Classic Sermon #6062: The Ark Within Us

First of Samuel, we are going to go to chapter 4, I am going to review this passage again, I want to continue with our meditation on the subject of holiness. And I hope that this study of holiness is not something sterile for you, I don't want it to be, but I really want you to be blessed, for your mind to be open, for you to be enthusiastic, to see holiness not as something dry, sterile and boring, but as a goal to which we must aim, which is full of joy and promises from the Lord. In reality, holiness is the path to joy, the path to power. It is not designed to spoil the party, but quite the opposite, to make it possible for the abundant life of Christ to manifest in our lives.

And so we have to see holiness, not as self-righteousness, I say, they are two different things, but as a gift that God has for us. Chapter 4, First Samuel, says that Samuel spoke to all Israel, that is, I think it means that he prophesied, ministered to them, spoke to them so that they would correct their ways. We saw the spiritual bankruptcy that Israel found itself in as a result of the poverty of its leaders. God raises up a great man, who is Samuel, a prophet who began to rebuild the spiritual walls of that town. And so here Samuel begins his ministry and says that he spoke, he ministered to all Israel.

At that time Israel went out to meet the Philistines in battle and encamped near Ebenezer, and the Philistines encamped at Aphek, and the Philistines presented the battle to Israel. And engaging in combat, Israel was defeated before the Philistines, who wounded about 4,000 men in battle on the field. When the people returned to the camp, the elders of Israel said, Why has the Lord struck us today before the Philistines? Let us bring to us from Shiloh the ark of the covenant of Jehovah so that it may come among us and save us from the hand of our enemies. And he sent the people to Shiloh, and they brought from there the ark of the covenant of the LORD of hosts, which dwelt between the cherubim. And the two sons of Eli, Ofni and Fines, were there with the ark of the covenant of God. It came to pass that when the ark of the covenant of Jehovah came into the camp, all Israel shouted with such great joy that the earth trembled. When the Philistines heard the voice of joy, they said, what voice of great joy is this in the camp of the Hebrews? And they knew that the ark of the LORD had been brought into the camp. And the Philistines were afraid because they said, God has come to the camp and they said, woe, for us, for before now it was not like that, woe for us, who will deliver us from the hands of these powerful Gods? These are the Gods who smote Egypt with all plagues in the desert. Be strong, O Philistines, and be men so that you do not serve the Hebrews as they have served you. Be men and fight. So the Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and each one fled to his tents, and there was a great slaughter, for 30,000 foot soldiers fell from Israel, and the ark of God was taken, and Eli's two sons, Ophni and Phinehas, were killed. …”

Says, "…. And running from the battle a man from Benjamin came the same day to Shiloh, his clothes torn and earth on his head and when he came, behold, Eli was sitting on a chair watching by the road because his heart was trembling because of the ark of God…”

This man imagined the disaster that was coming, he knew what it was about. He was a man already with a lot of spiritual experience, although he did not know how to use it.

“…When that man arrived in the city, and when the news was given, the whole city shouted. When Eli heard the noise of the shouting, he said, what kind of noise is this? And that man came in haste and told Eli. Eli was now 98 years old and his eyes had darkened so that he could not see. So that man said to Eli, I come from the battle, I have escaped from the combat today and Eli said, what has happened my son? And the messenger answered saying, Israel fled before the Philistines and there was also a great slaughter among the people, and also your two sons, Ophni and Fines, were killed, and the ark of God has been taken. And it came to pass that when he made mention of the ark of God Eli fell back from the chair at the gate and broke his neck and died because he was an old and heavy man and had judged Israel for 40 years….”

Let's leave it there, brothers, the rest of the story is also very sad, but I think we have an idea of the development of this event, how God fulfilled his terrible promise, his punishment that he had promised Eli and his sons as a consequence. of his spiritual carelessness. But now we are going to meditate on this and we are going to ask that God bless us in our study.

Well, brothers, we were saying last Sunday that there is an intimate relationship between power and holiness. We said that holiness and power are brothers, that they cannot be separated from each other. Holiness is the conduit through which the power of God flows into our lives. If we want the grace of God to be manifested in our lives, if we want to participate in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, if we want to have spiritual authority, we have to live a life that pleases the Lord. We cannot be living in two waters.

The word of God says that a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. We cannot be with God and with the devil, with the world and with the spirit. We have to serve only one Lord and if we want God to manifest all his power in our lives, we have to stick, stick our life, our pattern of life to what God commands in his word, to the values of the Kingdom of God.

I want to continue with this passage that expresses that to us, because here we see that Israel believes that by simply bringing the ark they are going to solve their problem. And the thing is much deeper than this. And I want us to continue in that direction. There is something that strikes me about this passage and it is that we see that Israel was in tremendous spiritual sterility for many years. We saw in a previous passage that it says that the voice of God did not reach Israel, there was not, he says, prophecy frequently. Silo, where the ark of God was, where the temple of worship was, was in tremendous sterility. God had been saddened by the impurity of Ofni and of Fines, of Eli and of the people of God also who had allowed themselves to be contaminated. And the Holy Spirit stopped speaking. The church, so to speak, ceased to receive revelation, there ceased to be a manifestation of the gifts of God in the midst of Israel.

For now God raises up Samuel. Samuel, a man of God, consecrated to the Lord, raised in the temple, raised in the things of God, receives the word of God in an abundant way and becomes a prophet, a spiritual judge in Israel, who governs the people with a wise and upright hand. And God begins to speak to Israel again.

I believe that, as we said, the meaning of that verse at the beginning of chapter 4 that says that Samuel spoke to all Israel. He began to minister to Israel and God backed up Samuel's prophecy and preaching with the fulfillment of all that Samuel prophesied. And then we see that he jumps from there and says that then Israel engaged in battle with the Philistines. The Philistines were a very powerful tribe, a very powerful nation close to the Israelites and by this time the Philistines have become a nation that dominates Israel, oppresses Israel. It was a more numerous nation, more powerful militarily, and Israel has fallen into material decadence because spiritual decadence leads again and again, as we see in the Old Testament, to material decadence. Israel has long been oppressed by the Philistines. At the moment they want to free themselves from the yoke of the Philistines and they wage war, they wage battle against the Philistines.

And I think, I was wondering why that connection that Samuel talks about to Israel and Israel kind of starts to rise up and try to free itself from its oppressors. I believe there is a connection in the mind of the Holy Spirit and the person who wrote this. I believe, brothers, that when God begins to move in our lives, we begin to experience new energies. Our spirit begins to wake up and gain strength and things to which we are accustomed before to keep oppressed and unable to free ourselves from them, situations in our life, the trait of our character, something in us begins to awaken and we want to get rid of those yokes from above. Because the Holy Spirit is beginning to speak into our lives. We are beginning to experience the life of God, although we do not hear it clearly, although perhaps there is still a lot to work on but there is a new impulse.

Because when God enters our life, when the energy of God, when the word of God begins to flow in our families, in our homes, in our minds, in our people, there are positive things that begin to happen. There is vitality that begins to emerge in our life, like a plant that has not had food for a long time, begins to receive water, begins to receive food, life begins to manifest itself more fully in it.

And I believe that something of the vitality of Samuel and of the word of God that began to fall on the people led Israel to rise up against their enemies and want to remove the Philistine yoke from them. But brothers, there is also something important in this, it is that the life of God is often also accompanied by the judgment of God. Both things are there, sometimes we only want the positive aspect of God, the easy, promising, convenient aspect of God's presence, but brothers, when God comes into our life there are many things that we have to put in order, because when God comes, God comes with his blessing but he also comes with his judgment and with his holiness.

And I believe that when God began to speak to Israel, Israel also began to feel God's demands to put their national life on the line, to get right with God. That is why I say, brothers, the danger, when people come to the ways of the Lord many times they are out in the world and do and undo, they do not have God. One day they encounter the Gospel and enter the Gospel through an acceptance of Jesus Christ, or whatever, they begin to come to church but brothers, I want you to understand that this is a two-edged sword. The blessing of God begins to enter your life, God is going to begin to speak into your life, but you know what? That God is a God who when he works, works evenly and works in an incorruptible way, and with total integrity, and with total neatness. God will then enter your life with his blessing but he will also want to put your life in order. God is going to, not only bless you, but he is going to start speaking to other areas of your life that need order and direction and straightening out.

And perhaps you yourself are not even aware of those areas, perhaps you believe that in those areas you are fine but the light of God will begin to shine in your life and it will begin to alert you to many other things that you have to do. in order in your life. Because many of us have such a superficial idea of what the Christian life is and we believe that if I leave the coarsest and ugliest and dirtiest things, that is enough. But God, brothers, God wants the totality of our being.

God wants to enter into all areas of our being. And there are times when there are things in our past or there are things in our life, in our life system, our human relationships or our work, or our marital relationship or with our children, or our mental or emotional life that God also wants to try and to work and he is going to begin to enter those areas of our lives and the sword of God is going to begin to cut and he is going to begin to discipline, not as a punishment, not necessarily as a judgment but because God needs those things to be put up to date. God is a God who likes clear accounts.

And when we enter the ways of the Lord, we understand that it is possible that for a time when God begins to move in us, there will be times of trial and difficulty and we will ask ourselves, but what is happening if I end up to enter the ways of the Lord? Now blessing is supposed to come and what there is is problems. And many times I have seen situations of families or individuals to whom I advise, and always the Lord speaks to me and tells me, tell them that this is not so much a sign of my absence or of my judgement, but quite the contrary, that I am lifting up things that were numb and dirty and I am bringing them to light and I am making them clear and mending.

But you know, brothers, that many times to fix it, you first have to mess it up. To build you have to destroy first. To lay solid foundations you have to tear down the old and corroded building on top and dig up the dirty foundations, and then lay new foundations and then start building positively. And many times there are situations in our life that will seem like tragedies but are simply part of God's work that is putting things in order in our life, and that will be raising crises and situations and conflicts and tribulations perhaps that are the ways in which we are going to fight with that situation in our life and dominate them and put them in order, then the blessing, refreshment, rest, joy, spiritual growth and peace that we are longing for will come.

But many times the times of peace and rest and harvest have to be preceded by times of struggle and conflict, which are the ways in which God is bringing out those dead and rotten bodies already and is bringing them to the surface, they are going to smell wrong for a while and forgive the graphic of the illustration, but once they are fixed and put in place, then the true new life of God can begin to flow into your life.

Anyone who does not want to go through times of struggle, confrontation and tribulation should not ask God to fix their life, because many times God will have to take those areas that are there, that have oppressed us for years, that do not we have dealt with them, those enemies who are comfortable simply because they are not being challenged. From the moment you try to break the chain, you will realize that there are very iron chains there, they are transparent but they are chains. The demons are very happy to keep quiet that no one bothers them inside you or in your life, except when you start to challenge them, when the presence of God begins to enter, when the vapor of the presence of God begins to make them uncomfortable, then They reveal themselves. They were there, but only when the presence of God begins to work does it come out and the struggle manifests itself, then the struggle begins, then those times of difficulty sometimes come and that is where many people leave the Gospel.

The first two or three months are the times of the honeymoon, all the brothers look for one, shake hands with one, call one on the phone, you are something new, interesting and everyone is fine with you, etc but after 3, 4 months, you are already at home and then people sometimes pass you by and don't even see you, they don't say hello, or the little devil that you had hidden there repressed in your relationships begins to appear . They start to do little things that annoy you, and then the problems outside begin to manifest themselves. You begin to realize that this is not a picnic, that all your problems were not solved overnight, that this is not a 24-hour romance, but that it is also work, a relationship that has to be polish it, you have to work on it with God, God is not going to solve all your problems with a magic wand, you have to get to work too.

and what happens? For many people, that critical time, after the honeymoon, is the time that you see them leave, they disappear from the church, they disappear from the ways of the Lord. Because? Because they didn't realize that this is a serious relationship, it's like I say, like a marriage relationship, it's long-term. God cannot be given time to say, ok, Lord, I want you to solve my problems in the next two months and if not, then, I'm sorry, I'm going to leave. That has to be a complete commitment because God works in the deepest foundations of our being. God takes time to fix our life, but when he fixes it, brothers, he fixes it well. And if you give up, and as the Mexicans say, give up at the first moment of trial, you will never reach those other moments of celebration and joy and triumph in the Lord.

If you are going to invest in the kingdom of heaven, you have to invest in the long term for your whole life because there are going to be relative fluctuations, there are going to be moments of difficulty, but in those moments what God is going to be doing is simply taking the hidden light, provoking crises so that you work on them, so that you become aware of them, so that you are strengthened, so that you understand that the kingdom of heaven is something real, it is true, it is solid, it is sober . It is not birds in the air, it is not something romantic, it is not something ethereal, it is not something abstract, this is a matter of getting to work and making the kingdom of heaven real in our lives with the power that God gives us.

And those enemies are going to have to be confronted, and in that war some of those enemies are going to have an apparent victory for a while, but you keep going, God is going to purify you, God is going to confront you, you will be learning things , areas of oppression in your life will be released and then you will see how the line of your life will be an ascending line.

There will be times, yes, relative, when you will go down a bit, but when you look at the general direction of the line, with a graph, you will see that your life will increase. As the word says, until the light is perfect, until the presence of God becomes real in your life.

But it is going to take time and there are going to be moments like what happened to Israel, they fought and in the first confrontation they were defeated. Because? Because there were hidden things in the life of Israel, there was impurity, they had neglected the glory of God, there were two priests there, Ofni and Finés, who were main priests who were in a state of impurity and terrible immorality. The glory of God had been sullied. Israel was in sin and all this served to create a crisis, a shock in the life of Israel. If you read those chapters that follow, you realize why God is like that, brothers, and that's how it will have to be in our lives too.

Because when Samuel begins his ministry in a sense there is a blessing, the life of God begins to flow, there are attempts at liberation, there are already beginnings of blessing and victory but there are setbacks at first, there are difficulties, there are partial defeats, temporary because there are things that have to be resolved, and precisely those crises serve to make Israel aware of those areas that have to be fixed. Along with the blessing comes also the correction, also comes bringing the accounts up to date. Both things are important.

Then we see that Israel goes out into battle and is defeated by the Philistines. However, Israel does not stop there, it says, well, and look at how interesting their reaction is: when they see that they are defeated, how do they react, what do they say? He says, why has he hurt us today, in verse 3, why has Jehovah hurt us today before the Philistines? What's happening here? Israel blames God.

Don't we do like this many times? When we have difficulties in life, or when we went to that interview and we thought, forget about that job, it's mine, I'm sure of it, and you get out of there, and they tell you, we're so sorry, we can't, or we've already found someone else. And you say, geez, where is God, where are his promises? We blame God when we have difficulties, when we have problems, why has God done this to me? Why doesn't God hear my prayers? We accuse God of being lacking, of being inconsistent in his promises.

Brothers, in reality the problem was not God's, the problem was theirs. God was doing what he had to do. God was working in his life. God was leading Israel toward a purification.

Let's be careful, brothers, of blaming God for things that we are responsible for. Let's look inside many times because God is always faithful. We are the ones who failed him many times.

Israel needed something else more important. Now notice something else they do. They say, well, the problem is that we need our special weapon, we need that atomic weapon, and then they say, well, let's send for the ark. Forget, the ark here among us is going to eat us alive, and he sends Silo to where the ark was and here comes the ark, because they believe that if the ark is among them, the solution is certain, victory is certain. That was the problem. The problem was that they did not have the ark with them. Well, we are going to bring the ark and then we are going to have the victory.

Brothers, one of the things that I see here is our tendency to look only at the external many times, to believe that the solution lies in the external things of the Christian life. We do not understand that holiness is something much deeper than external things. They thought, well, if we bring that object that is the ark, then that will bring the solution. They did not understand that there was an inner drama that God had to resolve.

These people were being superficial in their way of seeing things. Instead of them looking at themselves and saying, Lord, what has happened, what have we done, in what way have we offended you? They look for a solution outside, bringing the ark. That is their solution as they see it.

I would say, brothers, that in this reaction Israel is similar to many people, many Christians who have an external, superficial concept of what holiness is and what spiritual life is. We have a superficial idea of what spirituality is. Many of us enter the Gospel but we do not change our mentality, we could say, we change our religious club, but not our way of thinking, not our way of relating to God, not our way of interpreting the things of the Kingdom of God.

And let me shed some light on that, and I say this with respect, what I am going to say, because just as I criticize the Catholic Church and do it with respect, I also criticize evangelicals. We evangelicals do not have a monopoly on the spiritual life, I want to tell you, and I am sorry if I disappoint any of you with that. There are many things that we have to learn and improve in our lives.

But speaking like that in that respectful way, I think that one of the things about those who have grown up in the Catholic tradition, which has so many good things, the Catholic mentality, Catholic theology is a theology, I would say, sacramental, that many sometimes emphasizes the ritual aspect of things. For example, in Catholic theology the priest when he officiates and when he administers the sacraments, even though he is in sin, the sacraments have life in themselves. That is, when that person officiates in the name of the Lord, those sacraments have a life of their own, and even if that person is in some kind of sinful situation, those sacraments are supposed to be effective because they are independent of the individual who is officiating. All the rites of promises and all the external things of the priestly life of the Catholic Church, the religious ritualism, the emphasis on external acts, all of that I think sometimes tends to promote in people an outward attitude to the Christian life. , a ritualistic attitude that things simply because we carry out certain acts, is enough.

I know that's not the intention, but for a lot of people that's what tends to be promoted. Go to church just be there, say the prayers, whatever, and that's it. With that we are already blessed. If I am under the cover of the mother church, I already have my affairs resolved because the church covers me with its authority and its power, and with what God has given it, its support. But it doesn't promote that sense that I personally am responsible before God. I have to deal with God because the idea is, you are part of a collectivity, of a community that is the universal mother church that covers you. and what happens? That many times we enter the Gospel, we enter the ways of the Lord, and you know what, brothers? We enter the external and ritualistic way of thinking in the Christian life and then we do not realize that there are internal things that are as important to God as external things. And so we are actually evangelical Catholics. And we believe that simply the external act is enough, coming to church, instead of going to mass, we come to the evangelical church, instead of putting alms on the plate, we make an offering, instead of praying, we pray. What we have done is simply translate the language but we have not translated the mentality.

And I believe that when one comes to the Gospel there has to be a total transformation of the way of thinking. We have to understand that it is not the external, it is the internal that matters. We have to understand that external acts are important, but unless they are linked to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, to a total surrender of self, to a personal, emotional crisis that leads us to totally surrender to Jesus Christ, external things they have no meaning.

I say, brethren, that it is not enough that we bring the ark and put it there on a pedestal so that the life of God may be manifested in us. The ark, I believe, that we have to take it and put it inside of us, and let that ark dissolve within us and distribute itself through our entire being, our entire mentality, our entire way of seeing things. .

We have to understand that God does not want people who simply change their identity, who instead of calling themselves Catholic now call themselves Evangelicals, but rather that God wants people who have been transformed in their understanding of the Kingdom of God.

Says the Apostle Paul, do not conform to this century but transform yourselves through what? From the renewal of your understanding. We have to ask the Lord to help us look at the things of the Kingdom of God in a biblical way, in a spiritual way, in a way that we understand the deepest mysteries of the Holy Spirit, that we can't just see the evangelical as just, As I say, a change of club.

There are many extremely religious people, they go to church all the time, but they also go to the spiritualist, to the sorcerer, they have an altar in their homes, Santeria, for example, in Haiti, in South America, there are people who convert from voodoo or from witchcraft and convert to the Gospel, and then they live a double life, they go to the evangelical church or the Catholic church and they also go to Santeria. How can they do that? Because to us it seems so logical. Why can they live? For the reason that they see God, the Christian God and Jesus Christ as one more God. He has already entered his pantheon of Gods. They are syncretists, they are polytheists, ultimately, what is always operating is a pagan mentality. They believe that well, Jesus Christ helps, it is true, but there will be things that we only need voodoo to help us. So they go to the saint, they go to the sorcerer, they go to whoever because apparently that thing in their mind is from god, with a small d when they can't solve it. If they didn't change, their mentality is still pagan. They believe in the external act, they believe that God can be manipulated, they believe that God is a machine that if you pull the right handle will give you the right results. They do not understand that it is something that you have to dissolve in God and God dissolve within you. You have to go through a crisis, you have to die, you have to be crushed, you have to be transformed, you have to be broken, you have to enter the mind of God. It is a process of death and resurrection. God has to tear down all the structures of your mind, of your brain, of your intellect, of your spirituality, and remake them, because otherwise you are going to stay raw. You're just going to be a pagan in the evangelical church, sitting in a pew, believing that God is being manipulated, like these people.

They were pagans, the Jewish mentality in this case that brings the ark is a pagan mentality. If we bring the ark, if we bring that sacred object that has the power of God in it, we put it in our midst, that power is going to be transferred to us, something mechanical, purely technical. Witchcraft, paganism, that's what it was. That's why you see when it comes to that the Philistines say, wow, now we're in trouble, the ark has arrived and we've heard about those gods. Look how they say, those gods that brought Israel out of Egypt. They knew more about the history of Israel than the Israelites themselves, I think. And they were afraid, why? Because it was a pagan mentality that was operating, the same mentality that led the Jews to believe that the ark had power, leads them to believe that the ark has power. It is the same mentality not dealt with by the spirit of God.

The Jews did not want to understand that God required of them holiness, required death of self, required that they sanctify their national, spiritual, individual life. They believed that everything was solved simply by moving some chips on the board and that now, if the chips were in the correct position, they would get the correct dice. But God wanted something more, God wanted a consecration of his being.

Many Christians do not understand, brothers, we do not understand that consecration does not mean bringing the ark to the battlefield, but as I say, taking the values that the ark represents to integrate with them, integrating the values that the ark represents into your life to that then the power of God may actually flow. Why did the ark fall into the hands of the Philistines? Why didn't God have power? No, on the contrary, we see that when the ark is taken to the temple of Dagon the Philistines who capture the ark, the ark is put in the temple and placed next to Dagon, this god of the Philistines, what happens? The next day, the god Dagon is on the floor and the ark is next to it, stopped because God could not tolerate the presence of a false god next to it. And the Philistines come, they put the god Dagon on his feet again and the next day Dagon appears with his head cut off and with his hands cut off, only the trunk. Angels came and carried out that work, why? Because definitely the power of God was represented there. God had not changed, what happens is that the conduit of God's power was damaged and these people needed to have an encounter with God first.

Brothers, over and over again in Scripture I see that, and I believe that this is what the Lord is telling us on this day, that we have to be mature, deep Christians, we have to stop being superficial. You know that a little while ago we talked about tithing being good, it is important, you know that it is good to come to God's house and worship Him, you know that it is good to carry out acts of service to the Lord, you know that it is good to worship to God with raised hands, with a clear and expressive voice, and if necessary to dance. I believe in all these things, brothers, I believe in everything external, that is beautiful, but if we make the mistake of believing that the power of God is in that, exclusively in that, we are the people most worthy of mercy in this land. Because that is just an expression but it is not the reality of the power of God, you understand? The reality of the power of God is supposed to be within you, in your life and that this is a manifestation of that power, but for many people we believe that the external is the end, that it is simply a means, or a result to which maximum, but what is true, what is important is the energy, the power, the life, the values of the Kingdom of God within you. And glory to God if the two things are united and the power and the reality of God is accompanied by the intense expression, beautiful, wonderful. But we have to understand that we have to go to the cross again and again so that God can infuse his values into our lives there, that the spirit of God can speak within us and go first cleaning and treating the things that have to be treated. Let's not try, as some do out there, we don't bathe and when we start to smell bad we put on a lot of deodorant to kill the bad smell. We can not do that. We have to settle accounts with the Lord. We have to be consistent, we have to be relentless, we have to be honest with the Lord and we have to understand that the Christian life is a life of effort, of work, that God is a God who cannot be deceived.

The Bible says, "do not be deceived, God cannot be mocked because whatever man sows, he will also reap", and that does not refer only to pagans, it refers to us believers as well. According to the quality of our interior life, of our holiness towards God will be our exterior life, will be our fruits.

God is interested in clearing up the accounts before having an encounter with us as he wants to have. With the Samaritan woman the Lord first had to talk about who he was, take her through a process of awareness, bring her sins to light in a gentle, loving, but very firm way. He had to teach him that he was God, that he was the Messiah. He had to teach him that it was not a question of worshiping God there in Samaria or in Jerusalem but that the true worshipers would worship God in the spirit and in the truth. He had to teach him that what he wanted was hearts delivered to him, that it was not Jewish or Samaritan ritualism, that there was no solution. He had to take her to an encounter with her self, to a crisis. And when there was that confrontation then he said, ok, now look, who you are looking at is the Son of God. And what happened? That from there she went and became an evangelist for her people.

Brothers, let's be consistent, God wants consistency. Let us stop manipulating God. Let's stop trying to put the ark on a pedestal. God cannot be fooled. The ark is good but the ark has to be linked to an internal experience. Are there hidden things in our life? Are there areas, are there anathemas in our life that are not being dealt with, that we have not yielded to the Lord? Do we want to bribe God with acts, with money, with service, with church attendance, with praise, with raised hands? Again, all of this is good, it is necessary and so we are leaving things hidden there, and we believe that we are doing the external, that the internal is not going to be seen. It is not like this.

God wants consistency in us. God wants us to deal with everything, go deep, work on the Christian life, profess, make everything clear and then the blessing comes, stability in the Christian life comes. If we are not prepared to go through these stormy times, we will never reach the positive sides of peace and rest.

God wants to give you rest, my brother, my sister, God wants to give you rest, but you are going to have to pay the price, you are going to have to cut areas of your life, there is going to be death. There was in the life of Israel. There will be death, there will be times of struggle, but God is faithful and he who promises will fulfill it. God will take you to the other shore even if the road is stormy. He is in your boat. Your boat is not going to sink. Let him work, let him confront you. Let him deal with your life. Let him put in order the areas of your being that are not treated by God. When God kills it is for life, brothers. When God cuts it is to heal and to cleanse. It is not to destroy or impoverish. Let us submit to the sword of God. Let us submit to the cross of Christ because that way we are going to get where God wants us to get. Amen.