ARME 7: Waialua, HI - Nov 2011

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ARME Bible Camp

Ivor Myers

God’s Obstacle Course

Heavenly Father, we come before you tonight, Lord, in need of a word from you.

Father, we are approaching a time where many of us will face hand-to-hand combat with the enemy of souls.

Lord, we need to know how to become better warriors, better soldiers, and Lord we're here to be trained by your presence and by your spirit.

Please, Lord, I pray that you would speak through me tonight.

In Jesus' precious and holy name we pray, amen.

On the way here, I was going through 1 of the stores in the airport and I saw this magazine that caught my attention.

First because of the color of it, it just looked really interesting.

And then when I looked, it was a Time magazine.

And the subheading of it is the hidden world of America's toughest warriors.

And I picked up the magazine because I knew where I was going.

Not that Hawaii is a tough place, but in Hawaii we were going to be attending Army.

Let me pick this up and take a look at how these special forces are trained.

And as I skimmed through the magazine and read some of these different things, it really hit me.

I mean, I looked at how these guys that make it into these special forces are trained.

Some of them have their hands tied behind their back and they're dipped into freezing water and they have to stay in there as long as they can.

Or swim down to the bottom of the pool and pick something up with their teeth and swim back up.

And some of these training sessions, these boot camps, if you will, require these warriors to do like 72 pushups in 2 minutes.

Sometimes they're let out in desolate places and they're hunted down, and then when they're caught, this is all simulated, but when they're caught they go through 4 days of intense interrogation.

They're actually treated like prisoners of war and tortured.

And as I looked at this and saw this heading, America's Toughest Warriors, I began to think to myself, you know, God wants His people to be good soldiers, tough soldiers.

When these soldiers are being dipped in ice cold water, do You think that they're saying my trainer hates me?

They realize that their trainers actually love them.

That their trainers actually desire the best for them.

Beloved, the lesson to me was very profound.

How many of you have ever been through trials and obstacles where you begin to think that God must not really like you too much?

Where it seems like he's letting things happen in your life that cause you to wonder where He is.

Beloved, I want to tell you tonight that it's all a part of God's obstacle course.

And by the way, that is the title of my message tonight, God's obstacle course.

You see, beloved, we are here to be trained.

Now, I know this is a beautiful camp and the ocean view is just it's just beautiful, right?

But but I want you to look at these next few days as a boot camp.

Yes, there are pleasurable scenes here, but but remember that God is here to train us.

God has provided, I believe, an obstacle course that if endured will produce powerful soldiers.

How many of you brought your Bibles tonight?

So, I would like to invite you to Turn with me in your Bible to the book of 2 Timothy 3.

2 Timothy 3, and I want to lay something out for you tonight, beloved, that by the grace of God you will never forget.

Before we go to the verse, I want to take your minds back.

We're in the time of the children of Israel.

They have spent 400 years in Egyptian captivity and God is about to lead them out of captivity and into where?

God was going to lead them from slavery through the wilderness into the land that had been promised them.

But Before the children of Israel could get into the promised land, they must go through a training, if you will.

They must go through a time of trouble, as it were.

Do you understand that the children of Israel did indeed go through a time of trouble there in the wilderness?

In fact, the time of trouble was so tremendous that a whole generation was wiped out.

It's kind of reminiscent of what's going to happen at the end of time.

And so beloved as God was leading these, the children of Israel into the promised land, He also knew that He was dealing with a people who had been subject to 400 years of slavery and of captivity and what God was now doing was he was about to train up soldiers.

You see, beloved, that journey was a journey of faith.

Second Timothy chapter 2 verse 3 and 4, the Bible says here, Thou therefore do what?

No man that woreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who has chosen him to be a soldier." You see, beloved, we too are on a journey.

We too are hoping to get to that promised land, the land of heaven.

But in order for us to get there, we must first leave captivity.

And between captivity and the promised land, there will be a time of trouble that each 1 of us faces.

So God has graciously provided a boot camp.

I just think back to that Old Testament where the children of Israel are being led out into the wilderness and you realize that the Bible calls it the camp of Israel.

I like to look at it as a boot camp with God himself training the children of Israel in the art of righteousness.

And what made that training ground so special anyway?

And you understand that through that sanctuary, God taught his people about the plan of salvation.

Beloved, the very process through which the children of Israel were led from captivity into the promised land, that very training that God had given the children of Israel, we find present in the very life of Jesus Christ.

Please stay with me here because we're going to see something profound, something amazing, something mind-blowing.

I want you to go with me to the book of John chapter 14.

John 14 verse 1, the Bible says here Jesus is speaking to his disciples and it says, let not your heart be troubled ye believe in God, believe also in me In my Father's house are many what?

I go to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am there you may be what?

Also now where was the place that Christ was going to prepare for his followers?

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God’s Obstacle Course

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