendment! And it really isn’t our fault that we got so lax in being obedient, because we saw all the people we voted into office, we just let them….“Well, we can just amend that”.

Here’s one of the major differences between men and women…. A man says something, and if he doesn’t do it, he’s wrong. A woman says something, and if she doesn’t do it, she’s changed her mind. Different. It’s a different thing. So we make an “amendment”. I have amended my prior conversation. Well, we need to get here, and make no amendment, and in fact, there is a scripture that says “where you swear to your own hurt and change not”.

Look at the Book of Ephesians, Chapter 6. Verse 10: Finally my bretheren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. No one who ever stood on the Word in any of our Saviour examples, could have done the saving in their own power. You’ll find that with Samson, you’ll find it with Jephthah, you’ll find it with Samson’s parents, and on down the list, that it had to be the Spirit of the Lord coming upon them to do the delivering. God needs us to take a stand, and then it’s His power…His might. And sometimes we get into these compromises because we just don’t think it’s possible….“Hey, I can’t do that because” ... Well, remember that all things are possible to him that believes. God is looking for a believer to just believe him. Don’t believe what you can’t. Believe what you can.

Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armour of God (not just the helmet) that you may be able to stand against the whiles of the devil (whom you let in when you compromised the last time). For we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness in this world, wicked spirits in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all, to stand (and notice that it said “evil day”. It did not say “evil month”, or “evil vacation time”, it did not say “evil retirement years”....just an “evil day”. Just take one day and stand.

....stand therefore having your loins girt about with truth, having on the breastplate of righteousness your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all taking the shield of faith wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the Word of God praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.
It’s not too late to stand on the future. A decision to stand on the Word today will stop any Middle History tomorrow. Sure, there will be some persecution, but they will come running back. If you are willing to take a stand on the Word, they will always come back. That’s the story of the Prodigal Son. God stood on the Word and said, “I can’t save you any other way”, and the son took off. But the father stood there, waiting, and it turns out that the son who was living with him was actually the bum son, the one that didn’t even know his father. He said, “What are you doing killing the fatted calf?” Dad said, “Well, you could have had a fatted calf every day if you had wanted one”. You didn’t even know me. You’ve been living with me….this guy knew me when he came to his senses.

So today, make sure you get your faith up to take a stand from which there will be no retreat. Although some persecution might follow, in your dogged determination to stand 100 percent on the Word of God, you will not be creating another era of Middle History for the next however many years of your life. Do you understand what we’re talking about? How you can prevent yourself from making any more Middle History? With all these messages, God is so faithful to help us fix our middle history. So make sure you plug them in right away. Make sure you get your faith up to do it, and make sure when there is a decision to be made, and you know the Word that pertains to it, just stand on it. I mean, even if it affects me, I’ll honor your decision to stand on the Word.

Well, let’s pray. God, deliver us from the Middle History we are in. You said we could come boldly to the throne of grace and obtain mercy. We are going to stand on that verse. I will not go any longer without mercy. I will not go any longer without the grace to help in the time of need, so I am standing on that. And these people, this congregation, are standing on that. And now show us what to do with the rest of our lives, show us how to be obedient to the rest of the plan you have, not just for us, but for the people around us. We thank you, God, for it, and we expect it in Jesus’ name. Amen.