Living Amazed – Part 2

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Welcome to 15 Minutes in the Word with New York Times bestselling author Joyce Meyer. On today's program, Joyce will be teaching from her series, Filled with Hope. Hope is the confident expectation that something good is going to happen to us and through us. But it's very important we have our hope set in the right place. We can place hope in many things. But only hope in our faithful heavenly father and his promises to us and his word, will bring about the blessings he has for us.

Now, here's Joyce with today's teaching.

Joyce Meyer (0:32)

As the Israelites took God for granted, became too familiar with all of his blessings, and they were no longer amazed. Their enemies began defeating them, and the Philistines came against them and took the ark. When the priest Eli heard that the ark had been taken, he fell over dead. Now, just imagine that. He was so shocked that they were no longer going to have the presence of God, and so upset about it that it just killed him. He just fell over dead. When his daughter-in-law who was pregnant heard the news about the ark, she bowed over in labor pains and gave birth, and she called her child Ichabod, meaning the glory is gone from Israel. We don't have any time to play in church. We need to have God's presence in our midst. Everywhere that we go. And if that takes a little shouting and a little acting crazy, so be it.

You know, I hope not, but there might have been a few people here tonight not used to stuff like that, and you're thinking, well, I just think that was stupid. That was just all emotions. Well, let me tell you something. God gave me my emotions, and if I'm going to use them on anything, I'm going to use them on him.

I have seen my husband act like a total complete nut over a football game. And my sons, why should we not act the same way about God?

You had to be made alive when you were dead in your sins. Why, you hath he stiffened? We're born again, not bored again.

Let's not get too familiar with what should be extremely amazing to us. I told God a few years ago, I said, I want you to move in my life in such a way that I will literally live with my mouth hanging open in awe. And I would have to say when I stand here tonight.

This event brings in the second-highest income into this city in the year.

Oh, Jesus, help me do this. I think we can safely say that a lot of the glory has been gone from the church for far too long. And by the church, I mean the church at large. But perhaps it's because we're no longer amazed at what God does. Perhaps we've lost too much of our reverential fear and awe. And we need to start purposely getting it back and being more reverent and living amazed. I don't like to hear people telling jokes about the Holy Ghost. We just need to be careful. God is a Holy God, and we don't need to be afraid of Him, but we do need to have a reverential fear. A reverential fear. You know, I can go on and on. I mean, this thing just gets really interesting. The ark was taken to Ashdod after the Philistines got it in place next to their god, Dagon. He was their idol. And the next morning, poor old Dagon had fallen over flat on his face. Well, they set him back up. And you know, you can keep propping your other gods up all you want to. And I say that not for you here, but more for the people that maybe just flipped into the TV program. I said, you can prop your other gods up all you want to, but we have the god of gods, the king of kings and the lord of lords.

Well, they set him back up. And the next morning, he not only had fallen over, but his head and the hands had been broken off, and only his trunk was there. I think God was saying something. Well, they kept acting silly, so the whole place got full of mice. The people got tumors and boils. So, they moved the ark to Goth. They panicked at the deaths that occurred there due to the plague. They got boils and tumors, so they sent the ark to Echron. They had panicked, plagued tumors and boils, so finally, after seven months, they sent it back to Israel. We don't know what to do with this god. You can have him back. Well, they put him on a cart, pulled him by cows, the ark, put it on a cart, pulled it by cows, went toward Beth Shemesh. And when the people saw it, they rejoiced, they got so happy. But you know what? They disrespected the ark and they looked inside of it. They touched it and many of them just fell over dead. The ark finally ended up in the house of Abinadab for nearly 100 years. Now, what happened during those 100 years? People got used to it. Hey, hey, the ark. Probably when they first moved it into that house, I mean the people were just thrilled.