Learn Not the Way of the Heathen - Part 1 — Joshua Daniel

Welcome to the Lord's Challenge with Joshua Daniel. The Layman's Evangelical Fellowship International is a ministry reaching people from all walks of life since 1935. After a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ at the age of 16, Joshua Daniel has been declaring the marvellous deliverance from sin, which is freely given to all those who turn to the loving Saviour.

Wherever this message has gone out, broken relationships have been restored, sickness healed, ill-gotten money returned and thieves turned into givers. We now invite you to watch and receive the invaluable blessing that God has for you.

You know, one of the things that.

Learning Not the Way of the Heathen

God had to teach his children and about which he warned them severely before they possessed the land which they were promised, was the abominations of those lands should not engulf them. Now there is a familiar passage with which we can begin.

Jeremiah 10, please. Jeremiah 10. As you well know, these signs of the heathen of which the Bible warns us here are still around us. Hear ye the word which the Lord speaketh unto you, O house of Israel.

Thus said the Lord, learn not the way of the heathen. Learn not the way of the heathen. From all the difference that is discernible today between those that say they belong to the church of Jesus and the people of the world is they're just walking a few steps behind.

That's all. They're just a few steps behind. Perhaps in certain matters as it is as statistics begin to reveal, the church has exceeded the world in wickedness. Now, how true it is that the divorces in the churches are beginning to exceed the divorces in the world, how well documented this is, I don't know.

However, it is not so necessary to take comfort from that little doubt because what business has the church to emulate the world? The called-out body, the blood-bought people, and what business are they to be just a little behind the world or two steps ahead even in wickedness?

Now, my dear people, here is a warning. Learn not the way of the heathen. Be not dismayed at the signs of heaven, for the heathen are dismayed at them. You know, somehow my bent, you know, my bent became a practical one.

I was not interested in just some fluffy, you know, kind of philosophies that soared over my poor head. I was interested in just the things that were immediately ahead, and some of those things shocked me because I saw them in the church, and some of those hoary churches were once established by great missionaries.

And I found every kind of abomination living side by side with a few Christian traditions borrowed from the old western world, the old world, now called the new world, but when we come to the gospel, it would be the old world, whatever it is.

Some of those things so shocked me, I went to work. I didn't say, hey, this is beyond me. Others have tried evidently, and therefore, because they have failed, it's necessary for us to just abandon any effort to reverse the course of events.

No, it did not strike me that way at all. I said, somebody has to make the beginning. Someone has to say, hey, this is wrong. This business of class distinctions or caste distinctions, you see, class distinction is a very old English tradition, house of lords and house of commons, you see, and the common people had a different status and did not move so easily or freely amongst the nobility.

Rejecting Class and Caste Distinctions

All right, that's class. Now, my dear friends, is there anything to be said about class? Anything to be said in favor of it? Of course, as the proletariat, the ordinary people, we say, no, I have nothing to say in favor of it.

You know, I have a thing or two which I have discovered. When a fellow comes up from a poor background and he is only a climber, you know, when I talk of a climber, I talk of monkeys, you know, monkeys or climbers.

So, when someone is only used to the idea of how can I climb and bring down those coconuts? If that's all the outlook of a person, you know, it's very difficult to say, hey, it's nothing for me to give all that I have.

So, these climbers are also people who have a tight grip. You know, when you're climbing, if you let go, what happens? So, you have to have a hard grip. So, these climbers have a very strong kind of grip over any little thing which they possess.

Can't let this go, can't let that go. Oh, scrape and save, so on and so forth. Take a Sundar Singh, a man born in a wealthy situation. Take a Charles Todd, another man born with a silver spoon. And when it came to discipleship and sacrificing for Jesus, it was nothing.

Sacrificial Discipleship and Renouncing Wealth

They said, hey, this is nothing. All this gold is not going to give me what Jesus gives me. So, this gold is nothing to me. You're not going to tempt me with your gold. All right. And so, that great sportsman, international sportsman, C .T. Studd, all the glory and acclaim that came to him as a sport idol, sports idol, it meant nothing to him.

He said, I am a disciple. I'll go to China. I will serve. The poor man could not get the big size. I don't know. I can't remember the actual size of his foot. And so, he could not get shoes to fit his size.

And sometimes, those feet bled as he walked. And yet, that was nothing. Nothing. You see, my dear people, so, I have found that when a person is not stuck to, you know, a small mind, a petty mind, and someone who is just struggling all the time with just his paltry, paltry stuff, he's a different character from the man who says, hey, this can be done.

How much is it? Five million? Fine. It can be done. You see, there is another attitude. That is the attitude of saying, I have put it in God's hands, so it will multiply. Jesus humbled himself. Being rich, he became poor.

Humility in Christian Service

So, no big deal. So, I don't have to go around thinking I have done some huge sacrifice. You know, that's a beautiful attitude. As soon as a person thinks, I am doing this and I am doing that, the whole quality is gone.

Absolutely gone. As soon as a person feels, hey, what I am doing in the light of the cross is nothing, it becomes a completely different thing. The heathen, when they do their charitable works, they like to blaze abroad the matter.

So-and-so has donated so much, but when we come to the Lord Jesus, let not your left hand know what your right hand doeth. Look at that nobility that it invests you with. Say, what I am doing is nothing.

I am doing it for my Lord. You see, there is a different quality. All right. So, I did see in the course of my life a certain quality in some people's sacrifice. They never talked of it. They never mentioned it.

It was just a normal thing for them to do. The small fellow, the pity fellow, the pity-minded, he thinks of any little thing which he does as something great, something wonderful. Now, with the light of the cross, I often say what I have done for Jesus is practically nothing.

So, that keeps me in even keel. It keeps me in balance. Otherwise, like Humpty Dumpty, you know, I can come crashing down. The devil would like to produce many Humpty Dumpties in our pews. What are these Humpty Dumpties good for?

To come crashing down. That's all they're good for. You know, recently, I met quite a character. He was introduced to me by another American friend, and this man had lost his passport and was working away because he wanted to get certain dental attention, which was too expensive here in the U .S.

He had been in a very bad accident when the tractor which he was driving toppled over and he was almost killed. A hard working man, a man who had seen a touch of God in New York, he said, I belong to the rough characters, did everything.

But then, as I went from church to church, I was very disappointed. I saw a whole turnover in some of the churches, most of them. If they have a congregation for two years, that's a big thing. Now, here is a man who had no axe to grind, but had come out of the world, come out of drugs, come out of all those things.

The Church's Loss of Spiritual Power Through Worldly Imitation

But when he looked at the church, he was disappointed. Now, of course, being a native of this country, you can't say, hey, he had some kind of colored glasses, he was a foreigner or some such thing. No, he saw the local conditions.

He said, this is not right. And Mark, he was introduced to me as a complete stranger. And he was watching what was happening around. And he was very surprised. Now, that is how it should be. As a matter of fact, if we keep learning the ways of the world, what are we going to have?

We are not going to have the power of God. We are going to be a bunch of imitators. You know, that's an awful thing, imitators. Some people do not have that touch of God's fire. My dear friends, go to God and say, hey, thou living God are a consuming fire.

Seeking God's Consuming Fire

I want a touch of that fire. There's too much dross in me, which needs to be consumed by that fire. Let us pray. I pray and ask you, Lord, that we may have that willing heart to say, I will be that man.

One man's obedience. When you called my dad with no guarantees of support, except the firm bank of heaven that can never default. And he obeyed your call. What a blessing came out of that one move of obedience.

And how much pollution was avoided, was cleansed in the lives of so many. And now when we are beginning to minister to millions, millions in so many corners of the globe. Oh, my father. We just want to be those that are like Jesus.

Full of Jesus. With nothing of the world tainting us. That we may not pollute others. No, Lord. What a serious thing it would be if our thoughts or our words pollute and pull down others. We pray and ask you, Jesus, that you will move amongst us.

And what we talk may edify. And every move of ours will be a blessing. Our life is short. Remember, oh Lord, how our breath is in our nostrils. And what we do for you, we have to do it quickly. And we have to do it now.

Please help us, Father. Be with those who are on the road today. Those who are traveling or commencing their journey. Or those who are getting ready to join us later. Father, prepare their hearts, we pray.

Draw near to us. In Jesus' holy name. Amen.

I couldn't stop now if I tried. Oh, it gets sweeter. As the days go by. It gets sweeter. He places love down deep in my heart. It's great joy in knowing with him I am going. And never more from him to depart.

Oh, it gets sweeter. As it gets sweeter.

This program is brought to you by the Layman's Evangelical Fellowship International, an interdenominational missionary and prayer group working for revival around the globe. We invite every lay person to become God's ally in changing his or her corner of the world.

Please write, and if you have a prayer request or concern you would like to share, please do let us know. You can email us at post at lefi .org or visit our website at lefi .org. Our mailing address is LEFI PO Box 1072 Armidale WA 6992.

Until we meet again next week, may God bless you.