Voice of the Nazarene 8-11-24

Coming to you from North Central Ohio. We share with you the voice of the Nazarene. A week by week.

Venture into the Word of God sponsored by the Bucyrus Ohio Church of the Nazarene. We join our Pastor Reverend Ray LaSalle, and the voice of the Nazarene.

And I'm not even sure who I'm speaking to this morning, but I know this is the thought that's worked on my brain this weekend, we've got two funerals this week. I think you remember Richard Bauer, his sister Sharon, has passed away, and I think the funeral is Tuesday, and we lost Jeaness Ryland the other evening and her funeral is this Saturday. I've got a meeting down somewhere around Washington courthouse two nights, way out in the boonies, somewhere between Sabina, Ohio and Washington Court House remembe usr in prayer. Got a number of singers, and these folk are taking the chance trying to have a meeting and get a great old building going again with people. So remember us in prayer. Psalm 55 beginning in verse 12. This is David talking.

He's pinning his thoughts, he said, For was not an enemy that reproach me, he said, then I could have borne it. Neither was it he that hated me, that did magnify himself against me. Then I would have hid myself from him, but it was thou a man, mine, equal, my guide, mine, acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together and walked into the house of God in company.

Have you ever had a bad day? Two of you. I read about a brick layer that ended up in the hospital with extensive injuries because of a work related accident. And of course, the insurance company wanted information about his injuries, so he attached the following letter, and he said In your letter you asked for clarification regarding my insurance claim. He said, I hope the following information is adequate to explain my situation. As a bricklayer by trade, he said, I completed a six story building. When I got done, there was 500 pounds of brick left at the top of the building, and so he said, I rigged up a barrel to a rope and a pulley secured the rope carefully below, and after climbing to the top of the building, he said, I loaded the barrel with these 500 pounds of brick. He said, I descended and to let the bricks down I carefully untied the rope to let the barrel of bricks down. But as you can see from box six above, my weight is only 135 pounds. I was so surprised when I started to ascend that I clung tightly to the rope. And he said, in the vicinity of the third floor, he said, I met the barrel on its way down, which explains my skull fracture and broken collarbone. I continued up to the top of the barrel bricks hit the ground just as my one hand in the glove wrapped itself in the pulley, trapping me there. Meanwhile, because of the heavy weight of the barrel, the bottom fell out, leaving only the shell. And with the reduced weight, the barrel started up. And in the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel coming up, which explains my fractured ankle. I fell onto a pile of bricks, which explains my broken vertebrae. And was so surprised that I let go of the rope and the barrel came down on top of me. You know, in a world of hard knocks, sometimes we get to the end of our rope and the bottom falls out and we feel like we've been hit with a ton of bricks. David is feeling this way. He's been betrayed by the best friend that he had ever known in life. He's disappointed. If there's a name synonymous with betrayer here in America, we would probably say it's Benedict Arnold. Benedict Arnold is the man that betrayed George Washington and America.

We would probably say he was just a traitor and he was no good. But you might be surprised to know that he was actually a war hero. At one time an American war hero. I studied about him a little bit this week and found that his mother died when he was very, very young.

His dad, bothered by the death of his wife, became an alcoholic and went through all of the funds. Finally, he entered the military and served his country during that Revolutionary War.

He realized that George Washington's troops were inadequately trained, and so, out of his own resources, trained the American troops. In one of the battles, he was severely injured, and his leg was hurt, and four months later he came out of the hospital, one leg two inches shorter than the other leg. Injured many other times in battle. There were times when he led the troops and after the battle was over, other officers got the accolades and were positioned higher than him, and he became very disenchanted over time. After he was turned down, time after time after time became bitter, begin to create problems between he and other military leadership. One day, he came home to find that his wife had died, left with children to raise, and desperate for money and disillusioned, he made plans with the British to surrender West Point, a man carrying the paperwork was arrested, and when they found that he had turned traitor, was a betrayer, they went after him, and he quickly swung over to the British side, joined their military and turned to begin to fight with the British against America.

Benedict Arnold will always be remembered as a traitor, always remembered as a betrayer. His name is infamous in history as one of the men who betrayed George Washington. I don't know what happens that causes one to become a betrayer. I'm not sure I know why someone would want to betray others, and here's what might surprise you, but you need to know it. When it happens, it hurts. When somebody's betrayed us, it deeply hurts. Listen, the only person that can betray you is someone that you deeply love, you don't care about an enemy.

You don't care about people that don't know you, but someone that knows you on the inside, and you've shared confidence and emotionally you're tied to one another, when they turn on you it's so disappointing. Sometimes that betrayal is by a spouse, somebody that you deeply love, but they betrayed you. And could I just stop for a moment and say this, I think we ought to do our best to save marriages. I think we ought to do everything that we can, but you can't always control the decision of another person, and divorce happens. May I just say this as a pastor, if we cannot save a marriage, let's at least save the people. Let's at least save the people.

Divorce is not an unpardonable sin. God forgives sin. Now I move on from that to say that sometimes the betrayer might be your mom. It might be your dad.

Sometimes, in life experience we're not always the parents favorite child should be, but aren't. Sometimes we're not the one that gets all of the attention and it's lavished on another child. Sometimes we feel like we're less than and we feel betrayed. Sometimes the betrayals by a child. Child have been raised in the admonition of the Lord, they grow up and they turn on us. Sometimes the betrayals by a business partner.

Sometimes it's by a friend. It can be by a staff member. But there's a difference between betrayal and failure. Failure is because of a weakness. Sometimes people have a failure they're weak in some area of life, and I'm not condoning that. And by the way, it can happen to all of us. Do you know why God uses people that have failed? Because there is no other kind. You missed your point moment to say, Amen, but that's okay. There's a difference between betrayal and failure. Because betrayal is intentional.

It's premeditated. And when a person is supposed to have your back literally stabs you in the back. I was on the phone with a gentleman, and he was caught, and he knew he was facing a court trial, and he said to me, is there any way we can bury the ax? I said you already did. He said, we did? No, I said you did in my back. Bury the ax. Well, here's what I know, if we don't handle betrayal properly, it'll destroy your self esteem, and we'll never deal with people properly again. Now, it happened to King David, and King David said here in verse 12 and 13, I could have handled it if it had been an enemy. You expect it from an enemy. And by the way, we don't know who this enemy may have been. It doesn't really enumerate it, we have our ideas, we can talk about it. But David is saying he's my best friend, somebody I loved deeply, somebody we went to church together, we sat on the same pew together, somebody we had lunch after church was over with, somebody I thought the world of, somebody that was like family. And this is what he says in verse 12 through 14. And if you'll study your Bible, it's at a time when the nation of Israel was at peace, a time of great prosperity, but David, the most powerful man in the world at that time, was controlled by this person who had betrayed him. It ate on him, It stole his sleep, it robbed him of his peace. And he said, I just can't get my mind on the nation. I can't seem to focus on the agenda. I can't think of anything but the betrayal of this one man. You say, Pastor, how do you handle it? Well, I read this talking about betrayal. Steve lies dying as Jack, his law partner 40 years sets by his bedside, Jack, I've got to confess said Steve as he's dying, I've been going with your wife for years, and I've stolen from the law firm for more than a decade. Relax said Jack, don't bother about it. If you die, it's because I put arsenic in your drink. Betrayal, kind of works both ways sometimes. How do we handle betrayal? Well, I don't want to tell you from any of my teachings. I don't want to share my philosophy. I'd like to go straight back to the book. I'd like to go into the Word of God, just for a moment, and David, from experience, out of his own life story, tells how he dealt with betrayal, and if you'll follow his recipe, you can handle betrayal of your spouse or a business partner or a parent or a child or somebody that you trusted. How do you handle if somebody betrays you?

David tells us, in His Word, the Word of God, right here, he says, first of all, tell your hurt to God. If you look at verse one, give ear to my prayer, O God, and hide not thyself for my supplication.

Attend unto me and hear me. I mourn in my complaint and make a noise. What did David say? He said, tell it to the Lord how deeply you're hurt. Now, you've got to keep in mind David's king. He lives in the White House. I mean, he's at the palace. He's being waited on.

It's plush, it's nice. His clothes are being cleaned. He gets fed. And he's the most powerful man in the world. And yet, look at verse six, he said, Oh, but if I had wings like a dove. If I did, I'd just fly away, I'd just go off and I'd never return. I don't want to face life anymore. I got a call just moments before I walked out this morning, and a man called and he was sobbing, and he said, Brother LaSalle, can I have have a minute? And that's all I had.

And I said, Yes, I was afraid he'd take two. Then I realized how desperate he was. He said, I don't want to live any longer.

My wife has died, my daughter's died, and I've lost all hope.

Could you pray for me? I said, let's pray right now. People are dealing with huge things, folk.

And he said, I just want to walk off. I want to wander off and remain in the wilderness. David said, I hurt so bad, and you got to keep in mind, this is the guy that killed Goliath. And he said, betrayals so bad, I just want to get away from it all. I guess I'll just tell my hurt to God. And that's what I told my buddy. I said, just talk to God about it. Tell God, vent to God.

Unload your load, if you have to yell, yell, but if God can't hear he'll lean in and he'll listen. Charles Spurgeon, I like what he said, no one is such a real enemy than a false friend.

And I believe that David teaches us something to do when we're hurting. We ought to vent. David did, he vented to God. I don't believe he went around telling everybody else, but I believe he vented to God. Now, if you've got a dog, you can reverse how to spell dog. You know what it spells God. Somebody said that a dog is a man's best friend. I don't know who the best friend is to a lady, just mentioning that it must be a cat. And have you ever noticed you can just tell a dog anything you want to, and all it'll do is wake its tail, but it never wakes its tongue. Zoom. You want to see it again, and you can tell it to God, and God won't get on the phone and tell everybody else.

Just tell it to God. You say, Well, does Jesus understand betrayal? I would think so. The man that he trusted the most to become treasurer of their little group stole the money, and then he came back and literally walked up after having betrayed Christ and put a kiss on his cheek. Can I tell everybody in the house, you have a Judas close enough to put a kiss on your cheek too? Never forget that. So when somebody betrays us, tell it to God. And I'm convinced that when we go through a hard time, what we do most of the time, we go to the phone. And we ought not go to the phone, we ought to go to the throne and tell it to the Lord.

We need to take it to God. David said, I can tell you how to handle betrayal. You need to tell God about it. And he said, Here's the second thing you ought to do, tune your heart to God. David said, This is what I realized when I've been betrayed, I can either sit and stew or I can pursue God. Look at what he said in verse 16, as for me, I'll call upon God, And the Lord shall save me. In other words, he's saying the Lord's his savior. Did you know you have a Savior? Anybody need saved around here? And not only that, he can save us from anything he said evening and morning and at noon, will I pray and cry aloud, and he shall hear my voice. And not only is he a savior, he's our listener. Can I give you one of my favorite scriptures? You can pastor.

Thank you. It's Psalm 116, verse one, I love the Lord because He hath heard my voice and my supplications. Now catch this, because he has inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon Him as long as I live. Do you know what that means? When somebody inclines their ear, they lean into you. Grandpa, my grandpa, mom's dad, Grandpa Sexton, and he had problems hearing so when people were talking, he wanted to hear it, so he'd lean in and cup his ear like that, because he didn't want to miss it. And I don't believe God is wanting to miss what you have to say, it's important. That's Ray I haven't heard from him for a while, and he leans in. Why, He said that's that's Sandy, I want to hear what Sandy and there's Bob, I want to hear what Bob has to say. He inclines his ear, He leans in. But if you go back to Psalm 55, verse 16, not only is he my savior, not only is he my listener, but look at verse 18.

Psalms 55:16

He had delivered my soul in peace from the battle that's against me. So the good news is he's not only our Savior, our listener, but he's now our deliverer. And he doesn't stop there. In verse 19, God shall hear to afflict them that abideth of old. It's saying that he's my ruler from the very beginning, he's saying to every one of us. I'm your savior, I'm your listener, I'm your deliverer, I'm your ruler. I'll make the bad turn into good.

What's God saying? When you're betrayed focus on God. Don't be so stupid as to follow the person that's hurting you on Twitter feed. Quit giving on Facebook and looking up what they have to say. I've already told you, Facebook can't make the lame walk, but it sure makes the dumb talk. Quit focusing on them and start focusing on God and tell God you're hurt, and tune in your heart. And then, thirdly, trust your healing to God. You've got to get well. Are you going to go through life all messed up and in a bind and in a twist. So he said here in verse 20, he had put forth his hand against such as be at peace with him he had broken his covenant. Pastor, have you ever been betrayed?

Maybe you don't understand. Hey, you don't have time to listen. I can tell you a lot of stories.

People that I hunted up and made a call on, people I've sat in the hospital with, people I've dedicated their baby and then they turned and have done their best to hurt. I understand betrayal. I've been around for a while. Maybe I've been around too long, I don't know. Look at verse 21 the words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart. Pretty slick, isn't it? Somebody full of war, but they're smooth. And he said his words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords. Get this, a true friend will never flatter you. They'll praise you, but they'll never flatter you. Somebody that's flattering you to your face will slatter, flatter and spatter you behind your back. When they're continually flattering you to your face, they're not flattering to your back. A true friend praises you to your face, and they praise you to your back. When you're not even around, they're still speaking well. I love what David says in 55th Psalm, verse 22, Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He

He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. What's he saying? What he's saying, It's time to leave behind the person who's left you behind. You know, there comes a time just to let go of some people. Just let them go. Don't mourn over them. Don't grieve about it. Just let them go. T.D.

Jakes said, when people can walk away from you, let them walk away, your destiny is not tied to the person who left. and the very God that may have allowed them to come into your life can remove them from your life.

Don't grieve over it. Thank God for it. He's planning a better future. And then, fourthly, tie your hope to God. Look at verse 22, cast that burden, I'm repeating this verse. Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. What he's saying is, if you live long enough, everybody and everything that you ever place confidence in will fail you. God doesn't want your confidence to be in an individual anyway. God doesn't want any individual to be your source. God wants to be your source. Don't be looking to the pastor or pastors. Don't look to a person. Don't look to a personality. And then an incidentally the Lord will never leave nor forsake us. So you've always got him. But my final thought is, think the best of people. Mark Twain said, If a cat ever sets on a hot stove, he'll never sit on a hot stove again. Fact of the matter, he'll never sit on a cold stove. That cat don't like stoves. Now, here's what I've learned. Folk Satan wants to take a betrayal and he wants to change the way you look at life. He wants to take that betrayal and change the way that you look at people.

And sometimes when we go through a hard time, from that point on, we want to keep people at an arm's length. Pastor, I never want to get hurt by people again. I understand. But let me tell you something, when you keep people at an arm's length, they'll never hurt you again, but they'll never help you again either, and you'll never be able to help anyone else. God still wants you to think the best of people. He wants us to see the best in people, no matter what's happened. Here's a story. It's in the Bible, the guy's name was Shimei. He happened to be an enemy of David, and when David was ousted by, Guess who, his own son from the throne? And he had a coup against his dad, and David is having to flee in his bare feet. He's running from the palace, and he's somewhere off in the mountains now with only a handful of men, if even that many. He had his armor bearer with him, and he comes to this brook, and there's Shimei, one of those kind of guys that always got something in their crawl for you. And Shimei sees him and he says to him, he says, Be cursed. And he literally begins to curse David.

He'd have never done that when David was on the throne, but he curses David. And can you imagine David's at the lowest tide at the lowest time ever in his life? Isn't it amazing how the devil always has a Shemei eye to come when we're at our very lowest and it nearly blows us out of the water, we just want to throw in the towel. You say, Well, is the devil omniscient? No, but he's always watching. He's watching. He's watching when you turn on that computer after the wife goes to bed. He's watching when you got that temptation and you're about to do it, the devil's watching.

He's learning your weakness.

He's always watching. And Shemei not only curses David, but he reaches down and begins to pick up rocks, and he's throwing them across the brook at David, and he's saying, David, you're a poor excuse for a king man of war. Why you're going to get what you deserve. You stole the kingdom from Saul. Now your son's about to steal the kingdom from you. Chickens always come home to roost. David had his armor bearer with him, faithful, loyal armor bearer. I tell you one thing, one of the most precious commodities you can have as a friend that will be an armor bearer.

The job of the armor bearer was to protect the king. He would block any darts coming. He would throw up a shield and always protecting. I thank God for my staff. I've had staff that didn't protect me. I thank God for Bev just about every week.

Probably the one that works the closest to protecting me of anybody on staff working there in the office. If anybody wanted to get to me if they can get past your office manager, they can get you. And I've had them when instead of protecting me, they stepped to one side and tried to point out something, even if they had to make it up.

It'll destroy you. Thank God for an armor bearer. His name was Abishai. And Abishai looked at this man who's cursing the king, almost to be ex King, throwing rocks at him, and he reaches for his sword, and he said, You want me to take my sword and slay him? And David said, No, maybe, maybe God said, curse David today I don't know, he's broken.

But he said, I know one thing, God can bring good out of the bad. God can make good out of the bad. Now, I don't know what betrayal you've experienced, but I promise you that God can turn the bad into good. I promise you, God can make whatever's been bad turn out good, however or whatever may have happened.

Thanks for being a part of the voice of the Nazarene.

Visit us every Sunday at 9am with BNC's Pastor Ray LaSalle.

For more information regarding BNC, visit Bucyrus nazarene.org.

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