God Never Fails | Sheryl Kloehr | EP 107

God didn't take stripes on His back just for physical healing. That's for emotional healing. Maybe the answers could be found just in being heard and being seen and finding someone else that understands. I was seeing God's hand in the prayers that I was praying for other people. When you are not focused on yourself, it frees you to actually be part of a miracle in somebody else's life. Welcome to iRefresh, where we talk about the power of prayer and God's Word. Remember when there was a time that you could reflect about a past moment you had with a friend or a loved one, and you start to reminisce and all of the joys and the laughter that come out of it. When we say, oh, I remember those fond memories and we go down a rabbit trail and we start to laugh and we holler and stuff. I even start thinking about, we start thinking about smells and what we heard. In our mind, we might visualize like a whole storyline of what happened in those moments. Real special moments where we can rejoice all over again and enjoying those memories that we treasure. Well, there's times where I can just say a word. If I were to say a word, all of a sudden, something would come to your mind. Popcorn. You're going to think about the smell. You're going to even think about, I'm at a movie theater, or the last time I ate it, or I spilled it all over, right? Or you might be, I like mine salty, they like it buttered. But it attaches, right? There is a memory attached to just that one word. If I show you this symbol right here, you instantly have a lot of emotions or feelings about the symbol I'm just showing you. Now, this is many. Now, many is attached to a lot of feelings. Some of you might be anti or whatever, but this was a memory that a bunch of us girls, when we went down to... at Disney Springs, we decided we want to have a Mento to remember our fun time and our adventure. It was a cheap little thing. I think we went into Lego. We went to the Lego store, and we bought that just because we were laughing, and we had a great time of laughter, and this was our trigger to remember a time of fellowship, a time of praying together. And so it has an attachment to it. It's to recall and remember a good time, a great time we had in the Lord, Well, you see, can you think about it? I'm back in the days of the 70s and... I remember riding my bike down to the drugstore, and I would take my allowance money out, and our neighbors, and we would go down the lane, and we'd look at all this candy. I'm like, oh, the smells. You're picking stuff up. You're smelling them. You're looking at them. In my days, it was hubba-bubba-bubba-gum. I don't know if you recall that. And all the, there was like a sugar daddy. Like, it's so bad for your teeth, right? And based on our era of when we were, in the candy store, and what we ate then. Now it's like gummy bears, Skittles. We all had the M&Ms, and now I'm a Gordella chocolate fan myself. But all of those, think about that. The memories we have attached to moments like we treasure. And what I wanted us to do this evening is we're going to go through, and I'm going to take you through a couple of major adventures about two major people of Joshua and then Elijah and Elisha. And you're like, how are they going to meet? That's the fun part I've spent a lot of time looking at. And that is memories. God is so interested in us and what he's going to do in our lives because you are going to be receiving. And those are actually listening remotely or on a podcast or on video. We are here and we have got a bag of rocks. And so if you don't have yours, there are these stones. Yeah. And those stones are what we're going to go into in Joshua 3 and 4. And you're like, what in the world is that? So what I want to tell you about is how cool God is when he begins to do something in our lives. is he does preparing us for what he's promised us. And in the process, he tells us to do certain things. So Moses was a leader who helped to bring out the people of God, right? And who was underneath him was Joshua. So he was mentored by Moses. But there is going to be a season and a time when Joshua become the ruler. And so now we're in Joshua 3, and God is instructing Joshua, before you go into the promised land, I want you to prepare the people. Because God is about to show them amazing things. And so what is it he requires? I'm going to hit on a few things. In Joshua 3. It tells us about what God told them. In verse 5, it says to Joshua, Joshua says, Do all the ritual purification and prepare yourself, because tomorrow God will show you wonders. So he's telling the people it's time to do a heart check and we need to repent and get our heart right because God wants to be in the place. He wants to be in our presence and he can't look at us with impure hearts. And so what he's doing is he's preparing them. And so now what happens is he's got more instructions and this is where the stones come into play. So God tells him, now I want you to take from every tribe, all 12 tribes, every one of the tribes is going to have one man, and you're going to go to the river of Jordan, and you're going to take, and you're going to pull out a stone. Now, it says that the stones were heavy enough because later here in the chapter, it talks about how the stones will be put on the shoulder, which meant they probably would be over 100 pounds. So each one of the men were picked out, came into the middle of the river. What happened though? The priest would take, were going to come before them, and the Ark of the Covenant, they would take, and as soon as the priest touched the edge of the water, what do we remember? The waters parted. Okay, so the waters part because of what? What is the Ark of the Covenant? What does it represent? The presence of God. So the presence of God now is going before them. Now it says when it's in the middle, That's where I want you to pull the stones from. So each one of the men took up a stone. He says, now take it over to the other side. So they took it to the other side. And then they were instructed one more time. Now take another stone. And now in the middle, in the water, we're going to create a place, a monument to remember this moment. Why? God didn't want them to forget that he just performed a miracle. So often we forget what God has done. We get distracted by life and like, oh, whoops, yeah, he has been good. God made sure that he literally attached a memory. And the stones were there for you to be a trigger to remember something good that God has done. And so the stones for all of us is we want to remember what God has done. Because when we're waiting for the promised land, we're waiting for the other things that God's promised us, we have to go back to what he's already done. Here's the beautiful thing. We see that Moses was in the desert with the people in the dry land. And so now they come where Joshua now takes over. Now they're going to go into the water. They're going to take that. The presence of God is in the middle. Do you think about it? In the middle of the water, the presence of God is. I can remember another time in the New Testament where there's a storm going around. There's all this water, and there's someone right there in a boat. And in the middle, the presence of God is. What would that story be? That was Jesus and the disciples in the boat. Look at what God was doing. He was already foreshadowing what was going to happen in the New Testament. So there we are, the same way that the presence of God was in the middle of his people to protect them as they walked across in dry land. God is always in the middle of our storms. He's always present. We just have to acknowledge it. I think it is so beautiful. Places from the dry places, the dry parts of our land. Now he comes and brings refreshment. His presence brings refreshment like Acts 3.19 tells us. That's what God was trying to do. Jesus was trying to do in the boat. Would you fix your eyes on me? Now, what's even more powerful is in Joshua 4. Verse 7, the purpose of what God said, why he was going to tell them to do this. He says, you will tell them how the waters of the Jordan parted of the Ark of the Covenant that crossed the river. These stones will fix that memory for the Israelites forever. God was wanting to fix their memory. God wants us to fix our memories, fix our eyes on what he has done. And then, of course, remember, if those recall, it is so then when they would see the monument, the pillars that were designed over here, do you know where that was located at? It says they crossed over to Jordan, but then they created the monument in Gilgal. You're like... That means absolutely nothing to me. I know, but it's so much fun when you find out. Gilgal means the circle of stones. And so now the circle of stones, the rolling stones, the wheel, they created the stones as a monument, as a pillar to the mighty God, to always remember the goodness of God, the faithfulness of God, to deliver his people because he always will deliver them. And so that's where I find that it's incredible of the obedience that Joshua had. Because what was it, what were they doing? It was preparation because Gilgal was the place where they would launch. Here's the fun facts about Gilgal. That's where the people would be ready for battle and launch to begin to take back territory. I don't know about you, but I want to take back the territory. When we see stuff going around in the different places in our country, I am praying and taking back the territory in the places that God has called each of us to pray over. I believe that God has called each of us, when we're to walk, we are to reclaim the land for the goodness of the Lord. And so we have to have our pillars, our stones of remembrance of what God did. He delivered. But I know what he's yet to do. He's got more. But you know what you have to do? You have to have a battle. You have to have the armor on. God was equipping his people to prepare them to have a place of worshiping him, recognizing, don't forget that I'm with you all the way. So no matter what we walk through, we are knowing the fact that God is going to help us get all the way through. So that's in Joshua. Now you're like in Gilgal. I'm talking about how the significance of Gilgal is because of not only was that the place where there the battleground would be, it was also their first Passover after the crossover to Jordan. And you remember how there was a manna in the wilderness? As soon as they crossed over the river and they had their first Passover, the end of provision of manna. Now a whole new way of trusting God. How many know you've gone through a trial? You're like, oh, God helped me. I trusted him. I feel good about it. Now he alleviates all of that. Boom. I had to start all over again. Square one. I had to trust God. Now for a bigger thing, a greater thing. No more manna. No more provision. a different kind of provision. God always is helping change it up for us. We have to look to him in a new way. He doesn't operate the same way every time. And so Gilgal is important because we know that's the end of the manna, the first path. This is also the place where Saul would be confirmed as the king. So there was celebration. This was a land where there was celebration. There was a worship going on. It was a land. It was a territory of worship. Now later on, it wasn't so good. But here is where we then we find the story of Elijah and Elisha. You're like, what's that got to do with a whole lot? It's so amazing because Elijah, I always got them confused when I started reading this. I'm like, okay, which one which? Elijah is the one that gets to go and not die. He's the hero in Gotham City. We all want to be Elijah. We don't want to die. We just want to go join the chariots. Let's ride. I like the ride. I'll take the horses for sure. Now we're in 2 Kings, and the great thing about it was even before 2 Kings, in 1 Kings 19, there's preparation. God is always preparing us for the next thing. So the same way that Moses was helping prepare Joshua to mentor him to lead, Elisha was the same thing. So Elijah was told in 1 Kings 19, is God has given him instructions. And the instructions are that, hey, you have got to make a replacement for you. And now I'm going to tell you who the replacement's going to be, but you have to get them ready to take over the position of the prophet that you are. And so Elijah had been creating multiple schools of the prophets, and we're going to hear about them. And they're not always the nicest people in the world. And what it is, it says that... He was told to go to a certain place and to locate Elisha. Now, when Elisha goes, or Elisha sees him, what does he do? Elijah takes his cloak, and he takes it off of him, and he throws it over onto Elisha. While Elisha is working with his oxen, it's known that he was probably a man of wealth, and they had all these oxen that he was working with, and he stops and And that was the signal. When the cloak was put on Elisha, it was a transfer. It was the beginning to knowing that this was a registration of the authority and the power of God that was going to be put on him. Elisha was aware. Now, what is odd about it is Elijah wanted him to go instantly, right now. And Elisha says, well, let me go say goodbye to my parents. So he's, Elijah questions him. So what, are you going to go back and go ahead and test what I'm telling you? Do you not realize what I just did to you? I just gave you the mantle. And you're going to go back there? God tests us sometimes. The calling and the sacrifice he calls us to sometimes is insurmountable. But are you willing to take the test? And are you willing to take the cost and the sacrifice? Sometimes it's a very lonely road. And we'll see it here shortly. Elijah had to make a decision. Okay, am I going to go and greet and say goodbye to my family? Or am I going to instantly go in season and go and follow after this man? And he made a choice. Now, what was radical is he made such a choice as he cut off his provision toward himself. It says that he would slay all of the oxen and the plows that they were using. It says they used the wood from the plows and burned up the oxen and he fed it to the townspeople. Wow. There just went all your provision. Have you ever heard some people, they sell everything and they go and become a missionary. Like, wow, what trust in God. What trust? That was Elisha. Elisha was so hungry for whatever God had because he knew he had the cloak. He knew it was an awesome responsibility. And so he was yes and amen, and he went, and he gave it all. So now, here we go. We're going to go now to the point where Elijah feels the urgency of the Holy Spirit. It's telling him, before he goes, I have to go about the Father's business. And what was that? He goes, I have to go visit several places. Now, Elisha, you stay back. But God, the Holy Spirit's told me, I have to go. What is the response of Elisha? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not leaving you. No matter what, I'm not going to leave you. He was so hungry, he was going to stay near the move and the spirit of God on Elijah. He wanted to learn everything he could. And so they went to, where did they go to? They were at Gilgal, the city of stone where worship was known, and they were going to go to Bethel. Okay, now a lot of us are familiar with Bethel, but let me highlight a few really great things about Bethel. It was originally, back in Genesis, was called Luz. Hopefully I'm saying that right. Abraham was a place where Abraham had built an altar to worship God. Now, that was a place where he lived for a while until the famine came, and then he had to exit, go to Egypt. And then he returned, brought his family back. Then he had Lot. You know what happened with him and Lot. Things were not going so good with the people. So he leaves there. And then we find out what else happened to Bethel when it was still Lutz. It's Jacob, when he steals his brother's inheritance, where does he run to? It's Bethel. And it's when he had an encounter with God there, right? It's the ladder up to heaven and the angels. And it was so much of an experience. Again, the presence of God was so overwhelming. He goes, this is the house of God. That's when it got renamed to Bethel because the presence of God. Wow. So Elijah is there. But the other part is interesting, too, is while he's there, and Elisha's watching and listening for whatever Elijah's supposed to do, there's these pestery people called the disciples, the prophet's disciples. And they go up to Elisha, not Elijah. They go up to Elisha and say, hey, did you know you're going to lose your mentor pretty soon? And I read every commentary. I'm like, were they mocking him? Were they bullying him? What were they doing? And Elisha was consistent. He says, I'm aware of it. Now, you just be quiet. How many today, when you know you're supposed to do something in your life and you hear all these voices, you hear voices that are distracting and they make you doubt, you have unbelief and there are these voices around us that are pestering us and is trying to Elisha was so focused. I want what God has. I'm going to stay focused on what? Elijah. I'm going to listen and I'm going to watch. So they take this travel from Bethel and now they go to Jericho. Well, I think we all know about Jericho. Let's tie it back to good old Josh. Where did Josh go after he'd been in Gilgal? They go to Jericho for the big party where the walls are taken down, right? So they've claimed that territory. So Elijah, they're now at Jericho. Guess what happens again? Elisha gets the same whole thing. Hey, Elisha, guess what? Your guy's going to leave pretty soon. And he was so consistent. I don't know about you, but our moods are a certain way that it's really hard to be consistent. But he was. Be quiet. I already know that. And so now we're at an incredible moment. is where they go now from the Jericho to the waters, the Jordan River. And this is what's really important. It ties in Joshua and it ties in Elijah and Elisha. Okay, so they go over there and Elijah takes his cloak off once again. And he goes over to the Jordan River and he strikes it. What happens? Phew, opens up again. The waters open. Now, what is significant that happens in the 2 Kings, in chapter 2, it says in verse 7, it says, 50 men from the group of prophets also went. So there was a groupie that was coming behind watching these guys. And it says, what did they do? They watched from a distance. There's your key. They were at a distance. Where was Elisha? And Elijah were hand in hand, right there together. And again, though, when you look at it, the difference. Are you going to be in the place where you're going to make a difference? Are you going to be the one who says yes to whatever God told you to do? And that means you're going to be right up to the presence of God. You're going to be right in the will of God. You're going to have a heart of repentance, a heart of submitted to whatever God tells you to do. You're not looking to the past. And that's what we, that's what even Elisha was doing. I'm not going to look to the past because it's gone. I made sure I wouldn't go backward. Because sometimes when we get discouraged, and I've lived in the discouragement, you want to look back to go to a place where your comfort, we go back to what we know, a familiar spirit, a familiar place where we found comfort, even though it might be miserable, but it's what you know. But that's not what Elisha did. But the 50 prophets were there at a distance observing what was going on. So it's like they kind of wanted to be a part of it, but not that much. And that's the difference between the prophets, that you don't know their names, and Elisha. And it says now in verse 11, or actually we'll go back to where it talks about, Elijah says to Elisha, tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken away? And Elisha replied, oh, please let me inherit a double share of your spirit and become your successor. And I remember, and actually... I thought, well, I want triple. I'm like, why double when you can go triple? I never fully understood it, but the laws back in Deuteronomy, it talks about what they did when they would inherit it, the firstborn inherited, they would get twice as much as the rest of the other siblings. So it was twice. It was not twice of what the inheritance was. It was twice as much as everybody else. And so when Elijah was asking Elijah, can I have twice as much as all the other ones? Because I want that office of the prophet. I want everything that you do, all the miracles that you did. I want to have twice as much as what anybody else is going to have. Because Elisha would be the one who would do even more things than Elijah. Because when God moves, he will not move less than what he did before. He will always do greater. Always do greater. And so that was the heartbeat there. And so Elijah's like, hmm, you are asking for a great thing. But we know that the thing is, if you see me when I go, then it'll be granted to you. So we are familiar with that. But the great part, we go back now and said in verse 11, As they were walking and they were talking, suddenly, I love it when my God is a God of the suddenlies, get us out of here. Elijah's like, I've done all I need to do. I've obeyed the prompting of the Holy Spirit. I've gone to these three towns. And Elijah's been pestered by all three towns three times. All pastured, but they were a test. It was preparation that Elijah needed to prepare him for what God had in store for his life. And it said, so suddenly a chariot of fire appeared and drawn by horses of fire. It drove between the two men. So it drove between them and separated them, just like the Jordan is separated. And so it separated them. And so we know that Elijah was carried up into heaven. But Elisha was devastated. He cries out, Oh, Father, my Father, I see that. The chariots and the charioteers of Israel. Now, Elisha is devastated because here I had been doing all these things. I thought I would have more time. And yet... He sees Elijah's cloak is on the ground after he's departed. So he picks up the cloak and he goes back to the river. And he's so distressed, like, what am I going to do now? So he goes over to the river. Who's still spectating? Over at a distance. They got these 50 skeptics. He goes over and he takes the cloak and he strikes it again. And. Now, do you remember? Let me give you another symbolism. Moses, what kind of, what did he have? He had a staff, right? The staff that he used with Pharaoh. And it was when he lifted it up, there was victory. Well, the cloak was the same symbolism and the power and authority related that God gave it. It's just a thing. It's not magical. But God was using it as a point of contact. And so he takes a cloak and he strikes the water. It divides. What was that for? Right. It was for Elisha to recognize, I got it. I got it. And what was it else for? The skeptics. So now they knew. Because it says then, when the group of prophets, in verse 15, from Jericho saw from a distance what had happened, they exclaimed, Elijah's spirit rests upon Elisha. And they went to meet him, and they bowed to the ground before him. So the murmuring and the people that are taunting you and trying to speak doubt, fear, unbelief and what you believe in God for, they were no longer there and they began to honor him. Now I want to take you back to what you have in your hand. You have a group of stones. The stones that God wants you to have in your hands right now are what has God done for you? Where has he taken you? And if we can, I'll try to during this time is get a Sharpie and start writing on there what God did for me. Let's see, my family, what did he do? Salvation, healing, maybe it's emotional healing. Maybe I got married, maybe it's, you know, I'm healed from restored relationships. I don't know, but it is your stones to you remember what God has done for you. Because the great thing is he delivers us. Now I'm going to show you this really, really cool, fun thing about all this to summarize it too. The desert, Moses, Joshua, they're done with the desert. They go through the water, the refreshment, the presence of God. They go over, they have to do battle to claim their promised land. John the Baptist, where was he when he was preaching and he baptized Jesus? The Jordan River. We're going back to now the Jordan River. John comes out of the wilderness into the water to baptize Jesus, the presence of God. Now what does Jesus do? He goes now into the wilderness. They're there for 40 years. Jesus doesn't need that much time for 40 days. He now begins to speak the word and take the territory in the wilderness where they came out of. He goes and he finishes the work. He finishes the work for you and I. That's who our God is. He takes us out of the dry places. He brings refreshment to us. He fills us up. And that's what Jesus did to finish the work for us, our promise. that he has within us, that's the stones for you to remember that God is faithful. There's things that God has done, but we're believing. And this is what I say. Hold on to that is my children, my husband, my whatever, my life, my work, whatever, it will all be transformed because I know that my God was going to deliver me through the wilderness, through the battles to my promised land. And I'm going to proclaim it just like Jesus did. No, get thee behind me. The word says. What is the word that you're standing on for what you're believing for? My God restores, He saves, He delivers, He protects. That is our God. He brings hope to the hopeless. When I've been so discouraged, this has been my strength, is I have a circle of stones, and I know the goodness of the Lord in my family, and yet I'm believing for much, much more. Will you join with me and let's remember God, His presence, and trust Him for what He's yet to do.