The Cup

i leaned over to brother river and said that really is not a christmas song it was originally written as a second advent song the second coming of the lord when he establishes his kingdom upon this earth but we've adapted it to the fact that with his coming great tidings of great joy brother brad hallelujah the joy of the lord is our strength i'm glad to be in the house of the lord tonight amen amen why don't we just thank him again for his coming into this world father we thank you that you extended yourself into creation the the thing that you had made you came to take away the sin of the world and we thank you lord god that you ever manifested yourself in the flesh to bring this joy unspeakable and full of glory we thank you for it lord we thank you for it lord hallelujah hallelujah god is good and uh i want to talk to us tonight a little bit i'll i'll probably just try to slow down and slow my speech down you listen fast i'll talk slow or maybe vice versa i'm not sure but what i'm about to to talk about was born from uh i have a study buddy here um brother clark randy clark is one of my study buddies and every week we get together and we discuss just random thoughts and in one of our conversations now you you all everybody needs that if if you only people who need you make you feel valuable but people who feed you make you feel vulnerable got that we tend to surround ourselves with things that need us to make us feel valuable that's why the pet industry in the united states

is a hundred and three billion dollars we like our dogs and our pets because they need us but when we walk into a room and and people start to give us feed us things it makes us feel vulnerable but we need somebody to feed us we need somebody that's close to us that can give us things into our lives because if you only give out to those who need you and you never take in from those who feed you you're going to ultimately die and so out of that conversation that we were having the lord just began to build on that now this is the old boris belt comedians you know you don't know what i'm talking some of you do but the old boris belt comedians uh victor borgia and some of those they always had a they had this line that they would they would say stop me if you've heard this okay so don't stop me if you've heard this but i doubt that you've heard this very much let's put it that way numbers the fifth chapter beginning at verse 11. this is one of the most absurd scriptures out of many absurd scriptures and when i say that i'm not disrespecting the scripture i'm just saying that god works in absurdities sometimes he really does and the lord spoke to me moses saying speak unto the children of israel and say unto them if any man's wife go aside and commit a trespass against him and a man lie with her carnally and it be hid from the eyes of her husband and be kept close and she be defiled and there be no witness against her neither she be taken with the manner and the spirit of jealousy

come upon him now i want you to focus on this scripture and the spirit of jealousy come upon him and he'd be jealous of his wife and she be defiled get this or or if the spirit of jealousy come upon him and he'd be jealous of his wife and she be not defiled okay either way then shall the man bring his wife unto the priests and he shall bring her offering for her the tenth part of an ifa of barley meal he shall pour no oil upon it nor put frankincense thereon for it is an offering of jealousy everybody say an offering of jealousy it's an offering of jealousy and an offering of memorial bringing iniquity to remembrance now where are you going with this i don't know i thought maybe somebody could tell me but the fact is the fact is i want to talk about this this thing uh you can be seated because if we if we read further in this it is the most unusual ceremony that's recorded in scripture brother williford uh a man just gets a suspicion about his wife whether she's done anything or not he brings her to the priest all right and and so now many many uh many people have twisted this uh the the advocates for abortion for example take this scripture here and they they use it to to uh establish the fact that it was it was an abortion that was taking place here okay i will not even dignify that with an answer because it's so ridiculously antithetical to what the word of god actually teaches okay but there there and this is difficult because there is absolutely no biblical reference that

this ever took place at any time i looked in the jewish writings the rabbinical writings there is no evidence in the rabbinical writings that this ceremony ever was incorporated into by by anyone so it was in the bible now to me to me when the when the book is written these are the things that just point to the fact that god is the author of it all regardless of the man writing god is still the author of it all god to me is in the details the the intimate details and so this this particular procedure its roots uh its roots are probably in exodus 32 remember when moses went up to the mountain and he came back down again and the children of israel had made themselves a golden calf and so the lord tells him grind up that calf into powder put it in a cup make them drink it now absurd right make them drink it and then after they drunk it he killed about 3 000 of them so there was there was a curse in the cup in which they had partaken of and that curse was idolatry but i think the thing that was being established there was was that god is jealous he's a jealous god and in this ceremony this this uh ceremony of jealousy that the cup of jealousy is what it's called and if you read on down you you you get the gist of what's going on here without any witnesses without any uh doesn't even have to be any any concrete evidence just the provocation of jealousy by this this person this can make for some strange relations at the supper table i'll tell you vic get dressed we're going down to

the priest what for well it's a you know i'm going to put you on a diagnostic test it's just a test i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna plug you in to to god and and we're gonna find out if you've been faithful or not this would make for some really strained relationships in marriages okay and it's all because it says that if if she's done something or if she hasn't done anything if it's just a suspicion that the man has he's gonna bring her down to the priest and test her on this on this point now the bible goes on to give us a explanation of all the things that go on here but but i want us to understand it is without a any witness it is just an accusation it's it's reminiscent of the woman that was brought to jesus and she had no nothing but accusers and they they brought her to him and and they threw her at his feet and and they said she was taken in the very act of adultery now i'm going to speculate a little bit here so bear with me because this woman was brought to jesus and and uh she was he was cast at his feet and and and he stooped down twice and he wrote two things in the dirt that caused everybody to leave because if there was any evidence at all you know what would happen they're going to kill her but the man was to get stoned also so i'm going to speculate that that first of all that jesus would stoop down and write in the sand where is the man and he got up and and some of them had left and he stooped down and he wrote again and i'm going to speculate again that the

second thing that he would have probably written would have been where are the witnesses because she didn't have witnesses she just had accusers because if there had been witnesses she would have been at the sanhedrin and being tried for her crimes and she would have been stoned for that so in this case it was just the provocation of jealousy and accusation and so the following protocol was was observed the woman was brought to the priest and she was divested of her covering her her her headpiece her veil she was stripped of that now it doesn't mean a whole lot to us but that was the glory of the woman it concealed her beauty for her husband and so it was it was stripped from her the the devil loves to do this to us he puts you in a position of vulnerability and he strips from you the first thing that he wants to strip from you is the glory that god has put into your life he wants to make you feel like you're absolutely worthless and you're nothing and so she's sitting there now without her veil and a memorial offering is placed into her hands it is a sobering reminder of the solemnity of the ceremony that is about to take place and then because the law for unfaithfulness is now recited to her and the priest makes her also recite the curse that is going to be pronounced upon her just so she would understand and acknowledge the fact yes it's the law and yes here i am taking this test and then into this cup that would be placed in her hands and this is full of symbolism here the

there would be water from the laver that was in the tabernacle it was the holy water from the laver it represents that which is holy that which is consecrated and there are numerous examples in the bible where the the water represents the spirit so let's just say first of all into the cup goes that which is spiritual and then he scrapes dust from the tabernacle floor and puts that into the cup now she's got a muddy concoction in the cup of holy water and the cursed earth in the same cup she has the curse and the consecration in this test that she's about to drink and then finally the priest would write out the curse and then he would wash it off with water from the cup into the cup so now you've got the spirit the flesh and the law all in the cup of judgment here are the tests that she's about to take let me just explain some things the cup did not craft the circumstances that placed it in her hands the cup had nothing to do with that the cup did not dictate the terms or the conditions of its execution that was god's law that was being executed here it was god's choice to do it this way the cup listen it does not shape or mold the person into whose hands it is past it's simply everybody say it's a test it's a test it's it's it's a test and it's sole purpose we i want to i want to challenge us to think tonight that the testing that comes to us we think of it sometimes in various ways we think of it as an educational process it is not god when he tests us is not trying to educate

us he's trying to reveal something in us the testing doesn't mold us it doesn't shape us it doesn't make us all it does is reveal what is uh already in the person we have got to already have the experience with god and when the trials the when the testing comes all it does is reveal what is on the inside of us amen it's like the refiners fire to the gold in that process the the fire is applied and when the impurities bubble to the surface they are quickly removed and and the gold becomes more pure as the impurities are removed by the refiners fire first peter chapter 4 and verse 12 says it like this beloved think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing has happened unto you don't think and then the original language it says it's something like this don't think it's strange that you're hosting this fire on the inside of you don't think it's strange that these testings come anybody here ever been through a test a testing time is not meant to destroy us it's simply meant to reveal something in us and there are some principles about the tests when god puts the cup in our hand there are some principles that we must adhere to and that we must understand first of all that it's god alone that controls your destiny it is not the devil it is not the world if we have committed ourselves to god it is god alone he alone is the one who is able to test us and controls the outcomes of these tests and nine times in the old testament i found references

directly stating that god is a jealous god what does that mean see jealousy when we think of it in definition we think of it as a bad thing but in in in a one of the definitions that i found of jealousy it is a someone who an emotion that that reaches out to protect something that belongs to you it's it's something that guards what belongs to you and i think that's the context that we must understand it when it comes to god it's not an evil thing it is simply that god is wanting to protect what belongs to him think it not strange concerning the fiery trial or the test that god will put into your hands all he's doing is trying to prove that you belong to him remember job there came a time when the sons of god appeared before the throne and and satan among them and and job 1 7 says it like this the lord said unto satan when's cometh thou now watch this smart alec answer of him he said basically let me translate carden's translation here i go where i want i do what i want to whomever i want and nobody stops me and i've got everybody doing what i want them to do then verse 7 or verse 8 rather and the lord said to satan why did he say this job poor sap he's sitting over here minding his own business you know making his sacrifices giving to god everything that he can give to god he's sitting over here minding his own business he has no clue that all this is going on in the realm of the heavens but what has happened folks is satan has provoked god to jealousy he said i go where i want

to do what i want and i can get anybody to do what i want and god says wait a minute wait a minute i've got people down there whoo i feel like that's so that in this generation in this hour where we see it seems like everything's going to hell in a hand basket it's not hell is not unleashed heaven is still in control and god is still saying i've got people down there the lord said to satan have you considered my servant job that there is none like him there is nobody like him he's a perfect man he's an upright man and he and he fears god and and he shuns evil and satan says yeah but you got like a boy in a bubble nobody can touch job because you you put this hedge around him and nobody but i guarantee you god's getting really jealous about this time i guarantee you that if you let down that hedge from around job he will curse you to your face you'll see what he's like and all this time in job 1 11 he said put forth your hand now and touch all that he has and he'll curse you to your face and god's getting really jealous now but he says okay i'm going to give him this cup to drink this cup of jealousy listen in this cup it's it's simple there are only two outcomes only two things can come of this either job will come out stronger in his faith or the flesh will win out and god is willing to bank that if i give him my spirit if i give him the strength i know oh god help us if god puts you into the fire if he gives you the test he is have confidence in you that you will be able to

withstand everything that comes against you he's saying i've got people down there that will in spite of everything that comes against them they will stand for me through the testing and so job unsuspecting is sitting there with a cup of bitterness in his hand and and in one day's time everything's gone and he's sitting there now we we are ch success chasers we like success stories you can pick any point on job's timeline and over here you would say he was successful and then when he was going through his mess you would say uh-uh he's probably not very successful we would not follow him into that kind of success but that's not the way god was viewing it he was saying you were successful when you had everything and you're successful when you have nothing as long as and here is the key he is looking for one thing and that is that the cup will prove that you are ultimately faithful that you will retain that nugget of faith that he has put on the inside of you in spite of whatever comes may i say this and i have to i have to move along but the only thing that matters in all of your testing is that you retain your faith in god that you keep that nugget that morsel of faith that god has put into you that that will sustain you through all the testing that you go through nobody passes the test with flying colors first peter 4 18 if the righteous scarcely be saved listen we've got to understand that that we are not going to breeze through this life i'm going to say it this way no feet

that haven't been through the fire are going to stand on streets of gold it's not going to happen every one of us are going to find ourselves in the test but may i say to you child of god don't give up don't judge your success or failure when you're in the middle of drinking of that bitter cup don't look at yourself and judge yourself to be a failure god is the only one who can judge the outcome of this test i believe that on that day folks this has came to me a while back that when we stand before the judgment seat of christ and rewards are going to be passed out some of the ones that we consider great successes fine i'll applaud them but i think we're going to be surprised by the people when we stand there and start applauding for them because god has judged them faithful that's all he's looking for is just that little seed of faith there is no grading scale in this we look around at each other and and we kind of gauge each other's spirituality and we say oh man that guy's he's doing great he's making it you know he's just passing this test with flying colors nobody does that see god doesn't grade on a scale of a to f so some of us are not making a's and others of us making c's and it's not that way the way that god judges is simply a pass or fail that's all every time we this is amazing to me every time we come together i'm looking into the faces of people who have been through some severe tests you've been through it some you know we've stood in places where you've suffered

loss great loss death you you've suffered failure in your health brother brother fred the things that you've gone through would buckle my knees but i look in the faces of people who have been through those kind of tests remember god's still in control and that's the reason why i look at you and say praise god why because you're still in the house of god tonight and your faith is intact you still believe that there is a god that controls your destiny hallelujah some suffer financial loss some of you you know you've been through familial crisis and got kids that's just run amok you've got you you got all kinds of spousal situations and and people come to the house of god we never know who's sitting on the bench next to us what they're going through but you are in the house of god tonight you keep coming back and that as far as god is concerned is a pass it's a pass it's a success the world may not consider its success but god says i give it my stamp of approval because they have retained their faith and have remained faithful we tend to shrink from the destruction much of christianity and this kind of um how can i say this and be nice it grates on me to hear preachers preach nothing but prosperity doctrines because it makes you feel like a failure if you don't have a mercedes in your garage and a six-figure bank account to back it up right yeah we much of christendom doesn't want the disruption we shrink from that god want to give us a a cup of testing and and we say no no no wait

a minute i don't like that we want to god remember rachel stole laban's gods can you imagine that bring my gods back where are they they're in my saddlebags over there in the camel if your god is only a god that can be packed away in a saddlebag on a camel you don't have much of a god anyway laban but but that's the kind of god that a lot of people want they want a god that is small and unobtrusive non-invasive doesn't get in my life and disrupt things too much used to be a song for those of us who remember metal dashboards on cars i don't care if it rains or freezes i've got a little plastic jesus sitting on the dashboard of my car through all my trials and tribulations i've got guaranteed salvation sitting on the dashboard of my car plastic jesus gotta go the magnets mess up my radio sitting on the dashboard of my car but that's the kind of jesus a lot of people want one that they can remove easily from their from their life like a side car on a motorcycle it's fine if it's there but if it if it's not i can ride this motorcycle without it that's the kind of god that many people want but but to those that i'm speaking to tonight when we pray that prayer that prayer of consecration that says not my will but thy will be done do you realize that we are opening ourselves to all kinds of disruption in our lives when we pray that kind of prayer to god the one that says i'll follow in faith wherever you lead and so god then this jealous god begins to test your faith and test your faithfulness

we like our plans i was going to bring my jenga game tonight everybody anybody play jenga you know the it's a great game the goal is to make somebody else fail so i was going to have my little jenga here this is our plans here's what we do to god god will speak a word to us even a promise and then what do we do we get busy on our plans you can take a jinga tower brother brad you can take a jingle tower and if you conspire with the rest of the participants you can take three tiles off each time each layer and you can get all the way to the bottom great plan everybody wins right see god don't play that way god does not play that way abraham's experience should teach us a lesson god says i'm going to make you a great nation and abraham says great i'm going to get busy on the plan i'll even pray over the planet that'll help you know we get our plans and and then we pray that god's blessing listen if god tells you what he'll also tell you how i'm just foolish enough to believe that that if god tells us what he will also tell us how we don't have to chase something else god will but but abraham what does he do he he gets the covenant promises and and so he begins to plan and and so sometimes the worst things that can happen to us is that our plans succeed as christians as leaders the worst things that can happen to us is that our plans succeed and so so uh sarah god's gonna make me a great nation and sarah says okay let's get this tower down we'll start taking tiles off of it and and

we'll make our little plan and she says great here's how we'll do it hagar and god says drink this not hagar sarah what you know how old that woman is way past the child bearing years but god said sarah not hagar and he goes down to the bottom of the jinga tower and he pops out one of the tiles wait that's not fair we're starting at the top and we work our plan and and so they get together again and they say well you know that's okay uh ishmael ishmael is going to be the son and god goes um drink this and through it all what does the bible say it says that abraham staggered not at the promises of god through unbelief he never staggered every time god would hand him another cup of testing he would say okay and so well it didn't work out with hagar but but here's the thing here's the way we chase success we'll write a book on surrogacy that way we can tell everybody that's if our plan works you understand what i'm saying that if my plan works i can write a book and tell everybody else how to do it so we'll write the book on being a surrogate parents and surrogate uh mother you know and so and so uh he said we we've still got we've still got ishmael you got to keep in mind that god he looks at our plans they're not as precious to him somebody said somebody said if you want to make god smile just tell him your plans god's not as concerned about our plans as we are we nurture those plans we build those plans but listen remember when you're when you're chasing success pharaoh followed

the same path that moses did the same plan and it ended up as a disaster for him amen it's god who will give you the plan if he gives you the promise so watch drink this it's not going to be ishmael what send them away oh bitter cup this is not part of my plan it's not going to be ishmael but it's going to be isaac and so here they go abraham recovers from drinking that cup and he said great we'll build all of our plans around isaac then what could possibly go wrong with that until god says take your only son isaac and the tower just crumbles and falls down when god says take isaac to moriah and offer him there as a sacrifice let me tell you something god will keep giving you the cup until you run out of rope to hang on to he'll keep handing you the cup until he has proven what he wants to prove he says take isaac to mariah and when when abraham had run out of plans that's when he was poised for a miracle it is not until we have exhausted our plan as long as we've got a plan god's going to let us execute it but when we run out of plan that's when god has us poised for a miracle i i tried to think in my mind was there a single biblical miracle that ever took place because some man planned it most of it came out of absurd situations things that you could not plan for or wouldn't even think of but that's just the way our god works and operates he thinks so much higher than we do and so he says to the prophet go over there to a widow's house and she's going to sustain you now she

was in worse shape than he was she said i'm just going to make a cake for me and my kid and we're going to lay down and die but god sent me here listen when you run out of the plan when you got no ideas of your own that's when god can work on your situation and poise you for a miracle hallelujah here they go abraham and isaac up moriah's mountain and while they're ascending on one side with this bitter cup in his hand god was approaching moriah from the other side with the provision of a redeemer hallelujah oh think about think about this this lamb that was caught in the thicket a lamb with a crown of thorns that's upon his head and he can't get out of it and while abraham has run out of plan is about to sacrifice his son there is redemption that's caught in the thicket and abraham then learned of god but beyond that god also said now i know now i know but god you know everything i brought this up in prayer meeting the other day god knows everything conceptually i said it's like this if if i were to say to this this audience i know everything about childbirth all you women who want to stone me but see conceptually i can know things but experience you know experientially i don't know things okay so conceptually god in his foreknowledge knew what would happen but it's time and experience that unfolds the plan of god and so god says to him now i know i got to hurry on but the final hours this this cup of bitterness i i kind of found the trail of it and and it found its way into

a supper that jesus had prepared uh for for his disciples for his apostles and and it's unique that it was a test of faithfulness that he was handing to them it was a cup of a bitter cup because each one of them to the man said is it i is it i is it i they begin to examine themselves as being am i faithful to him or am i not faithful to him this was a cup of jealousy that he was handing them and all of them to the man was saying is it i except for the man with the plan the man who had the plan slipped out before the cup was offered because he knew what he would do in himself he knew what his plans were a short time later in a garden called gethsemane there was this lone figure praying saying if it be possible let this cup pass from me let this cup this bitter bitter cup if there's any other way let it pass out of my hands but you see god is a jealous god and he would not even spare in romans 8 32 it says it this way he that spared not his own son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things he didn't spare his son he didn't spare jesus the the bitter cup that he would drink jesus went from if it be possible let this cup pass from me to put up thy sword simon put it into the sheath the cup which my father hath given me shall i not drink it we kick against the cup we push away from the cup but if he didn't spare his own son do you think that you're going to make it through this life without this test let's stand i'm going to quit there

there's a there's another cup in this chain and i think we have downplayed it as far as the the catholic church is concerned it is the sacrament of the church and they actually believe that the wafer turns into the body of christ and the the cup turns into the blood of jesus christ and you know then we've got the other extreme that that just views it as some kind of ceremony and somewhere in the middle of all that there is a very significant occurrence in the cup we we view the primitive church through the lens of history and we idolize them sometimes we we we make them a model and they're not they're not a template of what we should be they're just like we were sometimes worse than we are think about it paul said you've got divisions one says i'm of paul one says i'm of cephas once talk about the ultimate small group nightmare they had divided into factions over who they'd been baptized by watch this folks these are people with the holy ghost just like you and i have right this this is why it gives me hope because even even through repentance even if you remove yourself out of sin we still have struggles we still have struggles and so and so paul writes to them you can read it for yourself he writes to them and he says all right all you thieves over here you got to quit stealing you got the holy ghost now hello and and you you men that have been visiting temple prostitutes don't you know that if you join your body to a harlot you've joined the body of christ to her what in the

church people in the yeah people just like us we we kind of put them on a pedestal but but fallibility is a common human frailty only god is infallible and so i'll hurry through this first of all when you come together in the church i hear there be divisions among you and i partly believe it he goes you you come together but you're not together you're in the church but you you're divided contrast that with acts chapter 2 verse 1 where he said they were all in one place but they were all with one accord they were all with one accord so be reminded of this i want us just to remember we just had communion a few weeks ago but i want us to remember this next time we have communion every time we have communion what does the bible say all these factions you know left side don't like the right side or whatever you know well i love them but i don't like them together this this is the significance of this cup it's a cup of testing testing paul said do we provoke the lord do we provoke him to jealousy at this there are people coming to the table and they're getting drunk in church he said so when you come to this table let it be with self-examination first corinthians 11 28-29 but let a man examine himself before you drink that cup i know we're so we're sometimes kind of i'll just admit we're kind of glib about it sometimes we don't take it very seriously we think anybody can drink this cup and participate no no no no the first step is you better examine yourself because it's a cup of testing

and paul says he said because he that eateth and drinketh unworthily does what it's that cup of the curse is in the cup he said he eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the lord's body that's the church a proper assessment of the church and he and he says this is why the power of god is not manifest the way that it should be among you because you come to this table but you have not rightly assessed the body of jesus christ and he said for this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep why because there's a curse in the cup if you don't partake with a correct assessment of self and the body the unexamined life is a vain life the untested faith is not faith at all as the church we stand on this final battleground called laodicea this is it folks if we don't get it right now we're never going to get it right this is it we're on the final battle battleground and so what does this cup of testing reveal about us are we rich and increase with goods and have need of nothing or i can do all things through christ which strengthens me i'd rather be in that camp wouldn't you because when the son of man cometh the only thing he's looking for will the son of man find faith do you believe is your faith strong when the testing comes when the when when the cup is handed to you and it has been in several occasions i i look into the faces of people who have been tested and you're you're standing strong and your faith is and you know what that is that's an encouragement

to me and to everybody looking on because brother fred you made it through the year and you're still in the house of god you precious saints of god who have retained your faith through all kinds of situations and messes up and you're still in the house of god what you do is you strengthen the body you strengthen the people like me who are looking on saying come on you can do it come on you can make it and god is on the balcony of heaven saying i've given you enough all you got to do is remain faithful hang on to your faith that's all i'm looking for thank you jesus thank you jesus thank you jesus