<TITLE>05. Par 14-16</TITLE>L-14 Isaiah had been educated, and--and at school with the king, and so forth. He had the best that could be give him mentally, I suppose, in his intellectuals. But God had to make a prophet out of him by revealing Himself to him, by giving him something tangible, that he could see it was no more so much in literature, and reading, and writing. But the things that he had read about God and heard about God, become manifested right before him.
Then he said, "I'm of unclean lips, and dealing and dwelling among unclean people." And God prepared him for his days of prophecy. That's the way God does things. He does it in a mysterious way.
The prophet Elijah, we might think of him for a moment. There he is, laying back in a cave. He'd seen the power of God a few days before that, forty days before. He had God's power. He had prayed, and three years and six months it had not rained. And then he prayed again on the mountain, and fire came down from heaven and devoured the sacrifice. And then he prayed again, and rain come and bathed the earth. And then, by the fear of the threat of the queen, he run into the wilderness; he knowed he was missing something. There was something in him that wasn't right yet.

L-15 When he pulled back in the cave, there come an earthquake outside that shook the cave where he was a sitting. There come a mighty rushing wind; there come thunders, and lightnings, and blowing. And it was all God, but it didn't attract the prophet. It didn't touch him somehow. He knowed what God's power was. He knowed God had shook the mountains, and he'd had rushing winds, and so forth, and sent fire out of the heaven. But he waited. And way down inside of him come a little still Voice. That attracted the prophet. There was something. He'd seen His power to do things, but this time he felt His Presence, and a still small Voice speaking into his heart. Then the prophet raised up and went out to the end of the cave.
Sometimes we ask for things, get something vice versa? We make God something that we want to make Him answer the way we think He ought to answer.

L-16 Israel, there's another case. Israel was looking for a mighty king to come to beat the Romans down with a rod of iron. What did God give them? A Baby. Instead of a mighty king, He gave them a Baby wrapped in swaddling cloth, said, "You'll find Him laying in a manger."
He didn't come the way that they expected Him to come, and they refused it. "It has to come our way or it's no good." They said, "Take it back." And He did. That's right. You got to accept it the way God sends it and be happy about it.
God anchors a little something in your heart and says, "This is It." Believe It. Hold onto It. That's God's Word. He's promised He'd confirm It to you. And if He confirms the Word, hold onto It.
Yeah, they didn't want that Baby. "If You can't send us a king, why, we won't have that Baby. You can just take it back." See it's got to a way that--that we think it's got to be.
We must remember that God does it His way. And His way is always the right way. We've got to believe what God said about it, and know that it's absolutely the truth, and stay with it. Hold on to it.


<A HREF="P6">Next Page</A>