Eating the Bread of Opposition — Carter Conlon

Eating the Bread of Opposition

Thank you, Jesus. If you'll turn in your Bibles, please, to the book of Numbers, chapter 14, in the Old Testament. It'll be the fourth book from the beginning of your Bible. And I'm going to speak to you this morning about eating the bread of opposition.

Eating the bread of opposition. Father, I just thank you, Lord Jesus Christ, for the anointing of your Holy Spirit. Lord, without you, these words don't mean life. It's only knowledge. It only can become life if you quicken it.

And so, Father, we're asking in Jesus' name that you quicken these words and make them real to us. Make them bread to us. Make them desirable to us. Open our hearts as well as our ears. I ask that you cover my frailty and enable me to speak this in the very way that you would want it to be spoken, Jesus.

Help me to disappear that you may appear, that your voice might be heard, that your kingdom might come and your will be done here in us as it is in heaven. Father, I thank you for this with all my heart in Jesus' name.

Numbers chapter 14, beginning at verse 5. Welcome again to all of our visitors here with us, and we do trust that the presence of Jesus Christ has already touched your life in a profound way. Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces, verse 5, before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.

And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes. And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land which we passed through to search it is an exceeding good land.

If the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land and give it us, a land which floweth with milk and honey. Only rebel not ye against the Lord, neither fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us.

For their defense is departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Fear them not, for they are bread for us, the servant of the Lord said. They're bread. Eating the bread of opposition. What exactly did Joshua mean by the words, they're bread for us?

Opposition Within and Without

Now this statement was made in reference to everything that stood in direct opposition to the full life and the place which God had expressly promised was going to be theirs. Now you and I are not going into the life of Christ promised to us without opposition, folks.

Face it. You're going to be opposed from within, as the Apostle Paul said, and without. You've got a fallen nature, a nature that needs to be redeemed and governed by the Holy Spirit that will fight against everything of God.

It's called the flesh. That's the part of you that doesn't want to pray in the morning, doesn't want to read your Bible, doesn't want to respond with kindness when somebody else says a nasty word to you.

That's called the flesh. And there'll always be that part of you that wants to fight and rob you of the blessing of what Christ has for your life. And then there'll be forces from without, generally manifested through people.

And this is exactly what was happening. The children of Israel had come right to the border of the very expressed place of promise and provision and glory where they would be a testimony in the earth.

They had been brought out of captivity by miracles of God. That was undeniable. They had been kept along the journey to this border. They had seen the seized part. They had watched their enemies vanquished.

And many here today, that's your testimony. If you were to stand, if we had time, you would say, I got out of something that could never have, I could never have gotten out in my own strength. I was, I was freed by the power of God.

And you know, that is true. That's your testimony. There was no other way you could get out. You've been on a journey where your old sins were right behind you, just coming full force. You could see the dust of them on the horizon.

And yet God would always open the pages of this book and you'd see a way through right down the center of it and drown your enemies in the waters of his word. And you and I know this. And now we've come to the border.

I think in this generation, we're on the edge of something profound in the church of Jesus Christ. For those that can hear it, we're in the last days. I have no doubt about that. I don't know how long they're going to be.

I don't believe it's May 28th at six o 'clock, by the way, in spite of, I met one of those fellows on the street, it's May 21st, sorry, May 21st. I met one of those fellows on the street the other day and I offered to buy him lunch on the 22nd.

I felt he's going to be quite discouraged. But we're in the season. Nobody knows the time, the day, the hour. We're in the season of Christ's return. And I don't see in the scripture that the church of Jesus Christ is going out in defeat.

I believe that what God spoke through the prophet Joel, that there was a marvelous outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. I believe the glory of the latter temple will be greater than the former.

There will need to be a people who lay hold of the full covenant of God in Jesus Christ in these last days. Otherwise we can't stand. The strength is going to have to be God in us. We will have to be sustained by the spirit of God.

We'll have to be moved by the knowledge of God. We'll have to speak by the empowerment of God. We'll have to love with the tenderness of God. It's going to have to be God and God alone. And many today now are in that valley of decision, standing just as they were in this time, on the edge of something incredible.

Wondering, do I go in or do I stay where I am? Do I take the next step or do I settle for church attendance? What do I do? What is my life to become? And in your heart you know there's a beckoning of God.

You and I know there's something of God calling us to something profoundly deep of Christ in our generation. Think of that which opposes you today and stands in defiance of your victory and the inheritance of all that is yours and it's mine because of the cross of Jesus Christ and the promises of God because of that victory.

Think of everything that opposes it. All the words that were spoken over your life when you were young. You're stupid. You'll never amount to anything. I'm leaving because you're not worth staying for.

Whatever it was that was spoken over you, all these words are just amassed at this border as it is of this incredible life of Christ trying to stop you. The threatenings of our society and our day where it is becoming increasingly unpopular to be a Christian.

We went through a season years ago in America where it was decidedly popular to go to church and those days are very quickly fading. It's no longer popular and you see a very real revulsion towards Christ and towards his people now.

Opposition as Nourishment

Now the question we ask is why did Joshua say that these opposing forces are bread which implies nourishment for us and how do we become partakers of this bread? What does it mean that opposition is bread?

He said don't be afraid of them. They're bread for us. In other words they will sustain us. Their opposition will nurture us. Their opposition will feed us. Now that's not the way that the natural man thinks.

We think opposition is an awful thing. It's a terrible thing. It's larger than we are. We have to overcome it. It makes us feel like grasshoppers in its sight. Threatens and intimidates us. So how does it feed us?

Well go with me ahead to the book of John please in the New Testament just for a moment. John chapter 4 where Jesus was ministering and the disciples went to get him some food and when they came back to him they said Master in verse 31 of John 4 verse 31 they said Master eat.

And he said well I have meat to eat that you know not of. I have a source of strength that you're not aware of yet. You've not tasted it. You don't know what it is. You don't know how it can nurture you.

And then they of course as the disciples were prone to do and as we do they turned to one another and said okay who brought him something to eat? Who fed him? And Jesus said to them my meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work.

My strength is found in doing the will of God my Father. This is the meat. This is what feeds my life. This is what gives me the empowerment to get up in the morning and to move into this mountainous mass of human confusion and not be overwhelmed by it.

To face the scorn, the derision, the opposition, the sneer of the temple leaders and everything else that was going on. To be able to endure the voices that were calling him a heretic and a hypocrite and a liar and a deceiver.

And yet on the other hand not succumb to those that were trying to make him a king. No it was the will of his Father that he was sent. In verse 35 he says do you not say that there are four months and then comes harvest?

He said behold I say to you lift up your eyes and look on the fields they're white already to harvest. He said listen you have an impression that the harvest is coming. Folks I'm telling you I don't know how many times I've heard this over the years as a Christian.

The harvest is coming. A great day is coming. Many are going to come to Christ. I've heard that since the day I got saved. And people are still out there just more or less gathering on Sunday or Tuesday and talking about this great harvest that's one day coming in.

And Jesus said listen lift up your eyes. Like lift up your eyes. He said the harvest is already here. It's already ready to harvest. And he said and he that reaps receives wages. In other words the wages are provision.

He that actually goes into the harvest will find the provision of God. The strength of God. The power of God. And will gather fruit to life eternal. That both he that sows and he that reaps may rejoice together.

This is when you know the scripture tells us that there's rejoicing in the presence of the angels over one sinner that comes to Christ. And herein is the same true. One sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap that which you bestowed no labor.

Other men labored and you're entered into their labors. And think about it just for a moment. We didn't fight this battle. Christ Jesus fought it. We didn't win it. He won it. He conquered our enemies.

They really are powerless. All they have are big voices and big drums. Big shields and big swords. But they have no power. Christ is already conquered. He's already won the victory. He's already commissioned us to go into the harvest field.

He's already promised us that we have power to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy. And nothing shall by any means hurt us. He's already told us that there is this infusion.

He that reaps receives wages. He that goes out into the harvest. He that says, she that says, Lord I give you the reins of my life and I am going to do the work of God. And I understand that the work of God is not Christ coming to enhance my career.

The work of Christ is that he indwells me as his physical temple on the earth and through me continues his work of bringing mankind to redemption. Those that are cast out, those that have no helper, the poor, the fatherless, the defenseless, the widowed, the unborn, he sends me out in the power of the Holy Spirit to bring them to the redemptive work of God in Jesus Christ.

This is where the strength of God is found in the Christian church. There's no strength in anything else. We have seminars on strength. We have conferences on strength. We have even weight trainers that try to teach people how to be strong in the church of Jesus Christ where the strength of God is found in reaching the lost of this world and bringing them to the finished work of Christ on Calvary.

This is my meat. My strength, he said, comes from facing all that stands in direct opposition to the will of God and in the strength of God to conquer it. Now think about what Jesus had to endure. The scorn, the beatings, the mock trial, the rejection of those that he had walked with and even fed and given water to in the desert.

Think of the violence and the fury of the opposition that Satan sent and thought he was using to destroy the work of God. But in fact, he was supplying the necessary ingredient to secure its success. Hebrews 9 .22 says, without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin.

He was supplying the ingredient. They're bread for us. Those that oppose the work of God are bread. There had to be violence. There had to be a cross. There had to be a death. And Satan, the Hebrew says, if they would have known what they were doing, they never would have crucified the Lord of glory.

Hebrews 9 .28 says, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. It could easily be said that opposition was a necessary contributing factor to bring strength out of what appeared to be weakness.

They're bread for us. All the voices that are telling you, you can't, no farther. Don't speak in that name. Look, I want you to go with me to Acts chapter four, please, if you will. Just go ahead and your Bible, just one more book.

Opposition Produces Boldness

Acts chapter four, Peter and John walk into the temple just before this. And they take a man by the hand in chapter three that had been laid there by his mother and father. He was over 40 years old for many, many years, begging and all the religious were passing them by.

And seemingly nobody had a problem with his powerlessness until Peter and John walked in and in the name of Jesus Christ, lifted him up and supported him. And a miracle touched him and his body became strong.

And so what is the response in a sense? You'd think the temple officials should have been rejoicing, don't you? This is awesome. This man used to be lame and now he's among us. He's praising God. Let's give God glory.

It would be nice if it said that, but it doesn't say that. Verse 13 says, When they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled and took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus.

And beholding the man that was healed, standing with them, they could say nothing against it. But when they had commanded them to go aside out of the council, they conferred among themselves, saying, What will we do to these men?

For indeed a notable miracle has been done is manifest to all that dwell in Jerusalem. And we cannot deny it, but that it spread no further among the people. Let us straightly threaten them that they speak henceforth to no man in this name.

And they called them and commanded them not to speak at all or teach in the name of Jesus. I don't know about you folks, but I have been there. I wasn't always a pastor, you know. I remember being called in and threatened and commanded not to speak at all in the name of Jesus.

Now folks, I don't know how you, I was called in one time and I was literally threatened, literally. And I was told this is not, this is a police department. This is not an evangelistic association. You are called to do police work, not preach the gospel.

So from this time forward, we're going to be watching you and you better not be speaking in this name anymore. I was in community relations at that time. And just a few days later, I was out in a meeting.

It was a neighborhood meeting about locking your doors and things like that. And I was talking about crime prevention and security. And suddenly this lady raises her hand in the midst of the group. And she says, Officer, she said, you're talking about securing our doors and putting bars on our windows and all this stuff.

She said, but your entire body is saying something else. She said, what is it that I see? Now I've just been threatened. And I said, well, what you're seeing in me is Jesus Christ. I am a believer in Christ.

And I said, but I am not allowed to speak about this unless as an entire group, you want me to, if it's your request, then I'll tell you what God did in my life. And everybody said, yes, yes, tell us.

Praise God. So a lock it and secure it meeting turned into a testimony meeting. Praise be to God. Praise be to God. You know, the men who opposed me the worst ended up going to church. You know that eventually.

Commanded them not to speak nor teach, but Peter and John answered and said, whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken to you more than God, judge this. For we cannot but speak the things which we've seen and heard.

So when they further threatened them, they let them go finding nothing, how they might punish them because of the people for all men glorified God for that, which was done. Now, you know, remember Joshua said, don't be afraid of them.

They're bred for us. Don't be afraid of the opposition folks. This is not an hour to be a coward in the kingdom of God. Don't be afraid of them. Joshua said they're bred for us. So, so what happened? Peter and John are called in, in this book, they are, they are, they are threatened twice.

They are warned not to say the threats carried, you know, consequences with them. So what was the result of this threat? This, if you go on in this chapter, they went back to the elders and all the people, it says being let go verse 23, they went to their own company, reported all the chief priests and elders said to them.

And when they'd heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord and said, Lord, thou art God, which has made heaven, the earth and the sea and all that in them is. So number one, the opposition ignited a prayer meeting praise instead of stopping and bowing, go and bend your knee to God and begin to pray.

And they said, who by thy servant, David has said, why did the heathen rage and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ for, of a truth against thy holy child, Jesus, whom thou hast anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.

Now, Lord, behold their threatenings and grant to thy servants that with all boldness, they may speak thy word by stretching forth thine hand to heal and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child, Jesus.

In other words, it was the healing of this lame man that brought all this trouble upon us. And so God, we're asking you, give us more boldness, give us more power, give us more healings, give us more ability.

They're bred for us. Opposition is bred folks. Without opposition, the church gets lazy. Without opposition, the church turns inward. Without opposition, the church seeks power without purpose, which is a formula for spiritual delusion.

That's all it is. Without opposition. Thank God for opposition. Thank God for this day that we're living in. Thank God. Thank God for those who say to the church, who have the audacity to say to the church of Jesus Christ, this is as far as you can go and no farther.

Thank God for that opposition because it's going to spark prayer meetings again in the house of God. Thank God for the prayer meeting. Thank God that you and I have the power to say, Lord, give me the boldness to stand and speak in the power of the name of Jesus Christ.

God almighty, God almighty, raise up hundreds and thousands of people in our generation. Touch those that are sick, release those that are in prison, give sight to those that are spiritually blind, heal those that have been bruised in heart.

Let the kingdom of God come with power again into our generation. Verse 31 says, and when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together. They were all filled with the Holy Ghost and they spoke the word of God with boldness.

Praise be to God. Shake the place where we are. That's the cry of my heart all the time. My God, don't let me settle in to anything that's less than the full inheritance that I have in Jesus Christ. Don't let me fall short of the calling of God on my life.

That's got to be the prayer that you pray and that we pray collectively as the body of Jesus Christ, but it's got to be an individual prayer. Oh Jesus, would you just glorify your name through me. I am nothing, but you are everything.

And I read in the scriptures where you delight in taking the weak and the foolish and the nobodies, the nothings. You take people in society that everyone else passes by. You put your spirit upon us. You give us your life.

You give us your power and you send us out to confound that which thinks it can be God in its own strength. Hallelujah to the Lamb of God. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. Not only was the place shaken, but verse 32 shows us something else that happened because of opposition.

And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul. And neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things common. Not only were they filled, not only were they given new courage, but they were moved to divine compassion in the body of Jesus Christ.

Suddenly, the people just simply God began to move and the inheritance of generosity came into everyone's heart because God was generous to us. And we have a tendency sometimes to withhold from one another.

And there are various reasons why we do this. But suddenly there's a new compassion. There's a looking out from self to others. There's a fulfilling of the call of God in Christ. And verse 33 says, with great power gave the apostles witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and great grace was upon them all.

So look at what happened because of this threatening. It ignited a prayer meeting. They were all filled. New courage, new power was given. They moved to divine compassion and great power and great grace was on.

Try to tell me for one second that opposition is not bread for us. Opposition turns us to God and that's where our feeding is. David, go with me one last scripture in Psalm 23. The Psalm is David, the king.

The Valley of the Shadow and the Fullness of Christ

He knew these things. In verse four, he says, though I walked through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff that comfort me. Walking through the valley where death seems to reign.

Walking through the valley where we learn to die, to living to our own desires and yield to a higher purpose for our lives. And folks, this is the border that we're talking about today. This is where the people of Israel came and turned back.

And this is what God in Christ is calling us to in this generation, that we don't turn back. We don't say the old ways are better. We don't go back to what we left behind, but we move forward into what Christ has for us.

The fullness. There are people here today, you're an evangelist. You just don't know it yet. You just haven't walked into what God wants to do in your life. There are missionaries here. You're not aware you're a missionary yet, but it's that valley of the shadow.

It's only a shadow of death. It's only a sense that I'm going to lose something by leaving something that I can't keep anyway and yielding our lives for a higher purpose. It's walking through places where the power of death is reigning in this world, not surrendering to the threatenings of it, but believing for increased strength as we move forward to possess what is rightfully ours and to bring others into Christ and what rightfully belongs to them.

Yesterday, we commemorated the founder of this church, Pastor David Wilkerson. And this is exactly what God led him to do in 1958, to turn off his television, to put away that which was distracting his time, to even walk away from established in what appeared to be secure ministry in the church that he had at that time and walked into the place, the valley of the shadow of death, into places where death was reigning in this world.

And when Nicky Cruz stood him to the face and said, you either shut your mouth or I'm going to cut you in pieces and had the very real capability of doing it and had done it to others, it would not be the first time by his own testimony.

Just think of what would not have happened if at that moment he would have said, well, Pennsylvania is starting to look pretty good. I'm just going to go back there. Like I'm not cut out for this. There was a defining moment.

I believe in the ministry of Pastor David Wilkerson that unlocked all of the bread, all of this provision, all the power unlocked the prison doors of millions of people all over the world through Teen Challenge and will continue to do so through those of us who take up the torch of the life and ministry he left behind.

The defining moment is when he stood violence to the face and said, you cut me into a thousand pieces and throw me into the street and every piece will say, Jesus loves you. That's the defining moment.

He could have done what Israel did in our opening text and stood at the border and said, they're giants. They have all the power. I read the word and I believe it. I believe it's true. They went in and said, yeah, it's everything that God said it is.

And they had a beam across two of their shoulders with a bow of grapes that literally went from the beam to the ground. And I've always believed that was a type of the cross of Jesus Christ. They were literally carrying a type of the cross, the fruit of God, the promise of God, the provision of God through the cross was there.

And it's written down in scripture for you and I to see it. And so they had a chance and they looked and in spite of the miracles, in spite of what they had seen, in spite of all that had been done, they made a wrong choice.

And Joshua was standing there saying, listen, don't turn back because your enemies are bred for you. Their defense is departed from them. They have no power to stop you because God has told you you're going to be victorious.

God has told you he takes the weak things of the world to confound the wise and to confound those that are strong in their own strength. God has told you that as the church of Jesus Christ, you cannot be triumphed over.

You cannot, no power of hell, no voice, no devil, no prince of the air, nothing can triumph against the church of Jesus Christ. The psalmist said in Psalm 84, blessed is the man whose strength is in thee.

In verse six, it says you're passing through the valley of weeping, make it a well. And they go from strength to strength. They don't hide from the pain of others. They don't hide in the church. They don't hide with Jesus in their places.

I'm not against employment. I'm not suggesting everybody go out and leave their job and that's going to make you holy. But I am suggesting, would you please stop hiding Jesus in your desk drawer in the place of work?

They go from strength to strength, from strength to strength. Opposition is your bread. When the church comes into a place where she's not opposed anymore, throughout history, you've seen it constantly, she declines.

We've gone into a season of terrible declension in the Western world because of a lack of opposition. We went through a 30, 40 year period where it was very popular to be a Christian and we backslid without even knowing it because of the lack of opposition.

All through the book of Judges, when God's own people dealt very casually with his promises and presence, an enemy would be raised up. The enemy would cause the people to begin to be afraid and begin to try to survive.

And then in the midst of that, one more time, his voice would come and say, this is the way. And you look through the book of Judges, it was always the miraculous. There was never a committee could figure this one out.

It was 300 people on a mountaintop with a torch and a clay jar on a suicide mission in the natural to stand against over a hundred thousand well-armed enemies and just simply shout the sword of the Lord and the sword of Gideon.

Foolishness to man, but to us, it is the power of God. Hallelujah. The Psalmist David could say without the lion, there was no bread. Without the bear, there was no bread. Without Goliath, there was no bread.

Without the Philistine army, there would have been no bread. Without these opposing forces, I never would have understood the power of God or the provision of God. And so it may seem a little ironic this morning, but I'm actually quite thankful for the season we're going into because we're going to have a church in this generation that is going to know the power of almighty God in Jesus Christ.

God's Table in the Presence of Enemies

David said, verse five, thou preparest a table before me. Where? In the presence of mine enemies, right smack in the middle of the battle. When everyone around you says, why can't we break this guy? Why is he still singing?

Why is it still happy? How come everything, how come everything we do, we say, everything we threaten him with just seems to make him happier. And we sit at this table with opposition all around us. And the only thing we can say to our enemies, would you please pass the biscuits and the butter.

Hallelujah to the Lamb of God. You prepare a table before me in the presence of mine enemies and you anoint my head with oil. This is where the anointing is found. You anoint my head with oil in the presence of everything that would want to shut me down and stop my voice and kill my Christ.

You anoint my head with oil. You put something of heaven upon me that cannot be studied. It can't be procured. It can't be worked up in the flesh. It comes from God and from God alone. My cup runneth over.

I can't stop singing. I can't stop speaking his name. I can't stop reaching out. I can't stop giving a cup of cold water to a thirsty soul. I can't stop. I can't stop. I can't stop. Hallelujah. Joshua said, don't rebel against the Lord.

Don't be afraid of the people of the land. They're bread for us. The defense has departed. The Lord is with us. Don't fear them. Hallelujah to the Lamb of God. They're bread for us. They're bread for us.

Hallelujah. And we are fighting for them, but they don't know it. They're going to give us strength to fight for them and for their families. We're not against anybody. We're for everybody as the church of Jesus Christ.

Hallelujah to the Lamb of God. They are bread for us. They are bread for us. They are bread for us. They are bread for us. Hallelujah. And so for those that have come this morning and you've been groaning in prayer for weeks and weeks, oh God, oh God, just deliver me from this ordinary boss.

Oh Lord, just get me out of this situation. You know what you're praying? You're saying, oh God, take the bread out of my cupboard. Take the drink out of my refrigerator. Take away my strength. Take away my anointing.

Take away my cup. You have no idea what you're praying. And if God gave you everything you asked for, you'd just become a couch potato with a Bible on your lap. Oh no, no, no. He's going to increase these things and turn you to Him.

Hallelujah to the Lamb of God. We are a strange lot of people in the Christian church because God gives us an understanding that doesn't come to the natural man. Praise be to God how awesome it is to walk through this valley of the shadow of death knowing that all of this opposition is going to produce something.

Remember Samson was heading down to places he shouldn't have gone actually. And as he was heading down there, a young lion roared against him and the spirit of God came upon him and he tore it in two.

And later on, he was passing by and in the midst of that, what should have killed an ordinary man was honey. And he scooped out the honey and it nurtured him and give light to his eyes and it nurtured his family.

And the scripture says he never told him where he got the honey from. He got it from something that should have killed an ordinary man. He got it from a threatening that should have stopped most men from the journey that he was on.

Most people say, well, if this is what's going to happen, if lions are going to come against me, I'm out of here. I'm just going to go back to the synagogue and I'm just going to read the Torah and I'm just going to be happy there.