Pastor Roger Anghis -- Walk by Faith

WALK BY FAITH

By Pastor Roger Anghis
April 19, 2015
NewsWithViews.com

2 Corinthians 5:7 “(For we walk by faith, not by sight:)”

As we walk through our Christian life we will come upon times when we will wonder if we are doing the right thing, going the right direction. The longer you walk with the Lord the less you will see in the physical realm that you are on the right path.

There will be times when you won’t see any proof that you are ‘in His will’. There are many examples in scripture where a man or woman of God had no tangible proof that he/she was on the right path. But in all the cases these people did the same thing, trusted in God for everything, provision, protection and favor.

Today we are in a similar situation as far as the direction of our nation is concerned. All we can do is trust that God will bring this nation back to where we need to be. We don’t see a whole lot of evidence that this is happening. We have the most far left liberal in the White House that we have ever had. He seems to be bent on destroying this nation in all aspects, economically, militarily, socially, spiritually and any other way he can. Our job is to pray for him and this nation. I was talking to a brother in Christ the other day and he told me that he prays for the president every day, but he can’t bring himself to call him by name, he only refers to him as the president.

We have to remember that God does answer prayer. Not always in our time frame, but He does answer prayer. We have to remind ourselves that what God has done in the past He will do again. He does keep His promises. John 16:23 “And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.” We have to believe that we will receive it: Mark 11:24 “Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.”

Israel, in times past, found themselves in hard times. Most of those hard times were their own fault because they drifted away from God, worshiped the gods of the people that were in the lands they were given by God. They would finally see the error of their ways call out to God and He would rescue them.

America has forgotten what made her great. We have forgotten because our schools no longer teach our real history. The foundation that our Founders stood on and established the greatest nation the world has ever seen is not allowed to be taught in our schools because of the importance the Founders placed on Christianity.

One Founder, Noah Webster, stated this: “Every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country. ” Because we don't know our history, we don't know that the Founders required godly men tobe placed in authority over us who operated in a godly manner. Perfect? No, but the people demanded that they be for the best of the people and not the government and for the most part they were. And because we operated under godly principles God blessed America greatly.

But this nation has gone down the wrong path seeking prosperity and now we have allowed the most ungodly party to attempt to take control of this nation. We, as a nation, are not ready to hand this great nation over to a bunch of socialists. We have begun to cry out to God. We see a rising of people that are praying for this nation and when we do that in earnest, God will answer: 2 Chronicles 7:14 “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

When all things seem impossible, that is when God does His best. When Moses brought the Israelites out of Egypt it seemed like an impossible task. Moses resisted the idea. He knew the strength of the Egyptian army. At that time they were the most powerful army in the world. Moses didn’t have an army, all he had was God.

Moses had to depend on God for everything. His life was in danger to go to Egypt because of his attack on an Egyptian. That was a death sentence, yet he was able to stand before Pharaoh and make the demands that God had told him to. One point that should be looked at here is all the children of Israel were slaves in Egypt, but during the conversation with Moses and his great reluctance to move forward for reasons of his speech, inability to talk eloquently, from out of the blue, his brother, Aaron, shows up. Exodus 4:14 “And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses, and he said, Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak well. And also, behold, he cometh forth to meet thee: and when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart.” How did Aaron escape from Egypt and why was he alone? This action was one sign that God was able to do what He had commanded Moses to do.

The things that God had told Moses to do was tantamount, in his eyes, to being God Himself. But even in all of this, Moses had to depend on God for everything no matter what the circumstances were. We remember that when Moses began his demands on Pharaoh that he didn’t get any positive results at all. But God had told him in Exodus 4:21 to ‘see that you do all the wonders before Pharaoh’. In the Hebrew that means he was told to go with the determination that you will perform the wonders without fear; carry out your mission with strength and courage. We too have to go forward with the strength and courage to do what God has called us to do. Sometimes it is just to live a Christian life in the view of our family. Sometimes it is much greater things. We will not always see something in the physical that will tell us that we are succeeding. Most of the time the enemy will do all that he can to make it look like we are not making any progress at all. He’ll even make it look like we are failing big time. He will even make it look like we have lost America!

Moses made his first demand to Pharaoh and instead of Pharaoh agreeing to the demand; he decided that the slaves would no longer be given straw to make their bricks. This put an extra work load on the slaves. After working all day, they had to work through the night to collect the straw they needed. That wasn’t part of Moses plan. Miracle after miracle was performed in front of Pharaoh, yet he did not give in. The same things happen to us as we are doing what we are called to do. We stand and we stand and we stand and things seem to get worse. We do everything that God has told us to do and things seem to get worse. You tithe, you sow seed, you call forth your harvest and all cash flow seems to stop. All sources seem to dry up. Every direction you turn turns up empty.

Sometimes we depend too much on our own efforts to keep the resources flowing. God is to be our source. We are to be dependent only upon Him for everything. Philippians 4:19 “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” It doesn’t say my job shall supply, or my 401k will supply. God will supply.

Moses had some doubts. He even asked God why He did something that caused evil to come upon the people and why did You use me to instigate it. You have to know that he wasn’t looking real good in the eyes of the Israelites after that straw episode. But time and time again God would tell him to do something and Pharaoh would make things harder. It seemed as if no progress was being made at all. The frogs, the flies, the cattle died, the locust, the fiery hail. Finally Pharaoh began to weaken. He said that they could go, but they couldn’t take the flocks which was needed for the sacrifices. One last plague would finally break his will.

They leave Egypt taking all of the wealth of Egypt. All the fine cloth, all the silver and gold and other precious metals and gems. They took the cattle, the sheep, the carts, many of the horses. They left Egypt in such a financial ruin that it turned Egypt into a third world country and it has yet to recover from that.

Moses probably thought that the battle was over. They pack up and leave and they are led by a cloud during the day and a pillar of fire at night. This was helpful because all you had to do was follow the cloud. But that cloud led them to the edge of the Red Sea. No bridge, no boats, The path they followed was a narrow valley which was the only way out. Then Pharaoh gets his dander up and decides that he is going to bring the Israelites back. He chases the Israelites and has them trapped at the water's edge. Moses is probably thinking ‘Well, what now?’ God has His plan. He knows what needs to be done.

Now, God tells the people to go forward. The only problem is, there is a lot of water and no boats. Moses speaks to the sea and a strong east wind arose and parted the waters. In the morning they were able to cross over on dry land. Some have tried to say that it was the Reed Sea which was very shallow but if that had been the case it was even a greater miracle as the whole Egyptian army, horses and all drowned in 6" of water! The angel of the Lord had placed himself in between the Israelites and the Egyptians so that they remained separated all night. Then in the morning he hassled the Egyptians, taking off their chariot wheels, locking them up, causing major chaos. Moses is again seeing the hand of the Lord work on his behalf. The reason was because Moses continued to walk by faith, not by what he was seeing.

When we begin that walk we too will have little to see that will give us 100% assurance that we are on the right track. The longer you walk with God the less He shows you making it so very important to NOT waver in your faith. Even after Moses got on the other side he could see the Egyptians in pursuit. I am sure that he knew what God was going to do and it is something that we all want to see is revenge upon our enemies. But it was necessary because the Israelites had spent the last 100+ years as servants to the Egyptians and they had to see their destruction so that they would never fear them again.

We don’t necessarily have to see the revenge of our enemies, as nice as it would be at times, but as we continue to stand we will see the victory. That by itself is better than watching revenge.

Even after the defeat of the Egyptians that wasn’t the last of it for him. Now he had 3 million people and all the livestock that needed to food and water. He was in a land that averaged only about 2” of rain a year. A pretty daunting task. Again, he was relying on God for provision. God provided manna for them every day. On the sixth day they would gather twice the normal amount. I can’t tell you how many times God has seen to it that I have had just what I needed when I needed it. That isn’t His best, but when you are in the wilderness, you are in a land of just enough. It is a place where you learn to trust God. You eventually get to a point where you know that you know that you know that God will provide. That is where God wants us. Totally depending on Him. Moses learned that God was good for His Word. If He said He would do something, He would do it. He keeps His Word.

Scripture tells us that He will provide and protect and He does provide and protect. We just have to believe it and act in faith. Moses had many more opportunities to fail, but he continued to trust in God. We will be given many opportunities to fail as well. Not many Christians walk in what God has for them. Not many are willing to go through the hard times. They were prefer to stay in the land of just enough and not enjoy all that God has for them. Hebrew 10:35 “Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.”

The Greek word used for “confidence” is parrhsia (par-rhay-see-ah) and it means free and fearless confidence. This type of confidence is unwavering. The Greek word used for “great” is megethos and it means numerous, large, abundant. It is where we get our word ‘mega’. Obedience will bring God on the scene and will also bring His promise of reward.

Can we have faith that God will restore America? Yes! Will we always see evidence of it? No! God spoke to a preacher after the 2014 election and even though we retained the most ungodly man to sit in the office of president He said "I have given you your nation back". We have to continue to do all we know to do to stand for our nation and we will see the restoration.

The harder the test, the greater the reward. Expect the best.

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Pastor Roger Anghis is the Founder of RestoreFreeSpeech.org, an organization designed to draw attention to the need of returning free speech rights to churches that was restricted in 1954.

President of BuildingtheTruth, BuildingtheTruth.org, which has a stated purpose of teaching people the need of the churches involvement in the political arena and to teach the historical role of Christianity in the politics of the United States. Married-42 years, 3 children, three grandchildren.

Web site: BuildingTheTruth.org

E-Mail: roger@buildingthetruth.org

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