Come Hell Or High Water — E.A. Johnston

I reckon it was about twelve years ago, I was out taking my early morning walk right before daybreak. I was walking through a forest and I was praying to God to reveal himself to me and how I longed for a deeper experience of him that particular morning.

And as the sun rose above the tall trees and the morning light broke out and began to fill the early morning sky, I heard four words spoken to me that day. Listen, friends, before you call me a crackpot, I heard no audible voice and I wasn't riding in a spaceship with an alien when I heard those four words.

Nevertheless, God spoke them to my soul that day. When I got back home, I went up to my study and wrote them down in my Bible and dated it, which is my usual custom. My Bibles are all marked up and worn out.

Four Qualities God Demands

That day, I was asking God for a thing, for a deeper revelation of himself, but what God gave me were four things he wanted from me and they were represented by those four words he spoke to my soul that day in the woods.

And these many years later, those four things have a deeper importance than ever before because I've been able to look back over the distance of twelve years and see myself in relation to each of these four things.

And what he's tacked on to these four things is what I'm going to give you today, friends. He demands these four things, come hell or high water. And that's the title of my message today, friends, come hell or high water.

I will list the four things and then elaborate on each one. This is what God told me that he wanted from me. Number one, faithfulness. Number two, yieldedness. Number three, obedience. Number four, fruitfulness.

Faithfulness Tested Through Abraham

First, God is looking for faithfulness. You just take a walk through your Bibles, friends, and whether it's in the Old Testament or the New, God is on the lookout for faith. Jesus said, your faith has made you whole.

Where is your faith, O ye of little faith? Will the Son of Man find faith on the earth when he returns? When God called Abraham, he was looking for faith. And all throughout the trials and testings which God placed on Abraham, under all he had his eye continually looking on Abraham, he was looking for faith.

We see God say to Abraham, take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

Can you imagine, friends, if God came to you and specifically asked you to go kill your favorite child on God's orders? Can you imagine the death to self that occurred inside of Abraham that day? The faithfulness of Abraham was tried and tested that morning as Abraham walked up that mountain with his dear son by his side, knowing what had to be done.

Listen to that dear worthy's faith that must have startled even the angels in heaven. And Abraham said, my son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. One thing I've learned about God these many years is that God is a God who looks for faith.

Yieldedness Illustrated by Noah

He looks for faith in every one of us. He wants to develop faith in us, and God demands faithfulness from us come hell or high water. Number two, yieldedness. God wanted for me a life of surrender to his lordship in every area of my life, that I would be yielded to him and live my life under the discipline of the Holy Spirit in a life of yieldedness.

That when you take a look at the life of Noah, you see a man that the Bible describes this way, and Noah walked with God. You can see that man Noah pounding away with his hammer every day as he built that ark in direct opposition from his anti-Diluvian friends who laughed at him and made a mockery of him as he labored in utter yieldedness to God, not seeing a cloud in the sky.

But a day came when God called Noah and his house into the ark, and we read, and the waters prevailed and were increased greatly upon the earth, and the ark went up upon the face of the waters, and the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth, and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered, and the mountains were covered, and all flesh died that moved upon the earth.

Picture that terrible scene, friends, where the very ones who mocked Noah begged him to let them into the ark. Their houses rose and sunk, their cattle floated and sank, they climbed trees, hills, and even some made it to the tops of mountains, but they still drowned with all the earth.

Obedience Learned Through Suffering

One man's yieldedness to Almighty God made the difference, come hell or high water. Number three, obedience. Every time I read in the book of Hebrews the following words, it sends shivers down my spine.

Who, in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared, though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.

Let me pause here, friends, to say, during the last 12 years of my life, in the time from when God first spoke these four things to my soul, I have lived a life of almost continual suffering. My deepest trials, my greatest griefs, my hardest afflictions have been in these years.

I can honestly say, in harmony with the Word of God, as it pertains to this poor preacher, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. Now, here's the rest of that text. And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that accepted Jesus as their personal Savior.

Does it say that? We think it says that. What it really says is, the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him. In our churches, we've gotten out our pocket knives these last 60 years and have whittled out for ourselves a God who won't get in the way of our daily living.

Fruitfulness Through Divine Pruning

But let me tell you, friends, and I cannot emphasize this enough as I speak for what my Bible declares, that God demands obedience from us come hell or high water. Lastly, fruitfulness. In John's Gospel, in chapter 15, we read,.

And every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. When God gets out His divine pruning knife and strips the bark right off our hide, we know He means business. I was preaching one Monday evening at the Stephen Oldford Institute for Biblical Preaching in Memphis, Tennessee, and my audience was a room full of pastors whom God began to rot upon as I spoke that night on the divine pruning knife and a life of fruitfulness from John chapter 15.

Their faces became altered with a sense of eternity and God was afoot in our midst that particular evening. And when I was done speaking in a line form to speak to me, an elderly black pastor waited his turn and when he got up to me, he hugged me.

He said with his eyes still wet from tears, I've been a pastor now 50 years, but tonight when I get back home, I'm going to kneel by my bed and ask God to get His pruning knife out on me and my ministry.

I really believe, friends, that God gets serious with those who get serious with God and I firmly believe that God expects and demands fruitfulness from a follower of His come hell or high water. Those are the four things I wanted to share with you today, friends.

It is my prayer that a sovereign God allows you to make them a deeper reality in your life for His glory. Let us pray.