feet of clay

I want to tell you something about why I wrote this book.

First, I felt a call from the Lord to continue writing many years ago, when I decided to enter the ministry, to the pastorate, when I had to abandon dreams of academic achievements and all that I had. I said, Lord, my desire has always been to write, I am going to serve you, and if you ever want to revive that dream of writing, you will make it possible.

And decades have passed and I have had there that in front of God waiting for the right moment, and like something sprouted in me a couple of years ago and I started writing. And I want to continue writing and for me these first books are exercises where I want to learn to write better and to find the precise voice that God has given me for these books. And I feel that God is going to bless them and he is going to take them far away for his glory, because that is for him and it has given me a facility to write and I truly enjoy writing.

I didn't want to start writing ordinary things, let's say hackneyed, very easy, I think, for writers to ask themselves, well, what is it that sells and what is it that people want to hear and there are so many books that I see that repeat the same same thing. Today there are so many voices out there, the internet has multiplied and it is like a noise that it is very difficult to take off and stand out due to so many voices, so many things that are written.

I ask the Lord to help me develop a different message, an original message, a message that meets the needs of the people and a voice that speaks with the tone of the Lord, not with the tone of the market out there. So these books walk on different ground, I think, and sometimes I think that when people hear Josaphat, why Josaphat, why not write about another more well-known character who would sell more. I am not following this with the market, I want God to be the one who speaks through these things.

And we have to be original. I believe that in the academic world originality is sought, new topics are sought, things that illuminate, that open gaps, that open the way, that say something new and different, and that is what I want. To do something different, and I ask you, my brothers, to take this book seriously, not because I only wrote it, but because I sincerely and humbly believe that it will bless your life. Invest time in it and read it as you read other serious things, as you read the word, with intentionality, asking the Lord to give you wisdom and I sincerely believe that your lives will be blessed.

My desire has been to take the life of this man, King Jehoshaphat, there are a few Chapters about him in the Bible and extract from his life teachings for your life and mine. Josaphat speaks to us as if he were a man of the 21st century, a politician, a leader, and this writing is for anyone who wants to grow in their spiritual life. If you already serve the Lord in some capacity, this book is for you. If you want to serve the Lord more than you already do, I think this book is for you too. There is something here for everyone. Truths of many different types that emerge from the Bible, also from the experience of this great man of God. So I commend this book to you and have always relied on my church as my first audience. You are my first readers, I always think about that. We already started, because there have been a couple of situations in the church in which I have felt the Lord begin to informally distribute the book. And I've heard from many of you how much of a blessing it has been to your life, and that encourages me to continue. And I ask for your support, buy this book, I say it without any kind of apologetics or anything, buy it, take it home, invest in it, as we said, share it with someone, or tell someone, look at this book my pastor wrote and I think it will be a blessing to you and sell it to someone too, why not. You can take…

People tell me, you are a crazy pastor to give those books like that so that the people... brothers, I persist in believing that this town is a town of word and honor. I'm interested, take it and promise to sell it to someone so they can be blessed too, or give it to someone as a gift. We have it at a very comfortable price, $10 per book, so that you have access to it. My interest is not to make money, my interest is to bless lives. So invest in this in faith, invest in something that I believe will be a blessing in the long run. God is going to use these books. I know that God is going to give these books wings to take them far away.

I want you to be my Apostles in a sense, sharing this word that God has given me. So I entrust them to you and I want to read a segment of the book so that you can see more or less what the dynamics of this book are like. Why "Clay Feet"? How many know what the expression mud feet means? That man has feet of clay, that person has feet of clay. Feet of clay, you remember a vision that King Nebuchadnezzar had, a statue, and it was a statue of metal, bronze, iron, but it had feet of clay, as a sign of an essential weakness that existed in that kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar and his decendents. And by extension, feet of clay, throughout history has come to mean when a person is very strong and has many tremendous and powerful things in his personality, but he has a weakness, a character flaw, an essential flaw, He says he has feet of clay, that is, he is imperfect, he has some weakness, it is like an Achilles heel that expression is also used and I discuss that in the book.

I mean, how many of us know that we all have feet of clay? Every human being has something with which we struggle. Pablo had a sting with which he struggled until the last day of his life, and he asked God, Lord, free me from that sting, that internal struggle that I have. And God told him, my grace is enough for you because my power is perfected in that struggle, in weakness.

Many times God allows us to fight with an opponent inside for him to glorify himself. Because glory always has to be for him. Even the great men and women of God have had something, a defect, an inner struggle. Mother Teresa, who is a hero of the 20th century, a woman that one would say, wow, that woman came and went from the throne of God totally freely, after her death, the Catholic church released her diaries, her personal diary and it was discovered that this great woman of God, a giant of the 20th century and of the spiritual world, struggled all her life with terrible depression and a sense that God did not love her and had abandoned her. And despite that essential struggle that she had, that she didn't know why she was struggling with this, it was like a via crucis, a sting that God gave this powerful woman of God, but she struggled with doubts, all her life until his death. She did not want her diary to come to light, but the Catholic Church decided that for the blessing of the world, it was necessary for people to know the struggle of this woman of God, so that when we too are struggling, we know that we are not alone. .

And I applaud that. I applaud that sense that the Christian life is a dynamic life, it is a life of struggle. We struggle with the desire to please God but there is also something in us, as Paul says, that drags us to do what we do not want to do. And sometimes what we want to do we don't.

And I believe that churches are needed that recognize that believer's struggle in order to bless and shepherd them. Because in the 21st century, many people are going to come to our church with measures of that distorting culture that is out there. And unless there are no churches that understand the process of sanctification, which is a long-term process, and say to the weary pilgrim who walks through their doors, welcome, we are here to walk the journey of faith with you. .

You know, people are going to be left out there and we need churches of mercy, churches that understand that we all have feet of clay and that we are in this fight together, and that we encourage each other.

That is, that is the idea of the book. Because Jehoshaphat was a man who loved God terribly, he made great reforms through his power as king, but he also made very serious mistakes that led to the almost total extermination of his family, moments of great shame that he went through for mistakes he made. Sometimes he heard the voice of God and did not obey, but he loved God terribly.

And I was very moved by that drama of this man who is registered there, for whom he has eyes to see. Because many people do not see and that is why it has not been written about Josaphat. I don't know of any book in Spanish or even in English that is specifically a biography of Josaphat. For this reason, because we dedicate it to other people, to David, to Solomon, but we do not think of hidden people like Josaphat, who is an incredible treasure. And this book was a meditation and I saw myself portrayed in the life of Josaphat. It's a secret, don't tell anyone. In his imperfection I understood many things about myself and I wanted to explore him and myself through the life of this man of God.

So, I commend this fruit of my meditations and prayers to you and your friends and family. Invest in this as a faith journey. And I want to read a part of the book so that you get a taste of how I handle the material in the book.

And I want to invite you to go quickly to Second Chronicles, Chapter 20. You will remember, I have preached about Jehoshaphat in the past, I want to go specifically to verse 13, 20:13, Second Chronicles. I have preached about Jehoshaphat. You remember that towards the end of his life when Jehoshaphat had already made many mistakes, God had restored him, his life was going well, he had made some tremendous reforms in favor of God in the midst of his people, doing so many good things, he a terrible crisis is coming into his life. He is informed that a great army is coming to invade Jerusalem and to destroy the Hebrew people and drive them out of their land.

That army is tremendously powerful, far more powerful than all the forces of the Jewish people. And Jehoshaphat cries out to God and I talk about his prayer and how his detailed prayer should instruct us how to pray and how to cry out to God in times of great need. And Josaphat makes an exemplary prayer and I discuss part by part, dismantle Josaphat's prayer and the principles that emerge from that prayer. And with that, I intend to bless you on how to grow in your prayer life. But when Jehoshaphat prays and calls all the people and calls a great national meeting in the national square, and prays before God publicly.

It's what I was saying about committing ourselves as we did with Isaiah, we pray for him here, publicly, because that's how you tie yourself to things. Sometimes you're afraid, he says, I'm going to pass this person up here who's sick or whatever, because wow, we're putting him in trouble. No, you have to tie yourself up sometimes, you know, and you have to declare things publicly. And Josaphat prayed publicly before all that great Congregation of his citizens and made a powerful prayer. And then, after he finished praying, he says that there was a great silence and from the silence of that crowd, the voice of a prophet arose, the prophet Jaasiel, and this text begins here and says:

“…And all Judah, verse 13, stood before the Lord, with their children and their wives and their children. And there was Jaasiel, the son of Zacharias, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, a Levite of the sons of Asaph, upon whom the spirit of the LORD came in the midst of the assembly and said, Hear all Judah and you inhabitants. of Jerusalem, ─ and this is the prophecy of Jaasiel ─ and you, King Jehoshaphat, Jehovah says thus, "Do not fear or be intimidated in front of this great multitude because the war is not yours... ─ and that is what he says to you Lord, the war is not yours ─ … but God's. Tomorrow you will descend against them. Behold, they will go up the slope of Sis and you will find them next to the stream, before the desert of Ieruel,… ─ and here is what I am now going to frame in the book, he says ─ … There will be nothing for you to fight in this case, he says, stop… ─ I want to meditate on that word, stop, he says ─ … be still and see the salvation of Jehovah with you. O Judah and Jerusalem, do not fear or dismay. Go out against them tomorrow, for the LORD will be with you…”

And there, brothers, there are a number of principles for the spiritual life. I try to dismantle those words of the prophet Jaasiel, that prophecy, and extract all his teachings for our own lives. So I say here, Josaphat was a man who when the test came to his life, did not go into a corner to get depressed, but said, "let's call a big meeting. We are going to gather the whole community and we are going to pray together. Let's cry out to God because he is the only hope we have."

And in that context of faith and passionate cry, God's program descended that was to transform the terrible situation in which the Jews found themselves. God used Jaasiel, this prophet, to give a certain word to that confused people. In Second Chronicles 20:17 we have what I call a pregnant verse, a text saturated with profound and practical teaching. God's prophetic word was this:

“…There will be no fighting for you in this case. Stand still, be still, and see the salvation of Jehovah with you. O Judah and Jerusalem, do not be afraid or dismayed, go out tomorrow against them because the Lord will be with you..."

Glory to the Lord. That verse deserves to be copied and stuck to your refrigerator door with a magnet. Every time you go to the fridge, read that verse aloud and allow its profound content to fill your soul and saturate you with faith and hope.

The first thing Jaasiel says is very revealing to me. There will be nothing for you to fight in this case. Why did the prophet say 'in this case'? because in this case God was going to perform a resounding, clear and emphatic miracle. The Hebrews were not going to have to fire a single shot, God was going to do it all. The only thing they had to do was worship the Lord, and show up on the battlefield, and everything else, he promised he was going to do it.

There are times in the journey of faith when God will act like this, overwhelmingly, crystal clear. In those cases, all one has to do is worship the Lord, claim the word of God, declare with his mouth that he is faithful and wait confidently until he sees the salvation of Jehovah.

But at other times, I would actually say, in most cases, God is going to require you to gird up your loins, roll up your sleeves, and go to work hard. How many can say amen? And he promises to work miraculously through your efforts. His grace will be with you as you move from one place to another. His favor will be upon you when you appear before the people who have the resources you need. And as a consequence, opportunities will unexpectedly arise that on other occasions seemed inaccessible.

The soft breeze from heaven will go behind your boat while you row, and guide it forcefully towards the place you have proposed. God will reward your efforts and support your initiative with success. Unlike, say, a person who needs a job and stays in his bed with the covers up to his neck all morning, oh, Lord send me a job, I need a miracle, God. You are faithful. And God says, look, get up, find a newspaper and investigate. Make a few phone calls, knock on a few doors, and I'm going to bless you through that effort. And then you're going to get what you need.

There are cases where God says, just believe me and declare my blessing and move by faith. In other cases, God will demand that you throw yourself into hard work and that you believe that in that investment of energy that you are carrying out, the power of God is going to be with you. I explain?

It is a modality, sometimes we can lay our head on the chest of the Lord, as the Apostle John did, but sometimes God says, no, get up, see that I command you to make an effort and be brave. Fan the fire of the gift of God that is in you because God has not given you a spirit of cowardice but of power, love and self-control.

Both modalities can be useful and I believe that in most cases that is what God expects, that effort in the Lord, in prayer and then God blesses your efforts, although in this case, in the case of Josaphat, God was telling him, calm down, trust me, stand on my promise and I'm going to do what I have to do.

And we are going to see, even in the book that I discuss that it was not so easy, they had to go ahead of the enemy and wait for him and worship the Lord. There was something they had to do still there in that effort, wasn't there?

Sometimes one thing will work and sometimes the other will work. Most of the time God has worked in my life through my efforts. However, I always end up giving him the glory because I know my efforts were simply the vehicle God used to embody his power through me. Because he wants to form in me a strong and courageous man and he wants to train me in war through the exercise of my faith.

Paul tells Timothy, "I advise you to fan into fire the gift of God that is in you, because God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind."

God imparts the gift, but he expects us to develop it and bring that gift to its full manifestation using that warrior spirit that he has instilled in us. What's more, I would declare that in the vast majority of cases, God wants us to operate in that way of effort and initiative and he promises, I am going to bless you in what you undertake. If what you need is to educate yourself, I'm going to support you, but you're going to have to peel eyelashes and you're going to have to study hard and you're going to have to do your part because I'm not going to give you that A just like that, just, You have to do your part and I am going to bless you and I am going to give you that profession that you so long for. I will give you victory, but first you have to dig, search, touch and ask.

At other times, however, God chooses to work in an almost unilateral way, over and above your efforts. There will be times when before you open your mouth to ask, God will already have blessed you. In this case that we have been discussing, God was going to give Judah a blessing almost for free, with minimal participation on his part.

We could say, however, that God's normative way of working in the lives of his children is channeling his power through their efforts as they obediently apply the spiritual truths and principles of Scripture.

And here I enter, finally, in this idea of 'stop'. Jaasiel tells the people, 'Stand still, and see the salvation of Jehovah among yourselves.'

And then I stop to meditate a little on the word 'stop'. It says in the second part of verse 17 the prophet declares to the people of Judah, 'stand still, be still and see the salvation of the Lord with you'. It is an almost scandalous invitation to do the complete opposite of what reason dictated at that time. Everything demanded rather a decisive and dramatic action, that is why we say over and over again, when you enter the dimension of faith and spirit, you often have to hang reason, prudence and logic at the entrance and proceed according to principles. that might seem crazy.

God was instructing the people not to worry, to focus on his power and faithfulness, to use spiritual energies and principles instead of striving to achieve something that would have been impossible anyway. The army was too powerful, it was coming against them.

I am reminded of the words of the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4:6, “…do not be anxious for anything, but let your requests be known before God in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds. thoughts in Christ Jesus…”

Paul says, in effect, don't let anything in this world take away your peace. Rather, focus your energies on letting God know what you need. And by keeping your eyes on Jesus Christ, through prayer, you will experience the inexplicable peace of God. This is a beautiful recipe for emotional health.

If instead of running frantically here and there when problems come into our lives, we would spend more time in the prayer room and meditate more on God, we would be healthier, we would tear ourselves less physically and we would achieve much more in life.

Through the prophetic word Jaasiel was telling the people, this battle will not be won with human weapons, but with spiritual weapons. Jaasiel tells the people, “stand up”. Stand on what? He wasn't just referring here to stopping and doing nothing. The standing up to which the prophet refers here is a powerful action of spiritual gathering, of planting spiritual feet firmly on the faithfulness and power of God and using that foothold as a platform to resist and defeat the enemy.

It is similar to the concept that Paul uses in Ephesians 6:10-19 regarding spiritual warfare. There we are called to put on the full armor of God so that we can stand firm against the attacks of the devil. Three times in this passage the idea of standing firm is alluded to. They don't talk so much about attacking as about staying in position.

This expression in the original Greek istemi, refers primarily to the idea of standing or standing firm like a soldier maintaining his position in the line of battle. Sometimes all a Christian has to do is stand his ground and resist the devil. And he says the word that he will have to flee from us.

We don't even have to actively attack it. I do not suggest that you start attacking the devil and the hells and the demons. No, standing firm and standing on what God has declared will be enough so that at some point the enemy has to tuck his tail between his legs and leave the field of battle, defeated and ashamed.

Paul says in Ephesians 6:13, “…therefore take up the whole armor of God so that you can resist on the evil day and when everything is done stand firm…”

Exodus 14 is one of the most memorable passages in all of Scripture. There we are told of the occasion when the people of Israel were literally between a rock and a hard place, behind them you had the sword of Pharaoh's army. God had hardened the Egyptian monarch's heart into reneging on his promise to let the Hebrew people go. Now he came full of anger to destroy God's people with his mighty army. In front of them the Hebrews had a wall of water, the impassable Red Sea, which prevented their passage. All seemed lost. The Jews, as they would do so many times in the future, began to deny God and complain. At that very moment, Moses began to encourage them, calling them to stand firm, to set their sights on God's faithfulness.

It says here, “…And Moses said to the people, ─ listen to the similarity between what Jaasiel said and what Moses said, hundreds of years before to the Hebrew people in that crisis condition, said ─ “….Moses said to the people, No fear, stand firm and see the salvation that Jehovah will do for you today…”

Go? It's very similar. Stand firm, do not fear and see the salvation that God... the same word that Jaasiel said, because it is an eternal spiritual principle. When the crisis comes to our life we have to stand on what God has said. The devil wants you to take your eyes off God and put it on him, that you take your eyes off God's promises and put them on the circumstances, that you see how difficult the future seems and stop trusting in that God who He says, “I don't know about the impossible. For me everything is yes and amen. I call things that are not what they are."

We cannot do like Peter when he saw the roaring sea and the storm, he was very much walking on the water, but when he saw, he thought, wow, no one should be able to do this, stand on the water. What happened? He began to sink because he took his eyes off Jesus and put it on the circumstances.

God says, no, stop, be still, stand firm on what God has said. See the salvation that God will do with you today, because the Egyptians that you have seen today will never see them again forever. Jehovah will fight for you and you will be calm.

I'm going to end with one last comment about this standing up thing. I like to take a word and work on it to get all its juice out of it. It says here, there is another way to interpret that call from God to stop. In the journey of faith there are times when the believer has to look for what I call the spiritual axis, the biblical fulcrum, from where it will be possible to settle down and from there, undertake the battle that is ahead.

It can be a text of the word of God, it can be a promise that God has whispered to our hearts, it can be a prophetic word that we have received. In any case, as we have said before, with regard to prayer it is important that the believer seek and discover God's specific statement for whatever battle he has to fight and learn to stand on what God has said concerning his particular situation. .

That is why it is so important that you learn the word of God well and that when you are faced with a challenge in your life, or you take on a struggle, a journey, a spiritual adventure, you can find that specific word in the Bible that has to do with the personal drama that you are living. And when God of that word rows your spirit, receive it and make it your banner. Make it the motto of your battle, meditate on it constantly, present your requests in terms of its content, saturate your spirit with the images emanating from it. Repeat it over and over again until your spirit has soaked in its message and has extracted from it all the spiritual nutrients that it contains.

On occasions God has spoken to me like this, while I have been reading the Bible, a particular text has kind of taken on relief in my inner being and has acquired three dimensions within my spirit and God has told me, that is the text that I want you to use to unleash and channel the power of my spirit on this specific journey you have undertaken.

I am going to leave it here, brothers, I just want… I continue to develop these ideas, but as you see, we have wanted to be practical and biblical at the same time because I believe that we cannot be practical if we are not biblical. We have to understand the mysteries of the word of God, we have to learn.

Many times like this in situations of crisis and great trial, God has told me, look, this is the text, I want you to go into this battle with this text. I talk there about how God gave me a psalm when we were going to start this battle for the new sanctuary and I have marked that psalm in my Bible. I have said, that is the psalm of my battle for the construction of the sanctuary.

God gave it to me years ago, and I have said, Lord, that is the document that you have given me, legal, that is my title for that new sanctuary. And I remind the Lord of his promise.

How many have experienced that God gives you something, an expression, a verse, a text and you say that here, I am going to stop here, this is my promise, that is my axis and I am not going to move from that promise . Come what may, I am going to be still and stand on that word of God. That is why we have to read the word, that is why we have to listen to the voice of God, brothers, that is why we have to understand the mysteries of the spirit, in order to win our battles.

God bless you. I hope that, once again, you will support us in this effort and we will continue to pray to the Lord that God will give these books wings. You are the first wings of this book and I hope that you support us in this desire to make these principles of the Bible known and that God allows us to take this ministry far and share the word of the Lord.

The book is practical and if you want, start with the second part of the book and then work backwards. Now, if you want to read it from the beginning, amen, but the second part is more typical of what we like to read, so with that, over there, and then move on. I know that God is going to bless your life a lot and I bless you in the name of the Lord and we give you glory and honor.

We raise a prayer to bless this effort and ask that the hand of God move mightily as we read in Josaphat. Pastor, Lord Jesus, we thank you, Father, because your mercy is forever, Lord. Father, we come here humbly to ask you for the life of our pastor, Lord. Father, thank you that you continue to fan the gift that you have placed in him, Lord. Father, thank you for your faithfulness, Lord, and because we know that your word rhymes, it must come out in this time, Lord, in which we live, Lord.

Father, I ask that this book circulate, Lord, through your people, Lord, not only here, Lord, but wherever you want, in all parts of the world, Lord. Father, we pray for this community, not just here in Boston, Lord, but the community that watches us online, Father. We ask, Lord, that this word row, touch their lives, Lord, and that, Father, that it circulate, Lord, healing, Father, and preparing your people for the revival that you have promised us in this season, Lord, in this time , Mister.

So we bless our pastor, Father, and declare, Lord, your peace and mercy upon his life and his family, Lord, in the name of Jesus we pray, Father. Amen.