Summary
- The sermon focuses on the spiritual battles Christians face and the importance of recognizing and combating spiritual blockages.
- The preacher emphasizes the role of Jehovah Sabaoth, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, in aiding believers to overcome evil forces and cast out demons, as part of their Christian duty.
- The sermon also highlights the necessity of daily prayers for protection against temptation and the evil one, as taught by Jesus.
- Additionally, the preacher discusses how sins, whether known or hidden, and idolatry can create separation from God, causing spiritual blindness and deafness.
- Finally, the sermon calls for self-examination, repentance, and a recommitment to loving the truth – Jesus Christ – as a defense against deception and to ensure a close relationship with God.
Let me read from Isaiah 6:1.
1 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” 4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:1-5, ESV)
Okay, let’s pray.
Lord, we open up our hearts wide, we want to meet you. We want to understand who you are. Among all the different names, we want to understand why you are called the Lord of hosts, the King.
We want to understand what Isaiah saw, that we too can see and come to know you in this way. We pray that you would reveal things about yourself and why it’s relevant for us in our current day. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
The Lord of Hosts, Jehovah Sabaoth, it also can be translated the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. I like that translation the best because host, it doesn’t quite make sense, but if you say the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, we understand right away what Isaiah saw.
And today, I want to talk about spiritual blockages and just introduce the Lord in this way, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. You might wonder why Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6 and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.
13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. (Matthew 6:13, ESV)
I don’t know how many of you pray this on a daily basis or how many people in the body of Christ understand why this is such a critical prayer, why we need the Lord of Hosts to be on our side to fight off and fend off evil.
Even in the Great Commission, if we think about Mark 16’s version, the first thing that we are called to do is to cast out demons. And just connecting the dots, it’s deliver us from the evil one. Once we are filled with the authority and the power of Jesus, we’re supposed to go out there and cast out demons.
Just the reality of the spiritual battle, I don’t know if we think of this on a daily basis. We are in an all-out war, and the Christian life is this kind of a battle.
Of course, Jesus has won the war, but we are still battling. We’re still fighting armies of Satan and darkness, and we’re supposed to cast out demons on a regular basis. This should be so popular for the course for the Christian that we are engaged in this type of a ministry of setting captives free, delivering people from evil.
And even in the book of Job, it’s like the whole cosmic battle is laid out for us that you have God who is visited by Satan.
Satan has the ability, at least in this time, to have an audience with the Lord, and he is roaming the earth. He is going to and fro, and he’s looking for someone to devour. And he says, “I’ve been going up and down, walking up and down on the earth,” and he is saying that he’s looking for someone to accuse. He’s looking for someone to drag down. He’s looking for someone to devour and spit out.
And God is the one to lift up Job as a righteous man to silence Satan.
That, because Satan’s accusation is one I think he often can bring to believers, and actually, most of the time, Satan is right. Satan’s accusation to God is, “Well, look at how much you’ve blessed your people. If you take away the blessings, they will curse you. They’re only being propped up by you. They’re only treating you well and respecting you and honoring you because look at how much protection you’ve given to them. How much prosperity you’ve given to them.” And Satan is actually right in the vast majority of cases.
Like, if the moment a crisis hits, people who don’t even believe in God curse the name of God. And even those who believe in God, when crisis hits, they turn their back on God. So, Satan is accusing God of being right in the vast majority of cases.
The brothers and sisters in the body of Christ, and I think it’s a legitimate criticism, that if God didn’t bless them as much as he has, would they be faithful to him? And so, God offers this challenge, this man Job, he will not curse me.
Unfortunately, Job’s wife did curse God, turn her back on the Lord, and all these friends who are religious, they gave all the bad advice. At the end, there’s this mysterious person who is not addressed by the Lord, who is not one of the friends, this young man just out of nowhere. To me, that is Satan’s voice embodied. It is such an accusation against the Lord, and he says so many true things, but he is completely off in his assessment, because God says, “Job, he is a righteous, righteous man.”
While Satan is going to and fro on the earth, while he is, as it says in 1 Peter 5, as he’s looking like a lion to devour somebody, God is always also looking. In 2 Chronicles 16:9, he is looking for someone whose heart is fully devoted to him, blameless.
And so there’s this cosmic battle. Will we stand before the Lord? Will we stay blameless before the Lord?
Are we simply being propped up because of blessings, God’s provision, and His protection? As soon as God takes away those things, are we as faithful as before, or do the true colors come forward? That actually, we are, we deserve the accusation of Satan, that if you take away the blessings, we will curse God, we will turn our back on God, our hearts will be exposed for not being true to the Lord. Lord, and it only takes a set of circumstances to reveal it.
In John 10, the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. If you look at Job’s life, God gave authority to Job to do these very things: to steal, kill, and destroy. Short of taking Job’s life, everything else was on the table, and Satan can do these things even in our lives.
In Luke 4, Satan is accusing Jesus; he’s twisting the word. So, he says half-truths, and if you don’t know Jesus well, if you don’t know the word of God well, you will be deceived by these accusations, by these attacks.
And while Jesus is weakest physically at the end of a 40-day fast, Jesus swoops in at an opportune time to deceive, to kind of cause Jesus to fall. But of course, Jesus does not fall. He is a model for us of how we should resist the devil. As it says in James 4:7, we submit ourselves to the Lord and we resist the devil as Jesus did in Luke 4, and the devil will flee.
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (James 4:7, ESV)
So, if this is the reality of what we’re facing, that we’re in a spiritual battle, is it surprising that on every day, Satan is coming for us? Every day, he’s coming for us. And there are many reasons why there are spiritual blockages. Sometimes it’s our fault, sometimes it’s Satan and his deception that is causing the blockage.
And so, I want to just unpack this more as I’m just introducing this identity of God as Jehovah, Sabaoth, the Lord of Heaven’s armies. And I’ll be talking about this until we’re done. I’m not sure how long.
Today is just the intro. It says in Isaiah 59:1.
1 Behold, the Lord ‘s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; 2 but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. (Isaiah 59:1-2, ESV)
If there is unrepentant sin in your life or in my life, that is a cause for a spiritual blockage.”
So this might be obvious to you that you know what sins you’ve committed and you just have not repented, and that’s just totally on us. There could be hidden sins. Hidden things that are coming out and we don’t even know that we’re sinning. We’re just doing life as we’ve done it based on our trauma, based on things that trigger us from our past, and we could be sinning and not even realize that we’re sinning.
But these things, the Holy Spirit has to convict us, and when he convicts us, right at when the conviction comes, you should repent. I should repent. And I just encourage you, go through at the end of a day, have a time of asking the Holy Spirit to search your heart.
What did I do this day? What did I think this day? How did I speak today? What was my attitude today? Did I give thanksgiving to the Lord today?
There’s all these things that you can ask yourself. And if you do this at the end of a day, I’m sure the Holy Spirit will tell you how you’ve sinned so that we can make sure there’s never this blockage. Because if there is sin that piles up, it will block us from fellowshipping with the Lord. Matthew 3, when John the Baptist is preparing the way for Jesus, he says there’s a crookedness in our heart and we need to prepare the way.
So, mountains need to be made low, valleys need to be filled up, all the crooked paths should be made straight. This is all just things that block us from the Lord.
And so, ask the Holy Spirit if there’s sins that I’m not even aware of that I’ve committed. Can you show it to me? Can you pierce me for this? Because I don’t want to go through a day where sin is piling up and I am blocked from the Lord.
1 Thessalonians 5:23.
23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it. (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, ESV)
There are sins that we commit in the body. There are sins that we commit against our soul, in our emotions, in our will.
So, all of these things, if we allow them to pile up, then we are blocking direct access between us and the Lord. That blockage will cause us to stop growing in the Lord. So, don’t let sin pile up. Ask the Holy Spirit to convict you of all sins of the body and of the soul, of the emotions, mind, of the will. So that all the blockages can be removed.
And so, that’s just a background of how to make sure the blockage is not there. What if the blockage is not from ourselves?
What if it’s from an external force? As we’ve been talking about, the reality of spiritual battle. What if Satan himself is coming after us and accusing us and deceiving us? It’s not our own sin. It is an attack from the outside. Maybe our sins were the open door. Maybe there were legal rights granted to the enemy.
And so, there are sins that we committed, but if we’ve repented of all those things, but still Satan is coming for us, then how do we deal with this one?
And so, who blinds us in our eyes, our ears, our mouth, our heart, and our mind? There are various answers for this. In John 12:37, it says…
37 Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, 38 so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”(John 12:37-38 ESV)
39 Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said, 40 “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.” 41 Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. (John 12:39-41, ESV)
So, Jesus is referencing the Old Testament, where Isaiah is a prophet who is speaking out against the people, and the people are utterly blind. We’ll get into how they got there, but who is blinding them even further? It is the Lord.
Why does the Lord do this?
We’ll get into that. But it is clear, it is the Lord who is blinding them. If you look at Isaiah 6, which is the quotation from John 12, it says in Isaiah 6:8…
8 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” (Isaiah 6:8, ESV)
And he said, ‘Go, and say to this people, “Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.”‘
10 Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” 11 Then I said, “How long, O Lord?” And he said: “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste, 12 and the Lord removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. 13 And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled.” The holy seed is its stump. (Isaiah 6:10-13, ESV)
It’s clear who is blinding the eyes, the ears, and the hearts, and the minds of God’s people. It is the Lord. It is the Lord.
In this case, it is an act of judgment to cause people to see their spiritual state, that they may return to the Lord through repentance. So, it’s an act of mercy that he allows this blinding to occur. It is at the Lord’s hands.
So, that’s one source of blindness that may come on the hearts, and eyes, ears, minds of a believer. There’s also Isaiah 29:9.
9 Astonish yourselves and be astonished; blind yourselves and be blind! Be drunk, but not with wine; stagger, but not with strong drink! 10 For the Lord has poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes , and covered your heads . (Isaiah 29:9-10, ESV)
Clearly, who is the one pouring out a spirit of deep sleep? It is the Lord. It is the Lord who is closing the eyes. It is an act of judgment to cause the people to wake up, to see their state, repent, and return to the Lord.
Romans 11:5.
5 So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. 6 But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace. 7 What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, 8 as it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day.” 9 And David says, “Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them; 10 let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and bend their backs forever.” 11 So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. 12 Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean! 13 Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry 14 in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. 15 For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? (Romans 11:5-15, ESV)
So, when God is blinding the hearts of the Israelites, the nation of Israel in the Old Testament, it was an act of mercy. They could have turned at any point. Prophet after prophet were sent.
They could have heeded the warning; they just did not want to heed it. And then finally, the final revelation of the Lord came in the form of Jesus, and they crucified Him. That was an act of rebellion against the Lord, and to this day there is still that stupor, the blindness on an entire nation.
It is an act of judgment against them that they may turn at some point. God is not forsaking them, He wants them to turn. All the turmoil in Israel.
Even to the present day, they should ask themselves, “Why are we in this position? Why are we in this war zone? Why is this happening?” If they cried out to the Lord, the Lord will reveal their blindness, that they are waiting for a Messiah that has already come. If only they humble themselves and ask the Lord, “Why are we in this situation, even now in the year 2024?” It is the Lord trying to get their attention, to wake them up that they may turn, and may the Lord save his firstborn Israel before it’s too late.
Because of their rebellion, all of us, not a single one of us, are Jewish by ethnicity, and yet we’re saved. It is because the hardening was for our blessing. And now, we should be praying for our fellow, for God’s firstborn, the Israelites, that they may see Jesus for who he is. But God is the one who brought upon the blindness. Where did he start? Isaiah 29:13 gives the answer.
13 And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men, 14 therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.” (Isaiah 29:13-14, ESV)
And so he starts back in Isaiah 29:10. It says, “Let’s see.”
When he says, “Close your eyes and cover your heads,” that’s back in Isaiah 29:9-10. He’s speaking about the prophets and the seers, the leaders of the church. And then, because the leadership is blind, the blindness extends, the verses that we just read, to all the people.
Because if your leader is blind and you follow your leader, you will fall into a pit. You too will fall into the same blindness. And so, why did this happen? Isaiah 44:16 gives the answer.
16 Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, “Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!” 17 And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!” 18 They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand. 19 No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, “Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?” (Isaiah 44:16-19, ESV)
So, the Lord unpacks why he judges the people. It’s because of idolatry. And he’s mocking them that you are eating these food sacrificed to idols, and with the leftover, you’re making a wooden statue, and you’re saying to that statue, “Deliver me.”
And that’s why they became blind to the Lord. And before we say, “Well, that is them, and that’s not us,” let’s just ask the Lord, “Is there idolatry in our hearts? Do we love things other than Jesus more? Do we trust in things more than Jesus?” It’s not an easy question to answer.
Do we love money? Do we want to be respected? Do we want to be praised? Do we want to be famous? Do we want to have a big ministry? There are many idols that can lurk.
And do we put our faith in these things? Do we seek after these things? Do we love these things? Then the Lord says, okay, I will, in an act of mercy, I will show you the spiritual state you will be in by letting you chase after this. And then when you open the Bible, nothing speaks to you. And you wonder, why is the Bible so boring? Why is it so irrelevant? Why is my prayer over after five minutes? Why is spiritual life just stuck? Why do I feel stuck?
Could it be there’s idols that have caused the Lord to blind us, and the blindness should be a wake-up call? Like, I should search my heart. Is there idols? Why is it so hard to connect with the Lord?
Why do I, unless someone tells me they’re reading my Bible, I don’t want to read the Bible? Unless someone’s checking in and seeing if I pray, I don’t want to pray. It’s so boring. I’d rather watch youTube. I’d rather play a video game.
This Bible is so boring. Church is boring. Why is it?
Could it be there’s idols and the Lord is showing you, “Okay, chase after the idol.” And then when you open the Bible, of course, nothing, you can’t see, you can’t hear anything, of course.
And it’s a wake-up call from the Lord that you may turn from the idols. You may turn from the sins. You may repent. Return to the Lord. Ask him to open up eyes, ears, mind, thoughts.
So we can now perceive the things of God again.
It says it also in Jeremiah 5:19…
19 And when your people say, ‘Why has the Lord our God done all these things to us?’ you shall say to them, ‘As you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve foreigners in a land that is not yours.’” 20 Declare this in the house of Jacob; proclaim it in Judah: (Jeremiah 5:19, 20 ESV)
21 “Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes, but see not, who have ears, but hear not. 22 Do you not fear me? declares the Lord . Do you not tremble before me? I placed the sand as the boundary for the sea, a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass; though the waves toss, they cannot prevail; though they roar, they cannot pass over it. (Jeremiah 5:21-22, ESV)
Idolatry is serious. It causes a blindness, a deafness, a hardness of heart. And if you’re in that state, it could be your sin. It could be idolatry. It could be an act of the Lord to reveal the idols so that you would turn, repent, and come back to the Lord.
How do we fall into idolatry? Romans 1:21.
21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. (Romans 1:21, ESV)
These are people who knew God. They knew God, yet they didn’t honor God. How do you know they didn’t honor God? They didn’t give thanks to God. When God says, “I love you, I will prove it to you, I will send my son to you, he will suffer on a cross for all of your sins.” How do we dishonor the Lord? It’s when we say, “Lord, that is not enough. I really need this job. I really need a wife, I really need a church ministry,” and you just fill in the blank.
And our failure to give thanksgiving to the Lord for salvation, for the answers to prayer, for good health, for all the things that we just take for granted, we are dishonoring Him. Not thanking the Lord, I’m just being convicted, is such a serious sin. I didn’t think of it in that way. It is such a serious sin not to thank the Lord. It is dishonoring Him. It’s saying, “What you’ve done for me is not enough, Lord. Because I look at my life, I can’t be thankful for anything.”
Because you’re not answering this thing, and this thing, and this thing, it is so disrespectful to the Lord and what He’s done for us. It is treating Him as if He’s a wooden statue on the bookshelf. It just makes no difference. What you say in your word, what you’ve done for me, it just makes no difference. It’s like you relegate Him to that status in your life.
And the grumbling and the inability to give thanks proves it. It proves it. It’s a serious sin to not give thanksgiving to the Lord.
It is dishonoring what He’s done for us already. What else blinds us? And this is the main point, and I’ll end with this. Who else blinds us besides the Lord? Because maybe you’ve searched your hearts, okay, I’ve laid down every idol.
You’ve asked the Holy Spirit, please convict me of all my sins. I’ve repented of all the sins that I’m aware of. And as far as I can tell, there’s no blockage because of my sin or because of ideology. But still, when I read the Bible, it’s like I can’t see the Lord.
When I hear the Word of God preached or audibly, the Bible audio, I can’t hear the voice of the Lord. And at best, it’s in my head. It never hits my heart. It doesn’t cause me to be stirred in my heart.
So, if you’ve gone down the list, you’ve repented of all your sins, you’ve laid on every idol, you’ve asked the Holy Spirit to search your heart, there’s no offensive way in you that you can perceive, then the last thing on the list we should look to is Satan himself.
2 Corinthians 4:3.
3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (2 Corinthians 4:3-4, ESV)
So, of course, we understand Satan has blinded the world.
Anybody who does not believe in Jesus, anybody who doesn’t understand who Jesus is, the Son of God, the Savior, the Savior who came to save them from their sins, if they don’t see that they’re a sinner, if they don’t have a need for a Savior, if they think that Jesus is just a historical figure, a religious teacher on the same level as Buddha, of course that person is blind.
But does Satan stop at the non-believer? Of course, he is going after us all the time. In Revelation 12, he is so angry.
The dragon is so angry that he couldn’t attack Mary, the mother of Jesus, that his fury is unleashed at the offspring of Mary, which is all of us. So, how does Satan blind us?
2 Thessalonians 2:9.
9 The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, 10 and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved.”and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved.”(2 Thessalonians 2:9-10, ESV)
11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, 12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thessalonians 2:11-12, ESV)
Just because somebody who proclaims the name of Jesus and says they’re an apostle, and performs signs and impressive signs at that, just because they do that doesn’t mean that you should listen to that person.
Because even false apostles, masquerading as an angel of light, can perform powers and signs and wonders, but they’re counterfeit. They’re inspired by Satanic power.
It’s not the same as God’s power because when God does it, it’s a full deliverance. Satan can do it for a moment and set somebody free for a moment, but tomorrow they’ll be bound again. So at the worship service, they’re free, but later on, you talk to them, they’re still bound because it was just a counterfeit. It was just an act so that people get riled up, so that people give money to that false apostle and teacher. Signs alone are not the proof. How does Satan deceive? It is through deception.
And it’s not an obvious deception. It is somebody in the church who’s saying things that are actually, a lot of it’s true. And they have signs to back it up. How can we defend against something like this? Like something impressive. Something visible. Something that is even from the Word of God, but slightly twisted.
Like if you don’t know the Word well, you could easily get deceived. How can we defend ourselves against it? You have to love the truth. You have to love Jesus. your best defense is a strong offense. You really have to love Jesus.
You have to know Him like your best friend. So when a counterfeit comes in, you know right away that’s not the same Jesus that I know. That’s not the same Jesus I read about. That’s not the same Jesus I fellowship with. This Jesus seems to be about that person’s gift. It seems very man-centered. It seems all about devotion to the church, that church. It seems so like my tribe and nobody else. That’s not the Jesus who is calling for unity across all the remnant worldwide to gather under the headship of Christ.
So, your best defense from this kind of deception is a strong offense. You must know Jesus personally and well. You must love Him. Love the truth. Jesus is the truth. If you don’t love Jesus, you will be vulnerable to satanic deception. If it’s just principles and Bible knowledge, you’ll be vulnerable.
You have to love the truth. It’s not a principle, it’s a person. You must love Jesus. That is the best defense from these false apostles and deception. And it says even God sends a delusion. So, Satan is at work. People really don’t love the truth.
They don’t love Jesus. They are easily deceived. And God looks at that group and says, “OK, I will accelerate it. I will even delude you further.” It’s the same way that Pharaoh, he was already hardened in his heart. He was already set in his way.
So what does God do? God accelerates the hardness of Pharaoh’s heart. Says, “Let me bring it all the way to its full extent. And if you don’t repent, I will show my glory in another way.”
Here, Satan is the one who blinds us, as well as the Lord in this case.
Why else do the things of God remain hidden from us? In Matthew 13, it speaks of the crowds. And Jesus spoke to them in parables.
And the crowd got what they wanted, a nice message, entertaining, engaging. Jesus is the best communicator who ever spoke. And so, they must have been riveted at the edge of their seats. Even if they don’t get it, at least just purely from a communication standpoint.
As an orator, he must have grabbed the attention of thousands of people.
And they were just there for as long, even though they were hungry, even though they were thirsty. They were just riveted by Jesus. But Jesus, he could have easily just unpacked it for them. And said, “I am the Messiah. Repent right now. Don’t worry about the bread. I’m going to feed you that later. But why don’t you first understand that I am the living bread? Why don’t you come to me first?” He could have easily preached like that. But he spoke deliberately with a parable because he perceived the hearts of the crowd.
They don’t, they’re not interested in Jesus. They don’t love the truth. They don’t love Jesus. They’re interested in the speaking ability of this man, and then they want the handout. It could be the same with us. Do we love Jesus, or do we want the handouts? Do we want the blessing, or the person who gives us the blessing? Do we love the Lord for all the things he gives to us? In which case, Satan’s accusation upon the church would be valid. We’re only propped up by the blessings of the Lord.
You take away the blessings,” Satan says, “you’ll see the Lord. You see God. They will turn and they’ll curse you to your face.” Or are we the kind of person who receives Jesus, God’s love on full display, and we say, “We honor the Lord by saying, ‘Thank you, Lord.’ Every day we’re so thankful. Like you don’t have to answer any more prayers. You don’t have to give me anything else. Thank you, Lord, you’ve saved me. Thank you, you sent Jesus. I wanna honor you properly by giving you thanks.
This is the opposite of somebody who says, “I just need the handouts, Lord. Just give me the handout. I don’t really love the truth, but just give me the bread. I want community. I just want a youth group for my kids. I want them to grow up in a Christian home.” There’s so many benefits if you’re just part of a church group. Friends and people pray for you. Like, where will you find people like that in the world, who will honestly pray for you? Like true friends, where will you find that in the world?
People don’t care for you, your boss doesn’t care for you, your coworkers don’t care for you, people who actually care for you, who will pray for you, who will weep with you. There’s so many benefits, just being attached to a church, just have friends, people actually care for you.
What if God took all of that away? Is that why we’re here? Just for that? Do we just want to be delivered and just live our life? Or do we love the truth, do we love Jesus? Are we so thankful to the Lord?
Or has Satan so deceived us that no matter what the Lord does for us, we’re just never giving thanks? It’s always not enough. I’m always grumbling about something. I’m always complaining about something. Something is not going well in my life. Something is not right. Could it be that Satan himself has blinded us to the things of the Lord?
The disciples in Matthew 13, when Jesus is speaking to the crowd in parables, the disciples are equally blind; they don’t understand. But what is the distinguishing mark of a believer? We have Jesus.
And whenever we read scripture, it doesn’t make sense to me. Like, I can try to intellectually figure out what it means, but on the whole, so much doesn’t make sense. Because this is a spiritual enterprise. It’s a revelation that we need to receive from the Lord.
And so, how do we get understanding? It’s like when we read something and it doesn’t make sense, and we ask Jesus, and the same way that Jesus unpacks the parable.
Disciples, Jesus, when we bring our questions to Him, He starts giving us answers. And then we know, okay, this is how it’s supposed to be. Until He speaks to me, I don’t know a thing. Until He explains to me the scripture about who He is, I don’t understand anything.
And so we bring the questions to the Lord and He answers to us. But if we don’t ask, because we don’t care, because it’s just a checkbox. We just read our Bible today. Did we get anything out of it? I don’t care. It doesn’t matter.
I just checked it off. I just want to go through a Bible reading plan. It’s not meaningful to me. I didn’t have any questions. I just felt good that I did my discipline. I woke up early. I did it.
Is that the point? Or is the point we actually have a heart-to-heart connection? We love the truth. We love Jesus. And we had these questions and Jesus was so kind that He answered us.
Things of God remain hidden because we don’t ask, because we don’t care.
So, let’s end this service just asking the Lord to search our hearts. Why are the things of God hidden? Could it be that we are in sin deliberately, knowingly? Or maybe we’ve been sinning through our lips, through our attitudes, through our thinking, and we didn’t even label it as sin because we didn’t ask the Holy Spirit to convict us at the end of the day. We just kept doing life the same way.
So, whether it’s hidden sin or obvious sin, let’s repent of that. If there’s idols, this one is a harder one to know.
I don’t think we know ourselves. Well, like what really drives us, that also we should ask the Lord. Is there idols, are there idols in my heart? Only He can reveal the hidden things that really drive us. God Himself can blind us. If we’re blind, could it be that God is getting our attention?
He’s showing us our spiritual state, that we read the Bible, we show up at church, nothing, nothing stirs us, but we don’t care. How did we get this way?
Let’s ask the Lord how we got this way. The Lord is trying to get our attention as He did the nation of Israel. When the nations were attacking them and they were in exile, they were supposed to ask the Lord, “How did we get this way?” They didn’t even have to go through the actual judgment, if only they heeded the warning.
And lastly, Satan himself can blind us through false signs, visions, wonders, through deception, and the most vulnerable people are those who do not love the truth.
And so, let’s recommit, let’s love the truth, let’s ask Jehovah Sabaoth, the Lord of heaven’s armies, to fight for us. Because if we’re under attack by Satan and his evil spirits, then we need the Lord’s help to fight for us.
Okay, let’s pray.
Father, we come before you. Not knowing exactly where we are with you, many days we just know that we’re not as close to you as we want to be. We’re not becoming like you at the rate that we want to see.
Many days roll into the next, and we wonder where the weeks and the months have passed. We’re just busy with life. We read scripture, and we understand things in our head, but in our heart, things are still blocked from it.
So Lord, if there’s any sins, obvious sins, hidden sins, sins in our body or our soul, our mind, will, emotions, I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would convict us in this time that we may repent one by one. If there’s any idols, Lord, we’re not good at.
We’re not good at discerning the deeper things that drive us. So, Lord, if there are idols, I pray that you get our attention, that you start revealing what is really driving us deep, that causes us to become blind at your doing. It is an act of mercy that we would wake up and repent and lay down the idols.
We also understand that we’re in a spiritual battle every day. That evil is knocking on our door every day.
Satan is looking, roaming the earth like a lion trying to devour somebody every single day, accusing us day and night that we’re phonies. He’s accusing us to the Father day and night that we’re only, we only love the Lord because of the blessings, because we’re protected, because we’ve been propped up, we’re counterfeit. We really don’t love the Lord because if all those things are taken away, how many of us would still give thanks? How many of us would still give thanks? Be thankful. How many of us would still have faith?
Satan’s accusation many times is true of us. We confess it, Lord. We confess it, Lord. And Lord, now we call upon the name of Jehovah Sabaoth, the Lord of heaven’s armies. If we’re blocked by Satan himself in our mind, in our hearts, in our eyes, our ears, our mouth, and this is satanic deception, satanic attacks, then Lord, we ask you to fight for us.
We pray that you would set captives free today, that you would deliver us today, that you would draw us into your presence.
We pray that all the blockages, whether it’s self-inflicted or external from the enemy, that you would remove all the blockages. We want to connect with you deeply, Lord.
We want to see you with our own eyes, hear you with our own ears, proclaim your goodness and thanksgiving with our own mouths. Be change in our own hearts. May everything be made new.
Lord, we want to first deal with the blockage.
So Lord, as we close out this service, we thank you for the body of Jesus that was broken for us and the blood of Jesus that was shed. We plead it over every one of us in our body, soul, spirit, mind, will, emotion, cover, cleanse, and sanctify each one of us by the blood of Jesus.
Pray that you encounter us and meet us as we close out this service. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
