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Preached by Dr. Gene Scott on February 27, 1983 And of Asher he said, Let Asher be blessed . . . Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days , so shall thy strength be . . . The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. Deuteronomy 33:24-27 THE SCRIPTURE SAYS GOD CREATED MAN and gave him dominion over the whole world, but man defaulted and turned it over to the devil, the prince of the power of the air. The devil now has dominion over this world until Michael casts him out and Christ returns as King of kings and Lord of all. The book of Revelation says Satan will be bound for 1,000 years, and after the Millennium he will be loosed for a short time before being cast into the lake of fire. But until the time of Satan’s ultimate end, all mankind is born out of fellowship with God, and “the wages of sin is death.” Satan held the key to death and had that power over man. Man had to pay the penalty for sin, until God gave His Son and paid the whole bill. The Scripture says God paid the price to buy the whole field in order to get the treasure in the field; He bought the whole world, past, present and future. And having paid such a price, God is going to get what He wants; but He wants something that most of the church world isn’t giving Him. I know this goes against the grain of church traditions, but God is not primarily interested in our righteousness. It does not matter how the traditionalists try to cloak their false doctrine in grand theological terms. The idea that you must supply some righteousness in order to get along with God means that what Christ supplied was not enough and the price He paid was not enough. God has a heaven full of righteousness; He is not really interested in my righteousness. There are many who are sure that God can’t stand me because I don’t fit into their mold of how a Christian should act. Let me tell you that God has put up with people a lot worse than me, but I am covered because Christ died for me. There are multitudes today who don’t want to come to God because the traditional church has taught that you must “stop doing this and start doing that” in order to be a Christian. You do not have to do any of those things: God can and does supply the righteousness. Allow me to make a ludicrous analogy. Imagine a little piece of hardware, a nut, on the Space Shuttle. And this nut says to a fellow nut, “When this spacecraft is launched, I’m not going to go up with it because I’m not clean.” The rocket engines ignite and the nut says, “No, no, no, I’m not ready to go!” But when the rocket is launched, that nut is going up, whether it is clean or dirty, as long as it is attached to the spacecraft. Let me continue this analogy using the theology of the New Testament. It is the Holy Spirit that “rivets” us into the body of Christ. I don’t have to be a clean piece of hardware, I might still have some grease on me; but when the Lord says, “Come up hither,” I am going up with Him when we blast off. Now some other little piece of hardware might say, “I’m not getting on that rocket unless I’m clean before I get on.” Fine. Then stay here and get incinerated while I go up. You see, God paid a price sufficient that He can now place His Spirit into anyone He wants. The Bible says the same Spirit that raised up Christ from the dead now dwells in you. God essentially tells the Spirit to “baptize us into Christ.” Now I am not referring in this context to water baptism. Water baptism is your obedient testimony to the world that you are offering yourself to God, that He through His Spirit might raise you up. All you can do is what God wants you to do, but only God can raise you up. Christianity is a simple thing if you keep it simple. God is looking for something that has been denied to Him by too many people from Adam’s day until now: trust, faith. Faith is an action that hangs the body on God’s word, because when God says something, He is not a man, that He should lie; nor the son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and shall He not do it? Or has He spoken, and shall He not make it good? The Bible says all our righteousness is as filthy rags, but God has promised He will clothe us with Christ’s righteousness when we act in faith. Two things happen when we act in faith: God places us in Christ, and at the same time He puts His Spirit into us. Figuratively speaking, He puts on the “spectacles” of Jesus, that is, He looks at me as though I were Christ. I am now the Lord’s and He is mine. The New Testament says we are “kept by the power of God,” and God views us as being “seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” with a hope eternal. Even though we are facing trials and attacks, nothing can take away that hope. Peter said to Christians scattered across Asia Minor, “The rest of the world may be going through the same kind of problems you are going through, but you are different. You have an eternal hope. You have been adopted, miraculously placed into the body of Christ and made children of a heavenly Father – so act like it!” No matter how bad your circumstance looks, God will not give you a stone if you ask for bread and He will not give you a serpent if you ask for fish. So start acting like you are a child of God, a stranger down here and a citizen of heaven, not holding on to anything too tightly because you are on a journey toward your heavenly home. You will never be able to act like a child of God as long as you are listening to preaching that humanizes the gospel and makes God into man’s servant down here on earth. You will never be able to act like a child of God as long as you are demanding that God instantly solve all of your problems before you will trust in Him. That attitude is what made God hate the children of Israel; they were always putting God on trial to see if He was still alive. Faith is a forward movement on a promise of God. When you act in faith, you will eventually quit looking for results down here on earth because you will be living for eternity. God is looking for faithers. He is looking for men and women who can say, “Christ died for me. If no one else in the world had ever responded, He still would have paid that price for me.” God treasures faith that is freely given. He treasures the ones who will believe His word no matter what. He paid the price to open the door for the whole world in order that He might take those who faithe in Him, because faith is the only thing that that will take you to heaven. Someone might ask, “But what about the behavior the church world thinks is so important?” What about it? We have all seen those “perfectly” performing church leaders who were really just low-down scoundrels. Occasionally, one of them gets caught in some secret sin and we get a glimpse of what God already sees on the inside. But God is not interested in our outward performance. You ask, “Does that mean behavior doesn’t matter and the whole church world should start sinning?” No, the church world has always been sinning! I am pointing it out so that they will not remain ignorant of their sins. You ask, “Then does it matter if I sin?” Sure it does. Just like in my analogy of the piece of hardware on the spacecraft: it matters whether you stay on the ground or go up with the rocket. But no piece of hardware can do anything on its own that will enable it to fly: it is the power of the rocket engines that lifts the spacecraft. Righteousness is God’s work in us and the less you are aware of it, the better off you are. Faith strikes the connection that ignites the force of God’s Spirit. To make up some words, God does the “righteousing” in us, while we do the “faithing” that keeps the connection. Romans 4, starting at verse 1, reads, “What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory . . .” The word “justified” is a theological term, but let me make it simple: it means to be “just like God.” Now let’s read the passage again: “If Abraham were just like God by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.” Abraham could not glory in front of God because God knows better. If some historian had written the Bible, Abraham might have come out looking a little better, but God knew all about Abraham and He recorded it for us. Can you imagine if God recorded all of your secret sins? I feel sorry for Abraham because God told on him! “For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God. . .” The word translated “believed” is a form of the word pisteuo, the Greek word for faith that requires action added to belief. Literally, it says, “Abraham faithed God, and it,” the faithing action itself, “was counted unto him for righteousness.” Then verse 4 says, “Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.” The context is works of righteousness, the kind of works that would get you elected as deacon in most churches. This verse speaks of those who try to do good works in order to get into heaven, as if God owed them something. Traditional Christianity agrees that God will forgive your sins, but only up to the time when you get “saved.” They tell you that God can forgive all of your past sins, but then you have to “walk straight” ever after. No! God walks in you if you faithe, and He is the One who walks straight. But there is still some of the “old” you left, and that is the problem. Only God and you know who is ruling you. The preacher should leave you and God alone to work that out. Faith is a different criterion for getting into heaven. But if you are still trying to get into heaven based on your works, then God will only give you what you have earned. You can march up to heaven and tell God that you missed out on everything during your whole miserable, dead life here on earth. You were sure God would strike you blind for looking at a pretty woman, so you never dared to risk looking with even one eye. You never gambled, not even with marbles as a kid. You never went to any movies and you never drank soda for fear you would develop a taste for beer. And you never went to an art gallery for fear you might figure out the difference between the sexes. You missed it all – and now you want the Lord to pay you for your misery! And God will say, “Go to hell!” You cannot get into heaven by simply avoiding what the traditional church calls “sin.” Sin, as defined in the New Testament, is falling short of God’s glory. Let’s assume, if it were possible, that you never did anything wrong. Many Christians are so afraid of doing something wrong that they never do anything. But Romans 4:4 says, “now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.” If you could be perfect, then God would owe you something. But sin is falling short, so even if you tried to be perfect for your whole life, God could still hold you accountable for the one minute you failed to do something that expressed His glory. No one can say they have never failed; it is impossible to live perfectly. That is what God has been trying to teach us for more than 4,000 years. Satan said, “If you eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will be like God.” The Old Testament proves that the knowledge of God’s standard can only teach you the distance between where you are and where God is. And that margin, whether it is an inch or a mile, is called sin; so everyone is hopeless. That is why many people in the traditional church try to box God up and pull Him down to their own peanut-sized view of righteousness, so they can say of themselves, “See, I’m like God!” No, they are not. They are sinners., and the reward of “debt” is to go to hell. Now verse 5 says, “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” These words shock the self-righteous: “to him that worketh not” means the promise is to someone who doesn’t do a thing, doesn’t even try to be righteous. “But to him that worketh not, but faitheth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” God will take you as though you were just like Christ even though you are not. He justifies the ungodly, those who are not like God at all. I sure qualify as ungodly! How about you, do you know that you are ungodly? This promise is to him that faitheth, who believes God’s promise and receives Christ for what He claimed to be, our substitute who paid the whole bill. The good news is God takes the ungodly as though they were just like God, because of their faith! “Abraham faithed God, and it,” his faith, “was counted unto him for righteousness.” Therefore, faith is the key. If you are faithing, God will take you as though you are just like Christ, cover all your ungodliness, put you in Christ and give you eternal life. Now I want to show you how to make faith work. When you find a promise that fits your need, grab hold of it, look every circumstance in the face and say “God is on His throne. I’m going to grab hold of this promise even if I die in the process.” That is basic Christian action. Quit hunting for some new rule that you can measure up to. Look for a promise that fits your need and grab hold of it. If you are sick, look for the promises of healing. If you are about to be annihilated, look for the promises of provision and protection. Understand what Paul said in the New Testament: you will not be tempted beyond what you are able to bear, but with the temptation, God will provide a way of escape. It literally says God provides a specific way of escape for your specific temptation. I want everyone who is facing a problem today to know that God has already worked out our way of escape. You might be crying out in your spirit, “Oh, but this trial is the one that will destroy me!” No, God has already worked out your specific way of escape. You say “But what if I was moving too fast and missed the door God provided?” Then He will work out a new one. If the circumstance changes, God changes the escape plan. God’s word says it: faith grabs hold of it and acts on it. I want this message to be specific to your need today. God, Who sees the sparrow fall and counts the hair on your head, has the ability as the Lord of hosts to perfectly craft your escape route no matter where you are. There are some churches where you are expected to run up to an altar and have an emotional experience, but that will not solve your problems. You don’t need to have some kind of emotional experience in front of the congregation. Go into a closet and pray, like Jesus said to do. I want everyone to know who the Problem-Solver is. I want you faithing, which guarantees your placement in Christ, guarantees God’s Spirit in you, guarantees the opportunity of His Spirit to do the work of righteousness that counts, and guarantees your entrance into heaven because you grabbed hold of His word! When I faithe, I take God at His word that He will supply His righteousness for my lack of it. Christ died for my sins and carried them away to give me a fresh standing with God, an open door of access to Him and an open door for His Spirit to dwell in me. I can now treat each circumstance as an opportunity to find a promise that fits my need. We read in 2nd Corinthians 1:20, “All the promises of God in him,” that is, in Christ, “are yea, and in him Amen.” That means every promise in God’s book becomes yours and mine to claim. I am now through the door of access, I recognize that Christ has delivered me from the bondage of sin, and His righteousness is stamped onto me. And because of that faith, the Holy Spirit rivets me into Christ. I am now on my journey and every promise in God’s book becomes mine. This includes the promises of Deuteronomy 33, which is where our message begins today. We read, starting at verse 24, “And of Asher he said, Let Asher be blessed. . .” The next verse tells what the blessing is: “Thy shoes shall be iron and brass. . .” Iron and brass shoes are tough shoes, and “tough shoes” suggests it is going to be a tough trip! There are many preachers who try to tell you that Christianity is an easy trip; they make you think that all you need are fluffy bedroom slippers. But God promises to give you iron and brass shoes. Iron and brass may not be very stylish and they may ruin your carpet, but they are really good for kicking the devil! God lets us know it is going to be a tough trip. Do you really think that God would give you iron and brass shoes just to walk around on a plush carpet? The way some preachers preach, you might think Christians don’t need any shoes at all. They fill churches every Sunday with people who think they are flying on magic carpets. The message sounds good until you have to go out into the real world. But God’s word says He gives you tough shoes for a tough trip. God says in advance, “Be blessed,” and then He says, “Put on your iron and brass shoes.” God is very sensible. Let me make another ludicrous illustration. Imagine God is the great Coach at the Super Bowl. And imagine if He said, “Blessed be your football players. All those rugged pads and protective gear take too much time to put on, so I am equipping you with soft, velvet caftans to wear.” Picture a football team equipped with only soft, comfortable clothing. Can you imagine what would happen to them when they face the opposing team? The other team would charge right at them, and after the players recover from being knocked down a few times, they are not going to be too happy with the Coach. But God supplies exactly what we need for the journey. He tells us at the outset: “Be blessed . . . but the trip is going to be tough.” If you cannot face that at the outset, then just stay home. Christianity is tough, but God says, “Your shoes won’t wear out! You will make it!” Have you ever entertained the thought that you wouldn’t make it? God’s word says, “You will make it.” The man or woman of faith has this promise: the divine Shoemaker will provide shoes for your feet, and feet are for traveling. We are on a journey, which means the Christian walk will always have newness, change and surprise in it. But, like David, we can put the future in the past tense and say, “We made it through this year.” The second half of verse 25 says, “As thy days, so shall thy strength be.” This is a message that zeroes in on individuals: “As thy days, so shall thy strength be.” All of God’s power is behind this promise: God measures out the strength to fit your day. No one has ever had a nervous breakdown about today’s problems; it is tomorrow’s problems that cause us anxiety. Have you made it through today, thus far? Did you make it through last night? If you woke up this morning feeling so miserable you could hardly get out of bed, then you have something to rejoice about: not much will happen to you today. If God’s word is true, then grab it by faith and act like it is true. If you only have enough strength to fight a caterpillar, then you will only have to fight caterpillars today. But if you woke up this morning saying, “I feel so good I think I’ve died and gone to heaven,” then look out; you might have to fight giants today. I am preaching a simple Christian faith. God is not a man to lie: when He says something, He means it. The promise “as thy days, so shall thy strength be:” means that God will give you the strength to face whatever your day will bring. Christians should start living this way and quit worrying about tomorrow. Jesus said, “Take no thought of tomorrow.” Someone says, “Well, I believe in planning.” There is nothing wrong with planning, but don’t live in your plans to the point where you take yourself out of God’s hand. The promise of tough shoes means you will endure, and the promise of daily strength means you will have enough strength for today. Don’t worry about tomorrow. He will take care of tomorrow when it becomes today. This is what I call “Faith Christianity.” Faith Christianity is different than “Checklist Christianity.” Too many Christians think you can please God by trying to keep a checklist of righteous behavior. They think you should spend the whole day studying the “Thou shalt not do” and “Thou shalt do” lists in the Bible before you do anything, so you can feel righteous about your behavior. They remind me of the two great rabbis, Hillel and Shammai, who debated whether or not it was okay to eat an egg that was laid on the Sabbath, since the chicken might have labored on the Sabbath to lay it. A Christian who is walking by faith will face the problems that threaten to destroy, and he or she will reach into God’s book and say, “I made it through today, and I will make it through tomorrow when it becomes today.” Faith is 90 percent courage. All of your sins are covered, but God will not do the faithing for you. His promise is, “As thy days, so shall thy strength be.” When we start acting in faith as though we are making it and we have made it, then we will make it. Verse 27 begins, “The eternal God is thy refuge.” A more literal translation is “the God of the forefront is your resting place.” But you cannot translate this with just words alone; it is a pictorial expression. Simply stated, it means that God is on the corner before you get there and is waiting for you when you arrive. And He becomes your rest, your security and your certainty that you will make it. Now to understand this passage more fully, we have to change the way we think of time itself. With God, there is no time. Einstein’s theory of relativity shows us that time is relative. For example, if a man were to travel from earth in a spacecraft moving at nearly the speed of light and later return to earth, what would be a few hours to the man in the spacecraft could be years to someone waiting on earth. Time depends upon your perspective. The way we normally view time, history is past, it is behind us; and the future is up front, it is scary and uncertain. But God has no time. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last. He looks at time the way we view a parade. Imagine watching a parade as it goes by. The front of the parade is yet to come and it is in the future. So what is up front has already passed, and what is behind is yet to come. From God’s point of view, time is turned around. Now imagine you are marching in that parade. The future is uncertain: you don’t know what is coming around the corner. But God is already on the corner before you get there and He knows what is there. We who are in His hand have this promise. We don’t have to worry about the bend in the road because “the God of the forefront” is already there and He will guide us around the bend. Now you can take that and make it your promise, or you can say, “I like uncertainty. I believe in worrying about things!” Well, then go ahead and worry all the way to hell. It is that simple. You ask me, “Do you mean you never worry about things to come?” No, I worry all the time, but I am better than I used to be. I don’t want to be surrounded by people who only want to talk about the problems coming around the bend. I don’t need any help with that: I am the best in the world at figuring out all the potential pitfalls in the path. I want people around me who will say, “The God of the forefront is already there! So what are you going to do?” And I will say, “I don’t know, but God does!” I have tough shoes and I know I am going to make it. As my days, so shall my strength be. God has put all of Himself behind that promise. I can either claim it by faith or not. You ask, “But what about the uncertainty of tomorrow?” God is already on that corner. You ask, “What if when I get there all hell breaks loose on me?” He is still your refuge. He has covered you before you get there. Verse 27 continues, “Underneath are the everlasting arms.” Again, Hebrew is a pictorial language. To understand the word “underneath” you have to imagine the impossible. Think of a bottomless pit and imagine how far down bottomless is. Yet God has promised His arms are underneath that. So much of the traditional church world scrutinizes your behavior to see if you are righteous enough, then they wait for you to stumble so they can put your faults on display. The traditional church is the only army in the world that shoots their wounded. But my Bible says God’s arms are always there, ready to catch you when you fall. Some of you who have grown up in the church keep trying and failing to be righteous; it is like running into the same wall over and over again. You have been trying to do something that impresses other Christians more than it impresses God. You have been trying to earn your way to heaven by rules and regulations. But today, you are facing pressure and anxiety. You may not know where to turn. The trip is tough, but God’s word has anticipated that. His word says to the faither, the one who is in Christ, “Your shoes are tough enough; you are going to make it.” You can face your problem and say, “I made it through this year, so I certainly made it through today.” “As thy days, so shall thy strength be.” God will measure out, with precision, the strength that you need in order to face the problems of tomorrow. You might say, “Well, He doesn’t know how bad tomorrow will be!” Yes, He does. The God of the forefront will be your refuge tomorrow. He is on the corner before you get there and He works out your way of escape. You ask, “What if I break faith and stumble? What if I fail?” God is the ultimate expert in dealing with failure. He has dealt with it throughout the days of man and He has already provided for that. I have been counted out so many times in my life by those who would accuse me. They are always saying, “You have to fall because of the things you’ve done.” No, Christ already died for those things. Sure, I will fall, but underneath are the everlasting arms. And when I fall, God picks me up and says, “You’ve got iron and brass shoes. Every day I give you enough strength. I’m on the corner before you get there. Now, get up and go!” God wants that kind of person. He wants hard-nosed faithers who will look the world in the eye, reach up into eternity and say, “Let’s go, God!” Quit accepting defeat! Say with faith, “No trip is too tough for me.” As thy days, so shall thy strength be. The God of the forefront gets there before you do, so don’t worry about it; He already has your situation under control. His arms are always there to catch you when you fall. The final word is, “He shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them.” Now that fits any problem you may have. Whether it is sickness, poverty, need or insecurity, God will destroy them all! That is what faith is. Will you say it with me? “We made it through this year!” Now personalize it and say it for yourself, “I made it through this year!” Reprinted with permission from Pastor Melissa Scott | December, 2019 Wingspread | November, 2019 Wingspread | October, 2019 Wingspread | September, 2019 Wingspread | August, 2019 Wingspread | July, 2019 Wingspread | June, 2019 Wingspread | May, 2019 Wingspread | April, 2019 Wingspread | March, 2019 Wingspread | February, 2019 Wingspread | January, 2019 Wingspread | | Year 2019 Wingspreads | August, 2016 Wingspread | 2016 Wingspreads | 2014 Wingspreads | 2013 Wingspreads | 2012 Wingspreads | 2011 Wingspreads | 2010 Wingspreads | 2009 Wingspreads | 2008 Wingspreads | 2007 Wingspreads | 2006 Wingspreads | 2005 Wingspreads | 2004 Wingspreads | 2003 Wingspreads | 2002 Wingspreads | 2001 Wingspreads | August, 2001 Wingspread | November, 2001 Wingspread | December, 2001 Wingspread | 2000 Wingspreads | 1999 Wingspreads | 2015 Wingspreads | Year 2017 Wingspreads | 2018 Wingspreads | Year 2020 Wingspreads | Year 2021 Wingspreads | Year 2022 Wingspreads | Year 2023 Wingspreads | | Return Home | Current Wingspread | Wingspread Archives | Contact Us | |
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