The Power of Restoration Part 1: full transcript and answers

▶ 0:00 Before we get into the topic of restoration, I want to show you in the Bible one of the things that God compares his people to. Song of Solomon 1:9, “I have compared you, my love, to a filly among Pharaoh’s horses.” Now, Pharaoh would go out and he would get horses. Horses ran around in the wild, and they learned to tame them and they learned to train them. And a chariot back in those days was like an automobile today, okay, and also they used them in war. It was like a tank in war. And so these horses were trained to pull the king in his golden chariot, and they were trained to go to war, and in war they would go in there with swords clashing, arrows flying all around, all the noise, all the racket, people dying, they’d get hit by arrows, they’d be wounded, and these horses would just keep doing what they’re supposed to do.

▶ 1:13 They never ran from adversity, they never ran from being afraid of the enemy. Are you out there, church? Warfare was no problem to them, and when there was no war going on, they had no problem pulling the king, pulling the king, Alleluia, making a way for the king. And that’s what God likens us to here. And so many of God’s people are scared to death of a little problem. They’re scared to death of warfare. They’re scared to death of any kind of opposition, any kind of challenge or adversity in their life, and they shouldn’t be. We were born again, new creatures, old things are passed away. It doesn’t matter what we were, we are new people today that God is fashioning into a horse that can lead in battle and lead the king down to the streets where the people bow to the king.

▶ 2:23 Don’t you want to be that kind of church where you bring the presence of the king and people bow before the king? And when war comes, you’re not afraid of war.

▶ 2:34 Now, he would take these wild horses. When you’re a horse is wild, see, they can do what they want to do, and that’s what a lot of Christians are. They just still want to do what they want to do. But when you’re out in the wild and no one to take care of these horses, we’re affected by parasites: the fly, the tick, the flea, some other chickers, and these things would carry diseases, and horses would die from disease. But see, when you were brought into the king’s barn, the king had groomers to take care of those things, and these guys were kept from the parasites, and there was also inner parasites that they would drink water or whatever and get these little microorganisms in them and it would kill them. But when they were in the king’s barn, none of this happened.

▶ 3:35 Out in the wild, when famine coming along and there was no rain and so forth and the springs dried up and there was no food to eat, the horses in Pharaoh’s barn ate well, they had plenty of water, but the independent horses, they starved, they got bony, they couldn’t find water. So see, being independent isn’t always the best way, is it? Hallelujah. And in Pharaoh’s barn he took care of them with medicine when they were sick. Those horses were his most prized possession, and those horses were always groomed, they always looked good, and they were trained, and they submitted to the king’s bridle. And church, that’s why he likened you to a filly. The church is illustrated in the Bible as a female. In Pharaoh’s army, Pharaoh was a king, Jesus is the King of kings.

▶ 4:37 Are you with me? Hallelujah. Do you really want to be a church that brings the presence of the king where people worship him? Hallelujah. That’s what we’re likened to. But to attain to all these things, we’ve got to hear this message of restoration.

▶ 5:04 Restoration just simply means to remake a wreck like new. You know, you take an old car, and Mr. Barnes just had his car detailed and it looks like it just came off the assembly line, but also when he has bad brakes he has to fix it and so forth, he has to keep the repairs up. And when people don’t keep the repairs up, the car winds up being a piece of junk, it’s in the junkyard, and then somebody that likes that car will go and get it, the 1957 Chevrolet or something, you know, they would get and they would restore it back to like new. That’s what restoration is. And see, we, through our own independent decision and doing things, we destroy our life, but God wants to restore it. He wants to make that wreck better than new.

▶ 5:59 This is the promise, this is what he wants to do. Now, why do all people need restoration, even good people? People say, “Well, I’m good, I don’t, you know, I don’t need restored.” But the Bible says that none, there is none good but God. Jesus said that when they called him good, he said, “Hold on, why do you call me good? There’s none good but the Father.” The God is the good one. And Jesus was God, but if he would have took recognition above God, then he would have sinned, and he can’t sin. Hallelujah. So us good people, what need restore? Mr. Barnes’s truck is not a wreck, but it needs fixing every once in a while. Amen. It needs cleaning.

▶ 7:00 Romans 3:23: “All have sinned.” How many? All have violated God’s word. Sin is the violation of God’s word. What? Sin. Yes, it’s the violation. All have violated God’s word. How many raise your hand and say, “Ah, that’s me, I’ve done it”? Now, the wages of sin is death, or destruction, or ruin, the payment for sinning. It’s going to destroy your life, okay, and so you need to be restored. Ecclesiastes 7:6: “For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of a fool.” We brought this Scripture last time we taught on this subject. The wood underneath the pot makes a noise. It’s the only time it makes noise, but it’s dying. It’s dying, it’s destroying itself, and that’s what fools do when they’re out there partying and doing their own thing. Oh yeah, they’re making all this joke and laughter and everything, but they’re dying, because sin destroys.

▶ 8:06 Ezekiel 28:18: “By your many sins and dishonest trade you defile your sanctuaries, so I made a fire to come out from you and consume you, and I reduced you to ashes on the ground in the sight of all who were watching.” Now, ashes are worthless, and right quick some people are going to say, “No, I can put them in my garden.” Yeah, you just keep putting them in the garden, you just keep throwing them in the garden, let’s see what happens. Now, here’s some ashes. Now, how many like to fellowship with ashes? You want a handful? Oh, come on, come on, how about you, you want a handful of ashes? No? You want to paint your face with ashes? No. See, nobody wants ashes. Nobody wants anything to do with somebody that’s destroyed their life.

▶ 9:06 They’re worthless. They just get blown with the wind. Whatever’s going on in the world, they just follow it, because they have no substance. Not all of us destroy our lives to where we’re ashes. We destroy part of our life as ashes, we get burned and we get scorched. But like Mr. Barnes’s car, you don’t want to wait to turn into total ashes. You want to what? Restore your life at the small mistake. So see, all of us need restoration, even us good people who think, and we are, we’re doing pretty good. We still need what? Some restoring in our lives. Maybe we didn’t say the right thing yesterday, maybe we had the wrong attitude two days ago, we got to what? Get that fixed. And God promised to fix it. And young people, please listen: don’t you ever listen to the enemy or anyone that tells you you’re too bad, you know, you’ve been up and down too many times.

▶ 10:23 God keeps restoring, he keeps restoring, he keeps fixing you just like new, not just forgiving you, he fixes you. Are you with me now? You understand that? And so we destroy our life and God can restore it back.

▶ 10:46 Now remember, we defiled our sanctuaries. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 3:16, “You are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you. If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, whose temple you are.” So when it says “your many sins have defiled your sanctuary,” he’s talking about you. You’re the temple of God, and you’re doing things that is defiling the sanctuary. God doesn’t like to live in defiled temples. Hallelujah. Now, “your dishonest trade.” Let me tell you what dishonest trade is. You’re thinking it’s somebody that’s charging you more for a loaf of bread than they should be. That isn’t the kind of trade God’s talking about. You see, he died on the cross for your sins. He took your sins to the cross, and in exchange for your sins he gave you eternal life, but he also asked you to do a few things.

▶ 11:55 He asked you to repent and not sin anymore. Dishonest trade is saying, “Okay, I, God, I accept your death on the cross for my sins, but I’m going to live the way I want.” See, that’s dishonest trade, and it’s going to destroy you. You’re going to become ashes. Do you understand? God says to assemble in the house of God. “Well, I don’t have to go to church.” You won’t find that in the Bible, you know. Do you realize when you get up in the morning, all over America, all over the world, and you assemble in church, that you’re a sign saying to the nations, “I am a follower of Jesus Christ, I’m a follower of the Bible”? Do you realize that is expression of obedience that they see in you, let alone when you come and he inhabits the praises of his people?

▶ 12:43 See, when we gather together and praise him, the new wine is found in the cluster, not one grape but a cluster of grapes. When we come together, God promises to do things, and it says that if you’re going to grow, in Psalms, you’re going to have to go to the house of God. They that go, grow. Say it: they that go grow. You see, that’s dishonest trade. He asked you, I mean, he gave you forgiveness of sin, eternal life, and he asked you to do some things so you can be a light to the world, and then you don’t do them. That’s dishonest trade. You took his eternal life, you took his forgiveness, you, you know, you took all the things you wanted, but you didn’t give him back what he asked for. That’s dishonest trade.

▶ 13:33 Do you young people understand that a lot of Christians are living a life of dishonest trade? And so what happens? Destruction comes in their life.

▶ 13:50 Hebrews 11:25: you can enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. You know, you can get away with it, it’s, you know, there’s no payment for a while. You see, there’s no payment, but after a while, when the season’s over, you’re going to pay the price. Jeremiah 2:19: “Your own wickedness will” what? “Correct you, and your backslidings will” what? Now, the Bible tells us what a backslider is. The Bible says a backslider is filled with his own ways. Those independent people that do what they want to do, they come to Christ, they took his eternal life, they took his forgiveness, but then they do what they want to do. They backslid, they didn’t keep their word. Instead of going forward and following Jesus, they went backwards, or they just stood there and he’s moving forward, so what?

▶ 14:47 They’re going backwards. Standing still in the kingdom is still what? Going backwards, because he’s moving. Are you with me now? Now, young people, if your sin corrects you and your backslidings rebuke you (is another word for correction), then how does that work? In Galatians 6:7 it says, “Whatsoever a man sows, that he will also reap, for he who sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption.” When a body dies, it decays, just like the ashes, the wood and the fire, it turns, the ashes, the body turns to ashes back to the dust through just natural decay. And so when we sow to our flesh, we’re going to reap corruption, but when we sow to the Spirit, we will reap everlasting life. And so, as we heard Friday night, we got to exercise the things of God to get strong in the things of God.

▶ 15:44 You see, this message of “not of works, lest any man should boast” has been taken to an extreme, that God’s people in America think they don’t have to do anything. And yet if you don’t exercise righteousness, you’re not going to get strong in righteousness. If you don’t exercise godliness, you’re not going to get strong in godliness. And exercise is spelled W-R-K, work. You got to put some effort into it. You’ve got to apply yourself. Amen.

▶ 16:15 Now, Proverbs 23:29, let’s look at how sin corrects you: “Who has misery? Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contention? Who has complaints? Who has wounds without a cause? Who has redness of eyes? Those who linger long at the wine, those who go in search of mixed wine.” See, sin’s self-exposure and self-correction. People that want to drink, they’re going to bring misery to their life and all these things, and we know it’s true. Somebody sent me a report from the federal government, the Department of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services, that in 2006, 51% of Americans used alcohol. Only 51%. And we make it an issue in the church. My figures were 39% were not yet drinking alcohol, so I was glad for the, we just gained 10% by a different survey. So almost half of America is smart enough to what?

▶ 17:22 Stay away from alcohol and drugs and those things. Why? Because they bring destruction. You can see what happens in people’s life that do it. Proverbs 23:32, look at this guy over here. He’s got a snake, and they’re having a birthday party for the snake, and he’s going to let this snake touch this little baby, okay, because he’s had this snake for like ten years and no problems, and he’s down there showing this snake off and letting people wrap it around them and all this stuff. Now, just a couple of minutes ago this snake was put right up in the face of a baby, but watch what happens right here. Get ready here it comes. Bam! Now, what if that would have happened to that baby? Watch him spit teeth out here. See them teeth fall?

▶ 18:25 The snake’s teeth went right into his mouth. See, young people, you mess around with dangerous animals. A trainer just last week got killed by an elephant that turned on him. These are wild animals, they’re destructive, and you start messing around. Look at this guy over here, I kept him rolling, you know, he’s trying to show how big, bad, brave he is, and that snake just decided to take a hunk out of him. Are you there? You see, and this is what the Bible says. You know, you’re going to mess around with dangerous things, you’re going to get destroyed. And so he says, “At last it bites like a serpent and stings like a viper. Your eyes shall behold strange women, and your heart will utter perverse things.” That’s sin correcting you. Proverbs 23:34: “You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, at the top of the mast, saying, They struck me, but I was not hurt.

▶ 19:22 They beat me, but I felt it not. And when I wake, I’ll seek another drink.” It’s addictive.

▶ 19:30 Proverbs 31:5 says that alcohol perverts justice. You make bad decisions, you make bad judgments. Over here is a picture of a woman before you drink. Oh, hag. And here she is after a drink, she looks like the queen of [unclear]. Man. And I got that off a secular site talking about, you know, it’s easy to have sex once you got a few drinks in you, with anybody. That’s what they were talking about. Then you wake up the next morning and there’s a hag next to you. Ah, God. Okay, here’s another one: sex. Here’s the dumb guy, young, young guy, you know, flexing his muscles into bodybuilding, get to the gym, showing off, don’t wear shirts, because you want these girls to see your muscles and everything, you know, and these girls are showing their cleavage, you know, and they’re showing their thighs and moving around because they know that just gets guys, [unclear].

▶ 20:52 So Proverbs says, “Why, my son, be overcome and embraced by the bosom, the breast, of an immoral woman? She is loud, she is stubborn, her feet abide not in her house. She says, Let’s take our fill of love.” And then it says, “He goes as a fool to the correction of the stocks.” See, his decision is going to bring correction, “till a dart strikes through his liver. He knows not that it is for his life.” There are three venereal, sexually transmitted diseases that affect the liver. Syphilis is one, [unclear] is another, and, uh, I forgot the other one. Back in the old days people died from syphilis, okay. A lot of Christopher Columbus’s crew died from syphilis, just having sex, taking advantage of the natives and so forth, and you can read this stuff in history.

▶ 22:00 But now, see, they have antibiotics for it and you can survive, now you just got to put up with it the rest of your life. As I said before, one out of two people in America have had a sexually transmitted disease or have one. 39% of those sexually transmitted diseases are incurable. They can never be cured, we don’t have the medicine to cure them yet, and so they have to live with, you see, the sexual revolution came on in the 1960s, but there’s been almost a brand new venereal disease every year from that date. Before the sixties there was only three basic sexually transmitted diseases. Now there’s almost forty, almost a new one every year, and some of them are incurable, there’s nothing you can do. And of course AIDS brings death, and our great President Obama wants homosexuals to go into the military. 600,000 people have died from AIDS and 75% of those is directly from homosexual activities, 20,000 new cases a year, and he wants to put these guys in our military.

▶ 23:29 Our politicians aren’t thinking right, folks. And the Egyptians are rising up against their dictator and said, “We’ve had enough of you,” and somewhere in America, America’s got to rise up and say, “We’ve had enough, we got to change things.” So they’re going to go in, they’re going to spread, home, AIDS, and you’re going to be in a shower with a guy looking at you. I wouldn’t want that, and so they’d have to drag me into the military if I was a young man. Now, that’s blunt, but it’s important that you know this stuff. You know, remember Noah and them did not follow public policy, they followed right. And it doesn’t matter how many people are following right, it matters that you are. Amen. I don’t care, you’ll lose friends over this, you’ll lose family members, that’s their choice. But you got to follow right and not compromise the word of God.