Alone with the Almighty, Part 2b

I ask you again, how well do you know your God? God knows your heart. God knows today whether or not you're really serious. Oh, you might be able to fool your spouse, or you might be able to fool your children, you might be able to fool the guy sitting next to you, or the person in your Sunday school class, but you can't fool God. That's why David told Solomon, the Lord searches your heart. If you seek Him, He'll let you find Him. But if you're not serious about it, Solomon, He knows, because God knows everything.

To know God, so much so that He rubs off on you, means that you acquire something, strength, that you accomplish something, His will, because He wants to work in and through you, alone with the Almighty. We said that there are two points we're going to cover, the essence and the consequence of our time alone with Him. We began by looking at the essence, and point number one, the primacy of salvation.

If I don't know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, I will never get anything out of the book that He has given to me, the Word of God, because in order to get anything out of this book, you've got to know the author of the book, therefore you must be born again. So we begin at the very beginning. We look at 2 Corinthians 13, 5, where Paul said, examine yourselves, test yourselves.

And so we said, the reason, or the way you know that you have passed a personal exam is that your life reflects Jesus Christ. That is, your life radiates with the glory of God. And although it might be a dim reflection, it's still a reflection of God. That's the personal test. But turn with me to 1 John chapter 1, and at 1 John we receive the other four tests.

There are many churches who teach that you can't know for certain whether or not you're going to spend eternity with God, yet the Bible says you can know for sure.

So John gives us four tests. He gives us the doctrinal test, the relational test, the moral test, and the spiritual test. 1 John 3, 23 and 24 sum them up for us. 1 John 3, 23, and this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of the Son of Jesus Christ. That's the doctrinal test. And love one another. That's the relational test. Just as he commanded us, and the one who keeps his commandments, that's the moral test, abides in him and he in him, and we know by this that he abides in us by the spirit whom he has given us.

That's the spiritual test. So right in the middle of his epistle, he gives you the four tests, and all around those two verses, he gives us what are the characteristics of how do you know for certain you are truly born again. The first one, of course, is the doctrinal test.

Over in 1 John chapter 2, verse number 20, but you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth, who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father. The one who confesses the Son has the Father also. Here's the doctrinal test. You know exactly who Jesus Christ is.

It says in 1 John 4, verse number 2, but by this you know the Spirit of God. Everyone that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. John says very simply, this is the doctrinal test. It's based on who Jesus Christ is. Jesus Christ is the Messiah. He's the Savior of the world. He is God in the flesh. If you don't believe that, then you don't know God, because the bottom line is that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, the perfect Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world.

And everyone who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. You know for certain that you know Jesus Christ. The Bible says he who comes to God must believe that he is, he is what?

He is exactly who he says in the Bible. That's why when you talk to somebody about salvation and about what they believe, you only ask two questions, who is Jesus Christ and what must I do to be saved? Those are the only two questions that matter. For what they say about Jesus Christ will determine how they are saved, right? Those two questions are the only questions you need to ask to determine someone's salvation when it comes to the doctrinal test. You move from the doctrinal test to the relational test, that you love one another.

First John 3, verse number 10, by this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious.

Think about that. Here's how you know, very obviously, very clearly, without a shadow of a doubt, those who belong to Satan and those who belong to God. Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. If you don't love your brother, you're not of God. You're of who? The devil. It says in verse number 14, we know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

Down to verse number seven of the fourth chapter, beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Now how do you know somebody knows God? They love their brethren. Listen, you know as well as I know that we just don't by nature love one another, do we? We don't love each other. So we can love one another because God first loved us.

Because of what God has done in our life, it enables us to love our brother. Without him we can't do that. God does it all in salvation. He enables us to love our brother because we by nature don't want to love one another. We by nature want to love ourselves. So thus you have the relational test. You have the doctrinal test, you have the personal test, now you have the moral test. You keep the commands of God. Look what it says over in 1 John 2, verse number three, and by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments.

The one who says I have come to know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. That's the moral test. God has a moral standard, right? His standard is what he has written down in his word because what he has written down in his word is a reflection of his character. So John says if we keep his commandments we know that we are of him because we passed the moral test. It says over in 1 John 3, verse number three, and everyone who has this hope fixed on him purifies himself just as he is pure.

Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. The Bible says that he who practices sin is not of God.

How do we know that? 1 John 2.29, if you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of him. If you practice unrighteousness, you're not born of him. That doesn't mean you don't sin. Listen, folks, you sin. Why? 1 John 1.8 says that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us because we all sin, right? It talks about the habitual pattern of a man's life. It talks about the direction of a man's life. If your life is one that seeks after unrighteousness and has a pattern of unrighteous living, John says you don't know God because the habitual pattern of a believer is to confess his sin and to seek after God and to live a righteous life.

That is a pattern of the person's life. John Owen said it best when he said it this way, your state is not at all to be measured by the opposition that sin makes to you, but by the opposition you make to sin. Isn't that good? That's how you know your state. Not that sin is going to come upon you and you're going to sin, but your opposition to sin. You're wanting to walk away and to flee and to run from sin. That's what determines the validity of your faith. So you had the personal test, the doctrinal test, the relational test, the moral test, and lastly the spiritual test.

Spiritual test. What does it say? And we know by this, that he abides in us by the spirit whom he has given us. Over in 1 John 4, 13, by this we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us his spirit. There's a spiritual test. Paul said over in Romans chapter 8, verse number 18, the spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. God's spirit bears witness with our spirit. How does it do that? Galatians 5 talks about the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, kindness, gentleness, self-control.

Those fruit of the spirit bear witness with the fact that the spirit of God indwells us, lives within us, because he is being manifested through us, the primacy of salvation. Before you ever open the word of God, before you ever spend time alone with the Almighty, you gotta know for certain that you know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. That if you were to die tonight, you'd spend eternity with God. Because the Bible says you can know for certain you have eternal life.

And the Bible doesn't leave you in the dark. It gives you a series of tests, whether it be a personal test, whether it be a doctrinal test, whether it be a relational test, a moral test, or whether it be a spiritual test. Do you pass? Do you know for certain that Jesus Christ lives within you? Point number two, the primacy of salvation to the necessity of preparation.

The necessity of preparation. Now that you know you're born again, now that you know you're a child of God, now you're ready to be prepared to be alone with the Almighty. Now listen folks, I know that I could give this sermon in one week, I know that. But you know what? It's not gonna happen in one week, it's not gonna happen in two. Why? Because you need to know step by step the principles that you might have a relationship with the living God that is vital, that is energized, that is ongoing, and that lasts.

So I'm in no hurry to finish what I'm going to give you. I want you to grasp it. The necessity of preparation. There are four principles. Four principles. The first one is cleanliness.

Turn with me to James chapter one. He says, this you know, my beloved brethren. This you know. Or in other words, know this, brethren. You gotta know this. If you know that the word of God, from verse 18, is that which saves your soul, implants new life in you, transforms your life. If you know that, my beloved brethren, he says, then let every one of you be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. He says if you know the power of God's word in your life to transform you, if you know that, then make sure that you are quick to hear the word of God, slow to speak the word of God, and even slower at becoming angry with what you hear or read in the word of God.

That's the context of James chapter one. And then he says this. For the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. If you're angry about what you read, if you're angry about what you hear, I want you to know something. It's not going to achieve for you the righteousness of God in your life. You're not going to be a changed person. Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted which is able to save your souls. There's got to be a cleanliness.

There's got to be a weeding before there's a seeding. He says, I want you to put aside, cast off all filthiness. It's a word that at its root deals with wax in the ear. In order for you to hear, clearly you've got to take the wax out of your ear. So that everything you hear is accurate and true and pure, get rid of all that filthiness that's in there. All the wickedness, it goes beyond action, it goes to intent. Any evil intent that you have, any wicked intent that you have, you've got to get rid of it.

You've got to get rid of it. If you're going to be alone with the Almighty, you've got to make sure that your life is being cleansed. So you've got to go to God, you've got to confess your sin, you've got to be honest with God, you've got to say, Lord, search my heart, try me, see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. So many times we want to be alone with God, but we never confess our sin, we never go with a clean heart. And the Bible says in Psalm 66, 18, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.

If I am regarding sin, if I am harboring sin, if I harbor an unforgiving spirit, a bitter spirit, an unwillingness to deal with my brother, if I have anger in my heart, if I have any malicious intent in my heart, God says, can't hear you.

It's not that he doesn't hear you, he does, but he can't respond to a heart that's impure and unwilling to be cleansed. And then he says, in all that remains of wickedness, the overabundance of wickedness, the overflowing of it, you know what it tells you? It tells you this, it says, you know, you've got so much sin in your life, you've got so much there, we know we want to go to God, you know, we think we're pretty good, we know why? Because we compare ourselves with the person next to us. Now look at the person next to you, look at them, look at them, I mean, look at them, I mean, they're no better than you are, they're no worse than you are, but, you know, we want to compare ourselves next to the person next to us thinking, you know what, that person has got a long way to go, you know, and I'm there, I've arrived, I am on my way to glory, you know, and so we think that we're better than somebody else, and God says to his Word, look, you get rid of all the wickedness, all the filthiness, the overabundance of that, because you know what it keeps you?

It keeps you from hearing what God says. That's why the necessity of preparation is so important. There's got to be a cleanliness. The Puritans always said it so good, and in a book I have called The Valley of Vision, written by some of the Puritans or some of the prayers of the Puritans, one says this, when thou wouldst guide me, I control myself. When thou wouldst be sovereign, I rule myself. When thou wouldst take care of me, I suffice myself. When I should depend on thy providing, I supply myself.

When I should submit to thy providence, I follow my will. When I should study, honor, trust thee, I serve myself. I fault and correct thy laws to suit myself. Instead of thee, I look to man's approbation, and then by nature, an idolater. Lord, it is my chief design to bring my heart back to thee. That should be our prayer. That should be our prayer. God is sovereign, he rules, he controls, he suffices. And so we go to God and say, Lord, by nature, I'm an idolater. I'm a worshiper of me, and therefore, I come to you to cleanse myself, come to you and confess my sin, that there could be a weeding out of those things that keep the word of God being implanted in my life to bring forth great fruit for you.

So we go from a cleanliness, from a cleansing, cleanliness, to number two, an openness. An openness. Psalm 119. Psalm 119, verse number 18. Open my eyes that I may behold wonderful things from thy law. An openness. We have got to be open. You know, we go to the word of God, we go to be alone with the Almighty, and you know what? We go with our traditions intact. We go with our superstitions intact. We go with our denomination behind us, but we don't go with an open heart and a willing mind to receive what God has for us.

There must be a cleanliness, and there must be an openness. Listen to what the psalmist said in verse number 27. Make me understand the way of thy precepts. That's the way we go with an open heart. Verse number 33. Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes, and I shall observe it to the very end. Verse number 34. Give me understanding. Verse number 35. Make me walk. Verse number 36. Incline my heart. Verse number 37. Turn away my eyes from looking at vanity and revive me in thy ways. There's an individual with an open mind, an open heart.

You've got to go with openness. Or guess what? You're only going to see what you want to see. You're not going to see what God wants to reveal to you. There needs to be not only a cleanliness, but there needs to be an openness. Why? Because God wants to correct you. He wants to comfort you, but he wants to correct you as well. And God's word is given to what? Afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. Therefore, we go with an open mind. Cleanliness, openness. Third one, stillness.

Stillness. Turn with me to Psalm 46. Very familiar Psalm. Most of us know it very well. You know the verse I'm going to go to. Psalm 46, verse number 10. Cease striving and know that I am God. Or maybe your text says, be still and know that I am God. Once there is a cleanliness, once there is an openness, now there needs to be a quietness. There needs to be a stillness. There needs to be a time where you are alone with God, where there are no distractions. There are no interruptions. There are no noises.

There is nothing but you and your God, so that as you open his word, he speaks to you through the written page. Cease striving and know that I am God. Boy, I tell you, we are an anxious group of people. And God would tell us in Matthew chapter 6, be anxious for nothing. Be anxious for nothing. But instead, we are anxious about what? We're anxious about what we're going to wear. We're anxious about where we're going to get fed. We're anxious about tomorrow. We're anxious about adding one more cubit to our lives.

We want to live longer. We want to look better. And we want to look good and be good doing it all. And God says, why are you anxious about all that stuff?

Take no thought for tomorrow. For you, each day has enough trouble of its own. Get through this day. For that to happen, there needs to be a quietness. There needs to be a stillness about our lives. I love what A.W. Tozer said. He said, may not the inadequacy of much of our spiritual experience be traced back to our habit of skipping through the corridors of the kingdom like children in the marketplace, chattering about everything, but pausing to learn the true value of nothing. That's true. We want to skip into church and sing a few songs and say a few prayers, put a few 20s down, or maybe if you're lucky, a few 100 spots down, and walk out.

Chattering about this and chattering about that, but never pausing to learn anything. He would go on to say these words, modern civilization is so complex as to make the devotional life all but impossible. Isn't that true? That was before the 500 channel TV. That was 35 years ago. That was before the internet. What would he say today if the man was alive? Modern technology has done everything to rob us of stillness, of quietness with our God. One man said it this way, in every life, there's a pause that is better than onward rush, better than healing or mightiest doing, tis the standing still at sovereign will.

There's a hush that is better than ardent speech, better than sighing or wilderness crying, tis the being still at sovereign will. The pause and the hush sing a double song in unison low and for all time long. Oh, human soul, God's working plan goes on, nor needs the aid of man. Stand still and see, be still and know. Do you know why most of us never really know God in order to acquire the strength He supplies and to accomplish the service that He requests? It's because very few of us take time to be still and know.

That He is God. Knowing God requires quietness, requires stillness. But in an age that emphasizes busyness, doing, going, accomplishing, we don't want to take that alone time with the Almighty. There's a cleanliness, there's an openness, there's a stillness, and then there's a readiness. Now you're ready. There's a readiness, part of the preparation, part of the preparation. It says over in Psalm 63, these words, O God, thou art my God, I shall seek thee early, I shall seek thee earnestly. Listen very carefully to what I'm going to say.

Unless you are ready to know God, unless you are determined in your heart to purpose in your heart to know your God, guess what? Everything I'm going to say over the next few weeks, well, you just will not even come to church. Just not be here. Unless you are ready to say, God, I am ready. I'm going to do all it takes to cleanse my life. I'm going to go before you. I'm going to ask you to search my heart. I'm going to wash myself in your word. And Lord, you cleanse me. You take away all those wicked desires.

You take away all those things that impede my hearing the word of God that I might receive from you with an open heart, an open mind, everything that you have. And I purpose in my heart to spend time alone with you in stillness, in quietness. Then I'll be ready to receive what you have. And I will seek you early. And I will seek you earnestly. Part of being ready is being early in being earnest. Early, I will seek you early. And I will do it earnestly. I will do it with a heart fixed on you. There will be an eagerness about my attempt.

God, I want you to, I want to search for you. God said, if you search for me, if you seek me, if you go after me, you're going to find me. Folks, we got to be excited about going after God and saying, God, I want every single bit of you that I can get. I want all of you, Lord. I don't want this part. I don't want just that part. I want all, I want the whole kit and caboodle. Everything you have, God, I want from you. Just give it to me. Now you're ready. If that's not your heart's desire, you're not going to know God.

You're going to be like the dew on the grass. You're going to glisten for a little bit. You'll glisten through January. You might even glisten into February, but come March, you're dry. You're going to be like those morning clouds that are coming off the ocean. They're going to cover the whole area and you'll be like one of those clouds. And all of a sudden, next thing you know, it's all gone. It's evaporated. It's away. Because you didn't eagerly, earnestly, and early seek your God. It says over in Proverbs chapter two, these words.

My son, if you will receive my sayings and treasure my commandments with you, make your ear attentive to wisdom, incline your heart to understanding. For if you cry for discernment, lift your voice for understanding. If you seek her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasure, then you will discern the fear of the Lord and discover the knowledge of God. Then and then only will you know me. You got to search for me like one searches for silver. You don't just find silver sitting on top of the ground.

You got to dig down deep into the ground. God says, I want you digging after deity. I want you coming after me. Are you willing to do that? If so, now you're ready. Now you're ready. In your time alone with the almighty, now you're ready to receive what he has. And for that, you need to understand the centrality of revelation. And that's next week's lesson. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the word of God. So true it is, so pure, so fine, so great. Today, Lord, touch our hearts. May we be a people hungering and thirsting for the word of God.

May we be a people wanting to know our God. Father, every man, every woman, every boy, every girl in this auditorium today, whether they listen by tape, listen by radio, they need to know that you are the most important thing in all the earth. They need to make you a priority in their lives. For you have said, the people who know me, they will display strength and they will take action. Those who know me will acquire from me what I want to give them. And they will accomplish for me what needs to be accomplished because of your plan and purposes.

Lord, may we never forget that. And may we be a people who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Pray in Jesus' name. Amen.