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Advent Productions

Benjamin Ng

Be Careful What You Ask For

Father in heaven, thank you so much for the Sabbath day.

Thank you for these blessed, holy hours that we can come and rest and be apart from all our usual and normal activities.

Thank you, Lord, that we can come and study together this morning.

We just ask for your presence to please be with us now.

Help us to hear the voice of your Spirit speaking through the words that we are gonna read in your scripture, and guide my words as well, that I might be a blessing, and that I might be careful to give you all the honor and the praise and glory this morning.

The emphasis of the sermon and the title is taken from 1 text found in Psalms 145 and verse 16.

The Bible says this, Thou openest thine hand and satisfyest the desire of what?

You know, God, He satisfies the desire of every living thing.

And that's not in relation just to those that are righteous.

God answers what we ask for, for better or for worse.

So we have to be careful what we ask for.

Now some people think that God is the 1 that he's in total control.

I mean some of us we struggle with texts like Daniel chapter 2 and verse 21 where the Bible says, He changes the times and the seasons.

He giveth wisdom unto the wise and knowledge to them that know understanding.

The Bible says He sets up kings and He removes kings.

But yet at the same time, all men and all women and all children, they have the choice to make for themselves.

You will find that God, He does not overrule everything and control the hearts of men and women and force us to do certain things either to be lost or to be saved.

Remember, Psalms 145, verse 16 says, he satisfies the desire of every living thing.

And that does not always mean a good outcome.

The question that we should ask ourselves, that we should preface this whole study with this, is what is your desire?

Now before looking at what we personally ask for and what we see throughout Scripture, let's just quickly relook at Pharaoh.

God would harden the heart of Pharaoh, that He would force him to do something, to decide something, to not let the children of Israel go.

And so that's why God had to put the 10 plagues and pour it out because His heart was so hard that He would not do it.

Yes, it seems to allude to that in Exodus chapter 4 and verse 21.

The Bible says, And the Lord said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand, but I will harden his heart, and he shall not let the people go." You see, friends, it seems like God was the 1 that hardened the heart of Pharaoh.

But when you do a deeper dive into the Bible text surrounding it, a few chapters after as well in their actual encounter, you will see that more than half the time, Pharaoh, he hardened his own heart.

The only reason why God said he would harden the heart of Pharaoh was because if God had not poured out the plagues on Egypt in the time of that Pharaoh, If God had not sent Moses, then his heart would have taken a longer time to get hard.

He was the 1 that would speed up the process of Pharaoh and his heart to either getting more hard or less hard.

And so God took it upon himself and he said, I will harden the heart of Pharaoh.

Because the plagues will be poured out and those plagues came from me so I take in a sense a responsibility for hastening the process of Pharaoh's heart getting harder.

He absolutely did choose And even after he chose and after the Israelites left, he's the 1 that chose to still chase after them.

And we need to be careful what we choose in case we are found fighting against God Himself.

You see, God tells us today in Hebrews 3 and verse 15, while it is said, today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.

He doesn't intentionally harden our hearts.

He makes it very clear that it's our own choice.

Now look, God does seem to overrule events to the extent that He controls us.

He overrules events in such things as what?

When the wicked king Nebuchadnezzar threw the 3 Hebrew boys into the fiery furnace, God was there and protected them.

He overruled the event, but he did not control anyone's decision.

So, it's not His character to control us.

He works with our choices, even sometimes when it's for the worse.

So I want to remind you again, our key text, Psalms 145 verse 16, it would do us well to maybe even memorize this Bible text, Thou openest thine hand and satisfyest the desire of everything, every living thing, God He answers.

So let's have a look at the children of Israel.

After they left Egypt, they made their march towards the Promised Land and God provided food for them, very special food in fact, food that no 1 else on earth since that time has eaten.

And had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them of the corn of heaven.

The Bible says that man, they ate the corn of heaven.

But there were miracles every week from God.

They received so many blessings from God to the extent that this promise was given to them.

In Exodus 23-25, God says, And you shall serve the Lord your God, and He shall bless thy bread and thy water, and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.

Furthermore, in Psalms 105 and verse 37, he says, he brought them forth also with silver and gold and what?

There was not 1 feeble person among their tribes.

This, my friends, was how nutritious that manna was.

The food that God gave them to eat directly from heaven had all the nutrients, had all the vitamins, had all the things that they needed to take care of their bodies because they were in the middle of a desert.

How were you going to plant crops and grow them and eat from them?

And so that food that God gave them, it was nutritious, it was full, it was satisfying.

What would happen when men ate angels' food?

Let's continue reading in Numbers 11, verses 4-6, and verse 10.

And the mixed multitude that was among them fell a-lusting, and the children of Israel also wept again and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat?

We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic, But now our soul is dried away.

There is nothing at all beside this manna before our eyes.

Then Moses heard the people weep throughout their families.

Every man in the door of his tent, and the anger of the Lord was kindled greatly.

They got tired of eating that food that God had been giving to them, that God had been raining down from heaven every single day.

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Be Careful What You Ask For

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