Home Topics Index Download
Transcript 200B — On Feeling Distant from the Lord
CALLER: Brother Camping, you were saying that Satan's power is curtailed now?
HC: Yes.
CALLER: I'm just thankful for all things, how the Lord has been working. I just thank Him for everything. And I don't pray for things over and over, like I used to, knowing that it's foolishness, because the Lord knows once, and He hears. You know?
HC: Although it's not really foolishness. You know, the Bible says, in Philippians 4:6, "Don't be anxious about anything. But with prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make your requests made known to God." And so when we become anxious about anything, and we can become anxious a thousand times, each time God says, "Come to Me, and talk to Me about it."
And so we mustn't feel that we're being faithless, or that we're being less a Christian just because we pray about the same thing for the hundredth time. We have a Savior who says, "Pray without ceasing." And so don't feel at all embarrassed or bashful to go to the Lord with your concerns and your praises, and so on, again and again and again and again.
CALLER: I see. That's good. That's clear, Brother Camping. But what is really bothering me is, I know that the old serpent, the devil, his power is broken by the cross, the blood of Christ. But still it seems like the closer I get in my walk with the Lord, truly deeply spiritual, it seems like I feel sometimes that I'm just completely "blanked out" from God, you know? I mean, that's the way I feel. And sometimes it seems like the Lord says to me, "You're the Christian. You are to rebuke Satan in the Name of Jesus. And nothing on this earth will hurt you." Then just claim the blood, and . . .
HC: Where do you read that in the Bible, that we're to rebuke Satan?
CALLER: Oh. Well, let's see . . .
HC: The Bible says that we are to resist him, but the Bible doesn't say that we are to rebuke Satan in the Name of Christ.
CALLER: Wait a minute. I got that mixed up. Mark 16:15.
HC: In Mark 16:15 He said simply, "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to the whole creation."
CALLER: Right. And then He says, "casting out demons in Jesus' Name."
HC: Well, but He's not talking about rebuking Satan here.
CALLER: Wait a minute. Maybe I read that wrong.
HC: I'll tell you. It isn't our task to rebuke Satan. That's God's task. He'll take care of Satan. Our task is to live close to Christ.
Now when we feel spiritually dry, what happens if you would, on a real hot day, or any other day, not drink any water for a while? Pretty soon you'd start feeling pretty awful. You'd get more and more thirsty. Your body would start dehydrating. Things would not be going well at all.
Now what is the solution to that? Well, you'd make a dash for water, if there were any around. And this would begin to straighten out things. Now what is the Water of Life? It is the Word of God. And if we live without drinking from the Word of God on a consistent basis, then we're going to be spiritually dry.
Now when you look at your life (and any one of us can examine our life), ask yourself, during the last week, particularly in a dry period like this, but we can ask ourselves this at any time, "During the last week or the last month, how much time did I spend reading the Bible, really searching the Word of God, recognizing it is God's holy Word, He is speaking to me, and I'm going to derive spiritual blessing from it?" How much time do we spend?
Compare, for example, in your life (and all of us can do this) how much time you spend watching TV, let's say, as compared with what you spend reading the Bible. How much time do you spend reading the newspaper, as compared with reading the Bible? How much time do you spend reading novels, if you like to do that, as compared with reading the Bible?
And you'll find that the Bible always comes out fifth or sixth or seventh best. Now it's no wonder then that you're going to be spiritually dry. Actually, the Bible, in the life of the born again believer, ought to be pressing for number one position. We ought to spend more and more time. But we, you know, read the Bible, a chapter a day, and we feel pretty heroic about it. Praise the Lord, we read a chapter today. We've really done our Bible reading.
Well, my. During that same day we spent an hour watching TV, or maybe four hours watching TV. Now when we watched TV, we weren't fed with anything particularly. When we read the newspaper, we didn't learn anything, really, of great significance, that really helped us in our life with Christ. But yet we can easily spend a half hour in the newspaper every day. No struggle at all, reading everything from cover to cover. And yet when we're all done, we have to say, "Well now, what did we learn? How did that benefit me spiritually?"
Really, what we ought to do is spend an hour a day reading the Bible, spend the whole evening, a few nights a week, reading the Bible, just feeding on the Word, and identifying with the scriptures insofar as we are able to understand it. And as we read it with a view to being obedient to it, we would find that our life is beginning to sharpen up spiritually.
You see where the problem lies?
CALLER: Oh, yes. I see that exactly, because that's exactly, well, I can see how that works out.
HC: Now you want to grow spiritually. But you can't grow unless you're reading the Word
CALLER: Right. I have to get that Word first.
HC: Well, may you be much encouraged in the Word.
CALLER: Now here's the thing. I can see where He's working. He says He will supply all our riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Well, every prayer of mine has been answered. I was like the Prodigal Son, but He brought me closer together with my Dad. Now praise the Lord there for answered prayer. It's wonderful to know that Jesus hears and answers prayer.
HC: Well, thank you so much for sharing.