Voice of the Nazarene 11-9-25

Voice of the Nazarene 11-9-25

Transcript

Unknown: 0:01

Coming to you from North Central Ohio. We share with you the voice of the Nazarene a week by week. Venture into the Word of God sponsored by the Bucyrus Ohio Church of the Nazarene. We join our pastor, Reverend Ray La Salle, and the voice of the Nazarene.

Pastor Ray LaSalle: 0:18

We always look forward to seeing you, and I think it's the best church in the world, because you're a part of it. And what a joy to pastor here. I guess winter is coming. You bring your coat. I forgot my umbrella supposed to snow, and it rained. Just keeps me confused. Want to talk to you about the men and the women who simply have gone from zero to hero. If you study anything about cars, you're the muscle cars they talk about from zero to 60, and how many seconds, my concern is that we get off of the zero and off of the starting line and have a great finish, a great finish. Much of what is accomplished in a person's life can be traced back to the person they admired and wanted to emulate and wanted to copy. Do you catch that? Much of what is accomplished in life can be traced back to the person that we admired and emulated and wanted to copy. There are heroes. Have you ever noticed there are some people, when you get around them, you just feel better, and when you leave you're just bettered by being around them. And there's others that really puts you on a downer. None of you, of course, it was that other church up the street. Did you know that there's a little slice in the New Testament? We call it a faith chapter. It's Hebrews 11, and it raises the window and allows us to look in and points us back to the Great Hall of Faith. Some call it the Hall of Fame, and some of the great matriarchs and patriarchs of the Old Testament, whose lives had started out on a zero but they became by faith our heroes. And here, in verse eight, it says, By faith Abraham. And over the next couple of weeks, I'd just like to touch on several of those. It's Abraham and altars today, By faith Abraham when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed that little word. Obeyed. Hadn't been in there, we wouldn't have his name in that great chapter. He obeyed, and he went out, not knowing whether he went by faith. He sojourned in a land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him are the same promise, for he looked for a city which hath foundations and whose builder and maker is God. Let me give you the foundation that I'd like to preach from I'm simply saying surround yourself with heroes that will take you to another level. One person said you need to find some old gray hairs and hang around those folk. Of course, they got it died down. You can't tell I'm being a bad boy. Rick Warren said that it's wise to learn from experience, but wiser to learn from the experience of others. And may I add, a lot less painful now, why was the Old Testament written? What's the purpose? Why was it given to us? And I want to show you today why we have the Old Testament. For, it says in Romans, 15, four For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we, through patience and comfort of the scriptures, might have hope it was written for our learning. So if you're not reading it, you're not learning. You need to be reading so you can learn. That's why it was written, that we that it would give us hope. So what I want us to do, I want us to go back to the Old Testament and look at some of these heroes of faith over the next 90 or two. One I'm dealing with this morning is Abraham and his building of altars. There's only one person in all of the Bible, just one person, only one in which it said three different times that he was a friend of God. And you'll find that in Isaiah, 41, eight. Second Chronicles 20, verse seven. James two, verse 23 and get this, he was called a friend of God. Now, if somebody's a friend of God, I want to hang around him. Hey, who is that going up the street there? You don't know? No. Who is that? Well, that's God's friend. His name is Abraham. What a compliment. No wonder some folk like hanging around Abraham. And I've studied this man's life, this man who's called a friend of God, and I noticed something that he did everywhere he went. He built the altar. Do you have an altar? He built an altar. Fact of matter seven times in the Scripture, it talks about him building an altar, and when he moved on to the next place, he left behind an altar, just for a few minutes. I'd like to point out at least four of those altars. Quickly, the first altar that you're going to have to have in your life, you need a personal altar in your life. You see a personal altar will alter your life. A personal altar will alter your life. A family altar will alter your family. You need to catch that if you want your family to be a spiritual family and to leave a long 12 christiandom, you need to have a family altar. It will alter your family and a church altar will alter a church, and I want to remind you that we have some altars here at our church that you can come to. And I'm just simply saying, as a pastor, you're welcome to use the altars now. I'm preaching about Abraham and altars, and if you're going to have a fulfilled life, you're going to have to have some altars in your I don't care who you are, there are some altars that all of us need in our lives. Now, when you read of the Jewish people, it all started with Abraham, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and and I don't know if you know this, but Abraham wasn't always a godly person. I hear these guys all quoted and how spiritual they were, and it puts me on a downer time. I hear some of these sermons, but when I go back and I realize they were human. They dealt with issues. They had issues. Like you have issues. If you can't remember, I can write them down for you. Now, I've got a bad memory, but Abraham had some real issues. He wasn't always a godly man, and he came from the Ur of the Chaldees. And I don't know if you know the background of that area, but the Ur of the Chaldees they they worshiped all kinds of gods, all kinds of gods. They worship the God of the moon, and they worship the god of the sun, and they worship the god of fertility. And Abraham and his father and his brothers, they they worship all kinds of gods, kind of like we do here in America. And that's kind of the way that that he was but the Bible said something in Acts, chapter seven, verse two, it says, The God of glory appeared unto our father, Abraham. Now listen, if somebody's lost and somebody's doing something they ought to be doing, and they're out there in deep sin, I just stopped by to tell you what needs to happen in your life. You need the God of glory to show up in your life. That's what happened to the LaSalle clan. I mean, nothing was going good. Everything was out of sync. And a little newspaper ad said revival at the Nazarene church and Mama somehow talked that, and they did not go to church. They were not church people. Dad came back from the Second World War so messed up. If there was a sudden clash or a hammer hit, I mean, he'd nearly jump out of his skin. He lived in trenches and saw the dead and climbed over the dead and was bothered by all that he'd seen. Didn't go to church, and mom talked talked him into going to revival one night, and something happened in that revival. God showed up and appeared to mom and eventually to dad and boy were there. Lives changed when they prayed and had a change. They made a personal altar that Nazarene church that night in Brazil, Indiana, and their lives were transformed. God appeared to them. And this is what happened in verse three, the God saying to Abraham, Abram, you're going to have to leave the earth the Chaldees. And here, in verse one of chapter 12, the Lord said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house and into thy land that I will show thee, and I'll make thy name great, and thou shall be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee and curse them that curseth thee. And in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Now if you're mad at the Jews, may I just remind you of what the Jews gave us. The Jews gave us the Word of God, and the Jews gave us Jesus, the Lamb of glory. So don't be too mad at them. They may not be perfect, but their problem is they've hung around the Gentiles too long. Zoom. There it went. Now the Bible jumps on down in verse seven, and it said, There build it. He that an altar unto the Lord. And from then on he was saying, Hey, I've met God. God appeared to me. I built an altar, and I'm no longer worshiping at the altars of the moon and the altars of the sun and the altars of the stars and the altars of fertility and all these other gods. I'm worshiping the one and only true God of Israel. Ladies and gentlemen, you need to have a personal altar, just like Abram. You need a place that you can trace back and put your finger on and say, That was then, and that was where I had an encounter with Jesus Christ, and my life was transformed. And I know what you're thinking. I can tell some of you are thinking, I don't have that. I really can't just for sure point back to an exact day or time or place, and yet, Pastor, I know my life has changed. I I no longer go after sin and I'm only going after the Savior. So what about me? Am I less Christian than someone else? Well, first John five one says, Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ. It didn't say whosoever had believed. It said, whoever is believing. And go on to First John 513 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that you may know you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God. Straight of the Bible, it never speaks of believing in a past tense. It's always in present tense. And I think a lot of folk are into past tense. They live in the past, and they need to live in the present. I need Jesus right now, not just had an encounter one time. I need a current relationship. So you say, if you're believing today, and you can't trace it back to that perfect place, how can I know I haven't experienced today? Because you're trusting Him today for your salvation. You're relying on him. You're believing on him. Will Rogers. Anybody ever heard of Will Rogers, I just mentioned him. Everybody should say yes, I'm in one of those moods. Will Rogers, he needed a passport, and he went to get one. They said, well, where's your birth certificate? Said, I don't have one well. Said, You've got to have a birth certificate. He said, What for to prove that you were born? He said, I'm standing here in that proof enough. And you're here and God has changed your life, and you're standing in spiritual victory. Proof enough. They that rely and believe on Him. So you need a you need a personal altar. And so he went and he built a personal altar. What do you mean? Well, here in verse eight, he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent having Bethel on the west and hai on the east, and there he builded an altar unto the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. So Bethel is over here on the west, and Hai is over here on the east, and he's built his altar right in between. Did you know what Bethel means? It means house of God, and hai means heap of ruins. Isn't that about where our lives are. Our past is nothing but a heap of ruins. But we're headed toward the house of God, and we pitched our tent in that direction. It's a motivation. We're not going back to the ruins of our yesterday. Days, but we're moving ahead, seeking after God with all of our heart. That's where we live. But you not only need that personal altar, you need a pardon altar. Abraham and Sarah, nephew, Lot, they're heading toward the promised land, and the Bible tells us that a famine came, and Abe looks over at his wife, and he says, Sarah, we're in a famine, but they've got food down in Egypt. And I think we I'm thinking that we ought to go down to Egypt, and for God, God hadn't called him to Egypt. And it's when we begin to justify and rationalize and we begin to lean on our own understanding. It always gets us in trouble. I'll guarantee you, some of you maybe have at a time when you got into a career or something that you should have never gotten into, but you leaned on your own understanding. You may have gotten into a marriage, you'd have been better off if you just waited and listened to the voice of God. Well, moving along while we're shouting happy, he didn't obey the Lord, and he gets down towards Egypt. And suddenly he looked over at Sarah, and he realized she was a knockout. And he asked, her, are you from Tennessee? Said you're the only 10 I see. And she was striking and attractive. She was good enough looking to be Miss Egypt. And he thought this could get us in a jam. So he says to her, that King, he's got a whole harem. And he takes one look at you, and he's gonna, he's gonna take you, but if he finds out we're married, he'll kill me to get you. So I said to tell you what let's do. Let's just say you're my sister, and by the way, if you'll study your Bible, they were half brother and half sister and married. Swallow that one. So it was kind of a half truth, but the other half made it so the king or the Pharaoh had no business bringing her into his harem, and when he lit his eyes on her, he was in love. He asked for he brings her to his harem, and before he could consummate the marriage, a plague God sent a plague on all of the household of Pharaoh. Everybody was sick, but Sarah. Everybody had the plague. But Sarah and the old Pharaoh think something's funny going on. He said, Go get Abraham quick as you can. And they bring him in, and he said, Is there something you're not telling me? We're all sick. We've all got a plague God's cursed us. But Sarah's Well, what's happening? And he finally looked up and he whispered, she's my wife. And Pharaoh said, shame on you. You said that you follow the true God. You lied. Why would any man allow another man to have his wife? What kind of a guy are you get your wife and get out of our country? And he lied and he lost his testimony, and when he did, he had to build another altar to find pardon. To find pardon. They had a beautiful wife. She was Wonder Woman and Betty Crocker, but she wasn't worth lying for he's in trouble. So what did they do? Genesis 13, four under the place of the altar, which he made there, there Abram called on the name of the Lord. You say, Well, Pastor, you need to understand, I'm not an addict, I'm not a pervert, I'm not a dope head, I'm not a murderer, okay? But over in first John one eight, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is, what not in us. What about the anger that's in you? What about that old grudge you carry around comes out every so often when you meet the same old person? What about the jealousy? What about the malice? What about the attention to manipulate others, to get your way, bitterness. Well, I stopped by to tell you in first John one nine, it said, If we confess our sins, don't deny we have any If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Well, he come back and he said, Abraham, you build an altar and you've confessed. You lied, you messed up, you blew it, you got out of my will. I'm still going to give you a land, I'm still going to give you a legacy, and I still have a plan for your life. Do you know God's not trying to put us on probation? God's into a pardon? If you confess, He forgives. If you confess, He forgives. Fact the matter in First John, chapter two, verse one, My little children, these things write I unto you that you sin not, but if any man sin, we have an advocate. We can confess it and we find a pardon. You need a place of pardon somewhere in your life. You need a place where you admit that maybe you have made a mistake and maybe you have wronged and maybe you have slipped up, and maybe you made a poor decision and a bad choice and you came up short of the glory of God. And you can find pardon, if you'll find an altar pardon. But there's a third altar I want to point out, and that's the peace altar, Abraham. Sarah lot headed to the promised land. The Bible said there was a disturbance between Abraham's herdsmen and lot's herdsmen. They both had so many animals, and the land just wasn't great enough to contain all of them. And they're fighting over grass rights and water rights and and they've got problems. So Abraham comes to lot in Genesis 13 nine, and he said, we're going to have to part company. This thing's not working out. Have you ever had to part company? Sometimes it's better to part company than to have a knock down, drag out. Sometimes we just need to walk off. Sometimes in the Christian life, you have to part company with some people if you're going to go with God. Fact, no matter if you're single and you want to have a Christian home all of your life, it might pay for you to part company with an unsaved person you're dating. That's the notes that Keith left up here for me, I'm reading this or making it up. Who you hang with will determine how you hang. You lay down with dogs. You get up with lot fleas. Okay, lot we're going to have to part ways. So I'm going to let you make a choice. You choose the land. And he looked all around, and he saw the well watered plains of Jordan down there, where Sodom was and the grass was green. You know, the devil will always show you the green grass. He just never points out the septic tank that's underneath. And Sodom was a septic tank. Wicked, perverted city people full of debauchery, wickedness, evil. He chose land, but Abraham chose the Lord, and lot lost his family. And what's worth losing your family over? The Bible said that lot pitched his tent toward Sodom, but in verse 18 that Abram removed his tent and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is Hebron, and built there then altar, Hebron, meaning peace and fellowship, where folk can find peace. You know, the best way to find peace with yourself and with others with God, is to have a little talk with Jesus. Makes it right now where he had moved to it was mountainous, it was rough, it was Rocky. And there are high times in life, low times in life. There's mountains in life, there's valleys in life. But the good thing is, if you have an altar where you can get along with God, you can find peace during all the highs and the lows of life, a peace that passeth all understanding. And I've noticed the real people of God have a place in their life where they get along with God, and they find that peace to get them through the hardships of life. I'll give you a last one, and that's a provision altar. And every one of us better have a provision altar. He gets to the toughest period of his life. And God told Abe in Genesis, 22 beginning in verse nine, to go to Mount Moriah and offer up his son as a sacrifice. And an altar always carries with it submission and sacrifice Abe, I want to know, Do you love me more than anything? I know you love her, but do you love me more? I know you love him, but do you love me more? Sometimes God will ask us to do something that's tough, and God wanted to find out what really mattered to Abraham, I want you to put your boy on the altar. You know the story. I'm not going into the story, and then I'd have to explain it. But he pulls out his knife, he's about to bring it down. And God said, Stop. I know you love me. More I matter more than anything else could I ask you, this just kind of off the cuff, does God matter more to you than your business? There's some businesses I couldn't get into because I love God too much. I know it wouldn't be good. Does God matter more to us than money? I've had to walk away from an inheritance rather than to fight over it, because my testimony with God counted more. Does God matter more than reputation? Does God matter more than how many likes that you have on Facebook? God, I'll live for you if you'll send her back. No, you live for God, whether he sends her back or not, we're going to put God first. God said, Stop Abraham. I know now you love him more than anything, and he looked it over there in the thicket was a ram. You'll find that in Genesis, 22 beginning in verse nine, you see Abraham built an altar there. He built an altar there, and God provided the offering that he needed. Bible said that God provided Himself that offering, prophetically, several 1000 years later on that very same mountain, Mount Moriah, it's also in the New Testament called Mount Calvary, where God's own Son, Jesus, Christ, God provided his own offering on that same spot. Only this offering died for my sins and your sins are the sins of the whole world. And Abraham got up and said, I'm going to name this place something God provided it. God came through and I'm not left shorthanded God. God gave me what I needed. I've gotta, I gotta put a name on this place. I'm gonna call this place this altar Jehovah, Jireh, meaning God will provide. I don't know about you, I've been to the place where in my life, I didn't know if I was going to make it. I didn't even know if I could stand, but I knew how to kneel. All I needed was a place to kneel. Made an altar right there. In those moments, mom and dad had just gotten saved, moved to Indianapolis. Dad got a job with a bus company is a mechanic. World War Two had just ended. Soldier boys had returned. You couldn't find a house to buy, and nobody had any money, and you couldn't play find a place to rent. They found a little, little house. I drove back by it here a while back. It was 100 years old, it seemed when we lived there, and it didn't look any better. I couldn't believe how small it was. The whole house wasn't hard and big enough to live in, and it was two apartments, and we had the small one. My brother, his bedroom was on the back porch, and it was only after mom put the roll away bed out there every night, and of course, my brother's brother, he only had one. He slept with him by going too fast. We'd sleep out there on the back porch, on that roll away bed. Mom and Dad had just gotten saved, and they were wrestling with this idea. The preacher had preached on tithing. You ever heard of tithing? If you don't understand it, talk to the music pastor, he'll explain it to you. Tithing has to do with the 10th you say it hurt too much. Well, try paying 20% for a while. 10% won't hurt near as much. And mom and dad, they made a covenant together. We're going to whatever. We're going to give God what belongs to him, because he's to get the first fruits. The pastor said that means he gets that 10% first, then we live on the 90 and we don't give him that last. We give it to him first, and then I got sick. I mean, I was sick. I couldn't keep anything down on my stomach, and my brother came down sick, and we're out there on that roll away bed sicker than dogs and dad had given mom the money for tithe, and we were heading into church on Sunday to give that first tithe, and Mama said, what we going to do? We need a doctor. Well, that'll make you rationalize really quick, won't it? Now you're not going to agree with. US, but you have a right to your opinion, okay? And I'll live with you. We're going to make it just scoot over on the roll away bed, though, my my mom said to dad, well, if we call in a doctor, it's going to take just about the amount that we're to put in under our tithe, and we covenant with God that we was going to put him first from now on. Dad said, Well, what do you want to do? Well, she said, the preacher preached several weeks ago, and he anointed somebody in a service. Could we get some oil? And could we try to anoint Ray and Jim like the pastor did. They came in and I don't know, I don't know what kind of I know it wasn't 10 w 40, but it was some kind of oil. It was in a bottle. All I know my my head was so fevered. I was so out of it. Everything was blurry. And mom and dad knelt down beside us. This is back before air conditioning. It's back when you had screens and we had neighbors, and the neighbors was just that far away. Everything you said, the neighbors could hear just pass it right on down the line. And mom and dad didn't know anything about quiet praying. Boy, they leaned into a prayer, and they said, God, we promised we'd give you our tithe, and now our two boys are sick, and God, if you'd provide healing, you promised that you would take care of us. And our boys are sick. And honestly, this is not our money. It's your money, and we don't have any other money. God, would you touch our boys? And about that time, my fever broke, and I began to sweat or perspire, for you ladies, glow for you real classy ladies. I mean, the sheep got wet. It wasn't long my brother's fever broke, and both of us were convinced of one thing. When mom and dad prayed, God would provide, God would hear, God would answer. And all the rest of these years, I've never gotten away from it. I'm caught up on that little phrase back in Genesis, one. I believe if you read your Bible, start out right, it'll work everything else outright in your life. In the beginning, God, put God first. Talk to God. Make him your business partner. Let him be the CEO of the company. Put him in charge. God. In the beginning, here's my life. I'm going to put you first. Here's your money, but I need provided, and I'm trusting you for provision. What I'm trying to say this morning, if you want to go from zero to hero, build an altar. One of my greatest heroes is Abraham. Everywhere he went, he built an altar. How can you make a mistake? By building an altar and talking to God and bringing God in on the equation and asking God for wisdom and let God give you all the peace that you need and the pardon that you need and the provisions that you need. How could you go wrong? He built an altar. Do you have an altar in your life, I beg you, as a pastor, if you don't have a family altar, begin one. It may be a struggle at first. If you don't have a personal altar, have a place that you meet with God, till you know that you're meeting with him. Do it on a daily basis. It doesn't even hurt to pray a couple times a day. If you've been in some of the jams that I've been in, you'll find how God will provide and you know, something else, I just want to throw this in, if you guys won't mind. Sometimes God doesn't do things just instantly, like we want him, like the fever broke. Sometimes you just keep struggling and obeying and doing everything you know to do. And I've listened to the show orders tell how their daughter had been an alcoholic. And here they're clear over here in Ohio, trying to be ministers of music, knowing their daughter is off some place, and they don't know the condition she might be in, and how they prayed and prayed and prayed, and one day, a phone call, daddy had a talk with Jesus. I'm just saying to you, better have an altar. Better use it frequently.

Unknown: 34:44

Thanks for being a part of the voice of the Nazarene. Visit us every Sunday at 9am with B and C's pastor Ray la salle. For more information regarding B and C, visit Bucyrus nazarene.org, you.