“It is not the critic who counts; it's not the ones who point out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again.
Because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but it's the ones who actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, great devotions; and who spends himself in a worthy cause;
who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
PHI 2:14-15, Do all things without grumbling or complaining; that you may prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world,
JAM 5:9 Do not complain, brethren, against one another, that you yourselves may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing right at the door.
Abraham passed the "believe and obey part" of the dispensation of promise concerning his salvation, Gen 15:6, but he had some problems after that when it came to trusting God to provide him a seed through Sarah.
- The first is when he lived in the Ur of the Chaldees which represents glamour and where Abram needed to be separated from.
- Then 600 miles north up the Euphrates river we have the second area of geographical instability which was Haran, the trade center between Syria and Egypt, and it represents the dried spiritual life.
- Canaan, the promise land, which represents the place of blessing, the place of positive volition, and the place of spiritual advance.
- Abram didn't stay too long and because of the influence of the wrong people we see him going south from Canaan into the Negev which represents not rejection of doctrine but neglect of doctrine.
Negev represents neglect of doctrine, apathy, indifference, once interested but now starting to get sloppy in your daily attendance to Bible class, Heb 10:25.
EPH 3:18 that you may be able to comprehend in the presence of all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
EPH 3:19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God.
EPH 3:18 that you may be able to comprehend in the presence of all the saints
MAT 18:20 "For where two or three have gathered together in My name, there I am in their midst."
- After he was in the Negev a while he went on down to Egypt and Egypt is the place of rejection of doctrine.
To neglect the word is to reject the word but the neglect comes first.
First comes the Negev (neglect) and then comes Egypt (reject). And by the way, both came after Canaan, the land of promise.
Abram was saved, every time you turn around you find Abram stumbling around.
That is from Lot because of the evil influence of Lot's wife.
Lot wound up committing incest with his daughters in a cave and as a result of the incest we have two Arab groups called Moab and Ammon who have been antagonistic to Israel since the day they came into existence.
God graciously helps the believer in areas of personal blindness through the events of history.
No believer reaches maturity and super-grace blessing without those events which separate us from loved ones and ones that we might consider more important than Bible doctrine, and those who are NTD.
This is the principle of going forward and gaining ground and not losing ground and therefore standing firm against the satanic attacks designed to hinder your spiritual growth.
EPH 6:11 Put on the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.
1CO 16:13 Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.
Lot will feed human viewpoint to Abram because that's all that he gets from his wife who runs him.
She was a feminist but not feminine......and there's a tremendous difference.
Abram gets out of his reversionism by leaving Haran, however he does not separate from the reversionist, Lot.
He goes from Haran type reversionism to Egypt type reversionism or from the dried up spiritual life back into the devil's world or literally the kingdom of darkness.
No believer can continue to enjoy or to have fellowship or to socialize with a reversionist without getting reversionism on him.
He has 100 more years because he's going to die at age 175.
Abram finally came to geographical obedience but not personnel obedience.
You must be in the right geographical location and make daily decisions to perceive, metabolize, and apply Bible doctrine to your life.
The strict academic discipline is the fact that if you can't be face to face then you should have the discipline to take doctrine in daily some other way.
ACT 20:28 "Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood."
One of the first principles of the will of God is to get under your right pastor whoever he is and stay there and never let a day go by one way or another without taking in Bible doctrine in some capacity.
John penned the book of Revelation, which is a series of non-face-to-face messages delivered to seven churches on a regular basis; i.e., to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.
Paul's epistle to the Colossians was non-face-to-face teaching of those believers the apostle had never met.
Non‑canonical epistles are books that were written by the apostles and the early pastors of the church-age which were accurate doctrinally but not a part of the Canon of scripture.
Paul preached to at least a dozen churches through writing, the only technology for that time.
Epaphras was the founder and pastor of a local church at Colossae, according to Col 1:7 and 4:12, however according to Phile 23, Epaphras was serving with Paul in Rome during Paul's first imprisonment.
One such group was centered around an elect lady in 2 John; another group was centered around a man named Gaius in 3 John.
Those that we actually love the most and those that we are closest to often become the greatest testing at some point in our spiritual advance.
Sarai is a nag, but Sarai is never going to go from nag to hag as most nags do....she will go from nag to a virtuous woman.
prin-If loved ones do not advance with you spiritually, they will be used to hinder your spiritual growth at certain particular times.
Second prin-When negative volition toward doctrine occurs, those closest to you in your life will often become your greatest enemies and hindrance to spiritual advance.
The word for possessions is the Hebrew noun rekush which means great wealth.
prin-Even materialistic possessions become a test at some point in our spiritual experience.
Everything you possess,
every friend that you have,
everyone that you love,
at sometime in your advance, become a test.
When Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated...,he was bringing people and things that would be used for testing him.
Is that person or that possession more important to you than Bible doctrine?
Beware of being distracted from doctrine by anything that you have accumulated.
1TH 2:18 For we wanted to come to you‑‑ I, Paul, more than once‑‑ and yet Satan hindered us.
Satan doesn't drop was he's doing and then begin to focus his attention on you, he simply has a system that he developed which is designed to take you away from the plan of God and the reason why you have been created.
MAR 4:19 and the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.
- The worries of the world.
- The deceitfulness of riches.
- The desires for other things.