Enough, speak to me no more of this matter

This morning we're going to be continuing our study in the book of Deuteronomy with the final section in the third chapter. In this passage, Moses recounts a prayer of his, a prayer that he's made to the Lord, and also the Lord's answer to it. The title of the sermon is a bit provocative. It's what actually the Lord says to Moses in response to his prayer. And this is the title of the sermon and the Lord's response to Moses' prayer. He says this, Enough. Speak to me no more of this matter. That was the Lord's answer to Moses' request. And at first glance, this answer seems to be harsh. But as we study this text, I hope that you'll come to see that it actually wasn't a harsh answer. It was a godly and a kind and loving answer. My hope is that God will use our time this morning as we study this passage to help us trust God when we bring our requests to him, especially the ones that he refuses to grant.

Our God is our Father. And even wicked fathers give good gifts to their children. So how much more our Father in heaven. And so I hope as we study Moses' prayer and the Lord's response to it, that we'll be able to see with God's help, the Lord's kindness and love for Moses, even as he says no to this request of Moses. Would you please stand now as we read the word of the Lord from Deuteronomy chapter 3, verses 23 through 29. This is the word of the Lord and it is eternally true. I also pleaded with the Lord at that time, saying, O Lord God, you have begun to show your servant your greatness and your strong hand. For what God is there in heaven or on earth who can do such works and mighty acts as yours? Let me, I pray, cross over and see the fair land that is beyond the Jordan, that good hill country, and Lebanon. But the Lord was angry with me on your account and would not listen to me.

And the Lord said to me, enough, speak to me no more of this matter. Go up to the top of Pisgah and lift up your eyes to the west and north and south and east and see it with your eyes, for you shall not cross over this Jordan. But charge Joshua and encourage him and strengthen him, for he shall go across at the head of this people, and he will give them as an inheritance the land which you will see. So he remained in the valley. Beth Peor. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Now, before we get right into the text, I want to say something about prayer. Prayer is a delicate thing. And I think one of the reasons that we might struggle to pray is because we have this sense that we've asked for things in the past and we've not gotten them. And sometimes we've asked for things in the past and we've gotten exactly what we didn't want.

Sometimes the answer is silence from our perspective, and sometimes the answer is no. And that can lead us to say, well, prayer doesn't work. God's not listening. He doesn't care. And these sorts of things. And I want you to know from the beginning that God is not going to give you everything you want. And I'm not telling you anything you don't know. You know that. But what I want to say right after that is... God's not sorry for not giving you everything he wants, you want. He gives us everything that we need and he's preparing us for something that many times we don't live as though we should be in preparation for. If you're a Christian, you're going to go to heaven and you're going to be with God. And at that point, you're not going to be upset about anything he gives you or withholds from you. And you won't be looking at your neighbors and your friends and say, well, they have it. Why can't I? And I've had this for so long and it's hard. All of that will be gone.

It'll be gone then. Is it any better, Dan? I'm sorry. He has tennis elbow. And he's doing what I told him. And he's wincing at me as I preach. And it's not because of what I'm saying. It's because of what I told him to do. So now we can all enter into Dan's pain. And I bet you've prayed for it to go away. And it hasn't yet. It's gotten better. Yeah, well, that was foolish. When we have aches and pains, when our bodies fail us, when burdens carry, we pray and we ask God to relieve them. And many times His answer is no. And there's a real temptation that comes along with that delay. And it's that we would come to think that prayer doesn't work or that God doesn't hear. And that's not true. God does hear our prayers, but He doesn't always give us what we want out of them. And if we're honest, we'll realize that many of the times, if we could have the perspective of the future on our current requests,

we would realize the futility and oftentimes the foolishness and even our own sins in the requests and the desires that we have right now. We don't have those perspectives. So here, we're going to get a picture, a little window into an interaction between God and Moses with regard to his prayer. You'll remember that just before this, the Israelites have been traveling north up through various lands. And they've just finished battle with the two Amorite kings, Sihon and Og. And they've defeated them. And they've taken their stuff. And now they've come far enough north to where they're going to be crossing over the Jordan and going into Jericho. So they're just the other side of the river. And so Moses says, I have a prayer. As I said, they're on the brink of entering into the land. After he gets done with the book of Deuteronomy, which is his retelling of the law, The majority of the book of Deuteronomy is him retelling the law. And at the end, Moses dies. And then the people go in. Moses wants to go with them. That's his desire. That's his request. But if you'll remember, if you know the story, Moses was forbidden from going into the promised land. He's not asking for, this request is not coming out of nowhere. It's coming out of a context. The previous point in the Israelites wandering.

Moses had sinned, and the Lord said, as a result of this sin, you're not going into the land. I want to read to you a portion from that section in Numbers 20, where Moses is forbidden and Aaron along with him from going into the land. Numbers 20, verses 8 to 12 say this, Take the rod, and you and your brother Aaron assemble the congregation and speak to the rock before their eyes, they being the Israelites. They're thirsty. that it may yield water. So Moses, take the rod, and then go talk to the rock, and where everyone can see, and then the rock will bring forth water. You shall thus bring forth water for them out of the rock, and let the congregation and their beasts drink. So Moses took the rod from before the Lord, just as he, the Lord, had commanded him. And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock, and he said to them, Listen now, you rebels! Shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?

Then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with the rod, and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation and their beasts drank. But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, Because you have not believed me to treat me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them. And so it seems like a simple thing. He's told to speak to the rock. He chooses to strike the rock. Historically, there was precedent for that. The first time back in Exodus, when they were thirsty, the Lord told him, take the staff and strike the rock and it's going to bring forth water. But we can tell here that Moses is like, he's like hanging on by a thread right now. Emotionally, like leadership wise, he's about, he's walking the edge. Because he's like, these people are thirsty. They're grumbling and complaining. And what you want me to do is get them all together, take the stick that I...

we strike the rock with last time, and you want me to talk to the rocks. If water doesn't come out of these rocks, these people are going to tear me to shreds. He's already called them rebels. You can understand the fear that might crop up in having to get together these people who have plotted or fantasized about killing you because of their position. And the Lord says, get them all together and talk to the rock. The Lord says of Moses in this moment, he says that you did not believe me. Moses didn't believe that speaking to the rock would work. He knew that the staff of the Lord, this staff that he'd taken out of the presence of the Lord, had worked in the past, so he reverts back to it. Strikes the rock. The Lord graciously, even through Moses' disobedience, provides water for the people. Nevertheless, he judges Moses for it. He says two things. You didn't believe me.

And he says, you didn't treat me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel. In effect, he says, you worried more about what they thought of you than my holiness in obeying me at this point. So Moses strikes the rock, the water comes out, and the Lord's anger burns against him, and he judges him. And he says, therefore, you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them. That's a sad day. A long time before this day where Moses is speaking, in the valley in our text. But the Lord hadn't excused Moses' sin then. And if we look at the Lord's response here, the Lord hadn't forgotten his judgment against Moses. So why did God judge Moses so harshly, as we would think it, back in Numbers? Well, these people needed to treat God as holy. And if their leader didn't treat God as holy, where were they going to learn it?

And so Moses is a bit of an object lesson for the people. And the cost of that lesson was that he would not go into this promised land, that he would not enter into the rest, that he would have all of the hardship and the toil and the burden and the trial of wandering in the wilderness, but none of the blessing of the land flowing with milk and honey. And that was because of his sin, and that was to teach the Israelites a lesson. There's a reason he's recounting this to them. You know, he's been saying, we fought this battle and we fought this battle and we did these things. But now Moses is like, I'm going to tell you a little thing about me. Through all of this, I prayed and asked God for something because of what he's been doing. And I want you to know what his answer was. Moses, in effect, through telling them about his prayer and the Lord's answer, is reminding them that God is holy. And that as they go into the land, they need to remember that. He says, you remember, I forgot. And now I can't go with you.

I asked the Lord if he would relent and if he'd let me go with you, and he said no. Why did Moses ask for this privilege? Well, he had just seen God's power and his majesty. He'd waited so long to enter into the promised land, to see it, to dwell in it, to enter into God's rest, into his place. He waited so long that Moses' desires got the best of him. This is why he prayed the prayer. It's not as though he had forgotten what the Lord had told him previously. his desire to go into the land got the best of him. So he prayed. You remember, well, one thing I'll tell you, I'll say about this, about Moses' desire to go into the land. At this point, he's doing better than the Reubenites and the Gadites. You remember last week, they settled the land and they said, hey, we've got a lot of cattle. Can we just stay here? We don't want to go fight. And there's this interaction between Moses and the leaders of them. And he says, you can settle there, but all of your men have to come fight. And once your brothers have peace,

then you can come back and have peace. They didn't want to fight. And the reason they didn't want to go over the Jordan is because they knew if we go over the Jordan, it's just war. And we don't want to go to war. Moses does want to go to war, so to speak. Moses would be happy to die on the battlefield in the Lord's land. He would be content with it in a way that the Reubenites and the Gadites were not. And so there's something commendable in Moses' desire and his excitement. But his excitement... And his desire flew in the face of God's will. He'd already been told that he was not going to get that. He wanted to receive the promise. He's willing to go fight. But it was not God's will for him to lead the people into Canaan. It's also worth noting in my study of this and trying to figure out when did the Israelites know that Moses wasn't going to lead them in? It seems that this is the time they're being told. In Numbers, it doesn't say. It's as far as my study went.

It doesn't say in Numbers that he told them what the Lord said to him concerning his prohibition about going into the land. It says after the passage that we read, it says that the Lord then spoke to Moses and Aaron and told them that they would not be allowed. But there's no indication that they told the people that, as far as I can tell. And so they're learning now, as they're about to enter into this war, that now their leader's not coming with them, but a new man, an older man, one of the few older men, Joshua, is going to lead them in. So Moses makes this request. Lord, will you reverse yourself? Will you repent of your judgment? And will you allow me to go in? We know about Moses that he generally is a very humble and a very teachable man, willing to do what the Lord calls him to do. Not without failures, but generally humble and teachable. Yet this request of his was not a humble request. He might go so far as to say it was a rebellious request. His desire bubbled up inside of him.

And he asked God for something that God had clearly forbidden him to do. One of the things we learn from this is that there are things in our lives as we live them that we shouldn't pray for anymore or ask God for because he has answered our prayer. He just didn't answer it in the way that we would like. Now that may be a hard thing to hear. But there are things in your life that you ought not to pray for because the answer has been given and the answer is no. Typically, when we talk about prayer and unanswered prayer and ongoing needs, one of the examples that will be brought up is the woman who pestered the judge for relief. She kept going to him day after day saying, will you give me justice? Will you give me justice? And eventually, what's the wicked judge do? He says, man, this woman's going to wear me out. You can have justice. So which is it? Is it the answer's been no, the answer's been no, the answer's been no, so we should stop? Or is it the answer's been no, the answer's been no, the answer's been no, so we should keep going?

Moses and this woman are different. They're different in this way. The woman was never told, you will not have this. The Lord never told her to stop asking. But the Lord very clearly here tells Moses to stop asking. Enough, speak to me of this no more. If you were in court and you were a defendant and you were convicted, we have an appeals process. If your defense doesn't agree that justice was done, you can appeal the ruling. And you appeal it up. And if it's upheld, you can appeal it up. But there comes an end to the appeals, right? Where the appeals are exhausted and all of a sudden there's no more appealing the judgment. The answer, the final answer, has been given. That's what Moses is facing here. He didn't go through an appeal back and forth.

But just a final answer. Don't talk to me about this anymore. And so we have to have in our minds that there is a place, there is a time that can come in our lives where the answer has been given. And to ask again would actually be sinful. It may seem strange to talk about our relationship with God that way. And you say, well, that doesn't seem right. But don't we do that with our children? Your kid asks you for something. Hey, can I go to such and such place? And you say, no. You can't go to such and such place. And you give them the reason why. Maybe it's because of the previous sin that they committed, just like Moses. And then as the day comes closer, their behavior is very good. They're very helpful. And you think, huh. And if you have young children, you may not have learned to see this yet, but as your kids get older, you will learn to see this. All of a sudden, they'll come back to you and they'll say, hey, Dad. Hey, Mom. So about that party, what are you supposed to say as a parent? Oh, you've been so good.

That's not what the Lord says to Moses here. He says, no. I said no and I meant no. Don't talk to me about this anymore. Have you never said to your kids, don't bring that up anymore? Have you never said to your wife, we're done talking about this? No one likes to hear it. The Lord rebuked Moses for his request and stopped, put a stop and end to Moses' petitioning. God had already spoken concerning this issue and Moses wasn't content to accept it. And so the Lord very directly says to him, this will be the end. We won't have any more of that. And so if you know what God's will is, and I'll agree that you don't always know, and we'll come to that in a moment, but if you know that the answer is no, then it becomes sinful for you to continue to ask for God to act contrary to his revealed will. And that's because you're saying, but I think you made a mistake. I think you made a mistake. In my accounting of things, you've done it wrong. You don't want to be found arguing with God about the

goodness or the rightness of his decisions. So how do we know if God has answered our prayer and said no? Well, there are a couple of different ways. The first is that we would examine for an answer to our request or our desire in Scripture. If Scripture gives us and it says the thing you want is sinful, then we have our answer. As much as we may want to pray for it and say, but I think it would be okay or it would be good or it's necessary. If God has said no in his word, then that is a very direct answer of no to us. An example might be living with your girlfriend. It's kind of a pedestrian common sort of thing that goes on. Christians wonder about it. Is it okay? Should we do this? Is this an all right thing to do? No. Well, I think and I wonder, and what if we sleep in separate bedrooms and then we can come up with all these scenarios and you just go, no. Now, where's the chapter and verse? I'd say, I've never met a couple that stayed.

that has romantic interest in each other, stays in the same place and doesn't fall into sexual sin for very long. It's a bad idea. How else can you know God's will? Well, I'd ask you this, beyond his word, the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Have you ever asked something and without anything being written down or getting an email or a letter or any sort of like objective confirmation, you went, the Lord's answer to this is no. He's not going to do it. I'm just convinced he's not going to do it. I understand that's really subjective and we might feel like, well, but people abuse this. They say, well, God told me. And I say, listen, I'm not talking about God telling you some secret special thing. I'm saying, have you never been convicted through the Holy Spirit that the thing you want or the thing you're desiring is sinful and you shouldn't ask for it anymore? Have you never had a dream about it?

I've had dreams about that stuff. I've had people talk to me about dreams. They're like, I had a dream, and it was clear to me that I wasn't supposed to do this. Now I realize this isn't the way Reformed people are supposed to talk, but I'm telling you, this is how God works. And if you're uncomfortable with this sort of discussion, what I'd add to it is simply this. If God has convicted you of something, measure what he's convicted you of by Scripture. And if your conviction agrees with Scripture, then accept it. rather than limit the ways in which God can speak to us. You remember that Jesus condemned the generation he lived among. He said that you're a wicked, you're an adulterous generation. You're seeking after a sign, but no sign will be given to you that except the sign of Jonah. God does use the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God. He does dwell in the hearts of his people, and he does convict us as a part of his work.

of sin and righteousness and the judgment. And part of that is him saying no to things that we want. Here's a third way. If you have an authority, who tells you no? This would apply to wives with regard to their husbands, children with regard to their parents, employers with regard to their employers, and citizens with regard to their civil authorities. If you want something and they say no, you can't have it, then you have your answer. And it seems as though... We have the problem that Moses had, but we've become unwilling to hear the answer no. Because when it comes to an authority telling us no, we say, well, but listen, there's all kinds of ways in which we have to qualify that. And really what our qualification of the authority boils down to in most cases is, I agree with them. I will only be told what to do if I agree with what I'm being told to do. That's not how it works.

Moses here, with God directly, doesn't agree, wouldn't like what's being told. He wouldn't have asked unless he thought that it should be different than it was. Our agreement, our willingness, our understanding are not prerequisites to our acceptance. And so we have to be careful not to let our desires, however righteous they seem to us, we have to be careful not to let our desires rise up against the will of God. That's what happened to Moses here. And so the Lord reminded him by way of rebuke. That he had been angry with them. And Moses tells the people that. He says, I asked, can I go over? And he says, the Lord was angry with me on your account. And I'm not going to spend much time talking about that phrase. There's a lot in that phrase. He was angry with me because of you. But it comes up like multiple times in the next chapter. It's a theme with Moses. You guys, I'm being judged for your guys' sake. We'll come to it in a later sermon.

But here he acknowledges for the first time here in Deuteronomy that he's being denied his request and that the Lord's angry with him because of the people, because of their sins. The Lord's answer goes on past, don't talk to me about this anymore. He tells Moses, go up at the top of Pisgah. This is a mountain. Sometimes it's called Mount Nebo or Mount Pisgah, depending on how it's referred to. It's right on the edge of the Jordan on the east side. And he says, go up. to the top of Pisgah and lift up your eyes to the west and the north, the south and the east, and see it, this land you want to go into, see it with your eyes, for you shall not cross over this Jordan. It was a kindness that God allowed Moses to see it. They're down in a valley. He says at the very end of the passage, therefore we remain in the valley opposite Beth Peor. So he says, go up there so you can see it. I'll let you look at it, right? You remember Moses has asked before of the Lord, can I see? And the Lord says, no, but I'll.

But I'll let you see a little bit. And he says, Lord, let me see you. And he says, well, go over there and I'll pass by and you can see him back of me. Here he does a similar sort of thing. He says, well, go up on the mountain. I'm going to let you see the land. You just can't go into it. It is some level of kindness. What we learn here from Moses is that his sin long before had consequences. One of the things that's helpful in this passage, but can be dangerous, is that the Lord connects sin with judgment. Clearly, you struck the rock when I told you to look at it. Therefore, you can't go into the land. There's a danger with connecting sins with outcomes that we have to be careful of. We know this is the case here because Moses is told why he can't do it. You didn't believe in me. You didn't treat me as holy. Therefore, you can't go in. And the Lord's the one who told him that. In our lives, when we get the answer of no, or we get the burden,

a burden in our lives, it's common to go back through your life saying, why is this the way it is? I must have done something to deserve this. What I'd say to that impulse is, unless it's very clear what you did, this is not a helpful pursuit, okay? Unless you can see cause and effect consequence very quickly and very obviously. Why did I get this speeding ticket? Well, because I was speeding. Why was I speeding? Well, because I... Didn't get out of bed in time or whatever. We could draw the line and say, I can trace this right back and I can see why I've got a ticket now. We should discipline ourselves not to do that. And here's why. We're way more sinful than we take into account. We act like it's only the sins that register with us. That's all that registers with God. If we think that it was bad, then it might have been worth punishing. But that's not how God looks at us. That's not how he doesn't say, oh, well, they thought that was wrong, so I'll keep track of that one.

We have many sins in our lives that we don't even think about or are insensitive to, and the Lord knows about them. And so if he was looking to deny us something, he has way more to choose from than we could ever imagine. And so it's not helpful for us to try to pinpoint this is exactly what caused this outcome. Because underneath that questioning or that assumption is, I'm not that sinful. I haven't done that much bad stuff. In fact, what I deserve is all the good things. And our starting place should be, I don't deserve all the good things. I don't deserve all the things that I want. I don't want you to see God letting Moses go up on the mountain or telling him to go up to the mountain as just taunting Moses or throwing him a bone. This was a gracious allowance that God extends to Moses. And in fact, God has more blessing in store for Moses. You remember I said that this land was going to be a land full of war, right?

The Reubenites and the Gadites knew it. That's why they didn't want to go into it. And I said, well, at least Moses wants to go and fight. And he says, I've seen your power and I want to continue to see your power. I want to be a part of it. I want to go where you go. But what was that land and why were they going to fight for it? That land was the land of Canaan. That land was filled with seven tribes of sinners who were going to be judged. by the Israelites or by the Lord through the hand of the Israelites. And it was going to be their promised land. It was going to be their rest. It was going to be the culmination of the promise that God had made to Abraham way, way before, right? And so they're going, this is ours and we want it. But that land was not the real end. It wasn't the real point.

And it's easy for us, I understand, to get so caught up with this life and these things here and now and the blessings that we want soon that we lose sight of what they're supposed to be pointing us to or what they're supposed to be preparing us for. And I think Moses' prayer shows that. He says, I want to go into the promised land. I want to be with the Lord. If we were to boil down his request, he says, Lord, I've seen your power, and I've seen your majesty, and I've seen your glory, and I want to keep seeing it, so let me go into the land. And the Lord says, no, you're not going to come into the land because of this sin. But if we think further about what that land represented, did God give Moses what he wanted? The answer is yes.

All of the war that that land represented, the war was just the cleaning out process that was supposed to go on. But that land was a land of rest and a land of blessing and a land where the people of God were to dwell with their Lord, serving him and worshiping him just as he commanded. Do you remember when Paul prayed? I think it was in Philippians. And he said this thing, and it's incredible. He says, For me to live is Christ and to die is gain. But as for me, what? I don't know which to choose. And it's an incredible thing to say. I could continue living or I could die and go be with the Lord. And as for me, I don't know which to choose. You'd be willing to die? You'd be willing to leave all of the people and the relationships and the love and all of that stuff? You'd be willing to not be a part of that anymore? And Paul says, yeah, I want to go be with the Lord.

And Moses, in effect, is saying, I've seen your glory. I've seen your power. I want to see more of it. And I think that God graciously does answer it by saying, your work is done. By the end of the book of Deuteronomy, Moses' work is done now. And the Lord takes him away from everybody, and Moses goes to be with the Lord. And he receives not the picture of the thing he wanted in that land, but the reality that it pointed to. That was a kindness of God. So when Moses was told, enough, don't talk to me about this anymore. It wasn't the Lord driving him away. He's saying, listen, you've gotten as far as you can get here in terms of your perspective, but there's more to it than this, and I'm going to give it to you, and I'm going to show it to you. And this is the Lord's way with us. And many times when he doesn't answer our prayers the way that we would like them to be answered or in the time that we would like them to be answered, and as Christians, we really do have to say,

I don't know the future, but my God does know the future. And if he says no to me now, even a disciplinary no, enough. He's doing it out of his love for me and his preparation of me so that I'll be able to receive in time, in his time, the fullness of his promises to me. Romans tells us that we know that God loves us and works all things together for the good of those who love him. and are called according to his purpose. My question to you is, was God doing that for Moses when he said enough? He was. He was. Do you remember when Jesus was transfigured and a couple of guys came down out of heaven? Who was there? Moses was there. If he could have only had the perspective and the understanding of the glory of God that he was going to enter into when he died.

He would have said the sort of thing that Simeon said, which is, Lord, I've seen your salvation. I can die in peace. There's this understanding amongst God's people in the Scripture that we need. And that Moses is getting off track, and the Lord says, stop it. Go look at it. And in just a short while, he entered into the true rest. We need to be cultivating that. We need to be asking God to cultivate that in our hearts. Because it's hard to live in this world. You will spend your whole life without some of the things that you want and probably some of the things you actually need. You'll have questions that you don't have answers to. And it's in those moments and in those situations you have to confess your faith in Jesus Christ and in the promises of God and hope in him. And so I believe that the Lord's answer to Moses here was a disciplinary answer, but it was the discipline of a father.

of his son that he loved. It was for Moses' good. And I think Moses is kind in telling the Israelites about this. I wanted this thing. I saw God's holiness, and I saw his glory and his power, and you're going to go forth with him into this battle, and I'm not coming with you. He isn't told at this point that the Lord's going to graciously take him away from the people, and he's going to die. He knows he's just going to be left over here to wait for the Reubenites and the Gadite men to come home. or to wander, continue to wander. It would be easy for him to think that. Like, I'm just going to get left behind. I don't want to be left behind. I'm living. All of you guys are going. I want to go with you. And the Lord says, no, you can't go. An earthly perspective would say, well, then I'm just going to be left behind with no blessing. But that's not what the Lord does with Moses. He doesn't leave him behind. Before they go, the Lord takes Moses home. The Lord never did leave or abandon or forsake Moses. And he won't do that with us either.

And so what I hope is that this seed planted in you of Moses having an inordinate desire, a desire for God to reverse his choice, I hope you can come to see that it was a short-sighted desire that Moses had. He had lost sight. He had lost sight of what was going on. To live by faith is not to live by sight. And we would do well to remember that. It's not going to make, I think the easiest way to say it is, To live by faith is not always going to make, and maybe not often, make rational sense to you. Because to live by faith is to rely on God to provide the things for you that you're not able to provide for yourself. It's asking God to answer questions that you don't have answers to, and to answer them in the way that he would answer them, not the way that you think they should be answered. Have you not seen God do that in your life before? Some situation, we've been talking a lot about unanswered prayers, but we could talk

Also about answered prayers, where we pray something by faith and we're like, well, I don't know what else to do, so I'll pray about it. I've exhausted all of my wisdom and all of my strength and all of my efforts, and I've not gotten the good thing, so now I guess I'll pray about it. And then when we pray about it, the Lord answers the prayer. We could talk about that too, couldn't we? So is his people. We should be willing to be told no. And when we're told no, we shouldn't slip into the slew of despond. Where you think, oh, well, he said no because he doesn't love me. He said no because he can't. No, he said no because he knows better than me. He says no because his no does not indicate that all of the promises that he's made to his people are null, that they're not intact anymore. Paul says this thing, I think it's the end of 1 Timothy. He says, if we remain, if we are faithless, he remains faithful. You remember what it says after that? What did he say?

Because he can't deny himself. The promises that God has made to his people, if he breaks them, then he has denied himself. And our unanswered promise is just the byproduct of God failing. And if that were to happen, then the big problem would be that God failed because then he wouldn't be God anymore. But if we're faithless and we're like, but I have to have this thing right now. I need it. I can't go without it. I don't know what else to do about it. If we're being faithless, he remains faithful. to provide for us and to furnish to us in his time and in his way all that he's promised to us. And so in life's storms and life's hardships, when you don't have the answers, you're going to have to take hold of what God's promised to do and accept his timing in doing it. If you decide to do it in your own strength and to not wait, it'll be rebellious like Moses' prayer was rebellious. And then the Lord will discipline us for our good because he loves us. Let's pray.