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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/daniel-shutt/tools-for-a-successful-life/
I'd like to ask you to turn to the book of Genesis chapter 5. Genesis chapter 5, please. And I have been amazed at the direction of the ministry, because while mine will not be identical with what has gone before, at least there are some themes that I think agree very much with what our brethren have already been speaking about.
Genesis chapter 5 and verse 21, and Enoch lived 60 and 5 years, and begat Methuselah. And Enoch walked with God. Pretty remarkable statement, isn't it? Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah 300 years, and begat sons and daughters.
And all the days of Enoch were 360 and 5 years. And Enoch walked with God. Such a remarkable statement that the Holy Spirit repeats it. I think that's important. And Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.
Now, if you would, over to the book of Hebrews chapter 12, please. Hebrews chapter 12 and verse number 1. Hebrews chapter 12 and verse number 1, wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross.
One last reading in the book of the Psalms, please. I'll ask you to turn one more time, Psalm 119. Psalm 119, and just a short reading in the second section of the chapter, beginning at verse number 9.
Psalm 119, and we'll read in at verse 9. Psalm 119 and 9, wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word. With my whole heart, the psalmist writes, have I sought thee.
Oh, let me not wander from thy commandments. Thy word have I hid in mine heart that I might not sin against thee. And I trust God will bless this together with the excellent teaching that you've already been listening to.
When I was coming out of my teens and entering into my 20s, a number of my friends were getting married. And in those days, and probably still do, we held a bachelor party. Some of the friends got together and we held a party for our friend that was soon to be married.
And by the way, while I'm on that topic, let me just say that I hope that all of the young men and young women here who hold parties before people are married will remember that you belong to the Lord Jesus.
And the wickedness that goes on in this world at bachelor parties and other things is something that we should have absolutely nothing to do with. That's not my topic today, but since I thought of it, I mentioned it.
I trust God will keep us holy at all points in our life. But the reason I bring that up is because one of the things that was often given as a gift at those parties was a toolbox. And at least for the men anyway, we filled it up with hammers and wrenches and screwdrivers and other things.
What were we doing? We were equipping that young man for the responsibilities that lay ahead of him. It was time to sell the video games and get down to real life. There were things that were going to break.
There were challenges that were going to be faced. And we wanted to make sure that our friends were equipped to face the challenges in their life to come. I'd like to remind you today that God as a perfect Father is interested in equipping His children with tools so that they can survive in a world that is absolutely opposed to them.
Make no mistake today, the devil is committed to your spiritual ruin. Did you know that? He would like nothing better than to drive a wedge between you and the Word of God that you've been hearing about.
And if he drives a wedge between you and this book, if he drives a wedge between you and time of communion with himself, he knows that he can bring your life to a point of almost total uselessness. The wonderful thing is this, if the devil is committed to your ruin, God is committed to your preservation.
You can't say amen for that? Isn't that wonderful? What a God we have. A God that cares about His children so that, I'm quoting from 2 Timothy now, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.
God has tools for you and I. Tools that He expects that we will employ to live, dare I use the word, successfully for Him. I want to take up three things that we have looked at in these verses and maybe they were not obvious just on the surface as I read them, but I'd like to just take them up one by one and speak simply from them.
I'd like to think about the importance, first of all, of living consciously in the presence of God. What does it mean when we read this about this man Enoch, that Enoch walked with God? I'm going to tell you some things that I think it doesn't mean.
I don't think that it means that God somehow in a theophany, physically manifested Himself to this man Enoch as He went around about His life. That God visibly sat down beside Him as He ate or perhaps visibly walked beside Him as He traveled down the road.
I don't think that that's what it means when it says that Enoch walked with God. I think what this means is is that Enoch was a man who was conscious in every aspect of his life that God was present. Let me be very, very direct and very personal this afternoon.
How are we doing with feeling the presence of God moment by moment in our life? Now, I'm going to make you smile just for a second here and I hope it will intrigue you. For those of us who are a little bit older, we look back to the time, maybe it was the first time that we ever walked down a sidewalk with a girl.
Now, I want you all to just think about that, or a boy. And you remember how awkward that was, don't you? And you know, you didn't want to get too close because you didn't want to be fresh and you didn't want to be too far away and appear indifferent.
But the bottom line was that every single particle of your being was focused on one thing. She's there. And it didn't matter if trucks were going blind, airplanes were flying over, terrorists were blowing up bombs.
She's there. And every single moment was consumed with this. The there-ness of that significant other. You know, I believe that that is really what we are dealing with when we read about this man, Enoch.
He was a man who was conscious of the presence of God in a way that preserved him in a world that was really ignorant of God. I wonder if, once again, I'm going back to what my brethren have said, that we ought to teach older folks the lessons that we learned when we were children.
That God is here. And that God is near. Listen to the words of the psalmist. Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up. You discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it all together. You hem me in behind and before and lay Your hand upon me.
Where shall I flee from Your presence? Sounds to me like a man who was conscious of the presence of God. I want to take that thought a little further now. And I want to think about the effect of the consciousness of God in my life.
Brother Larry and I have been preaching together in the Gospel quite a bit lately and a couple of times. I have mentioned the misperception that people have about the presence of God. People have the idea that if God were somehow to appear visibly from the back of the Gospel hall, that people would crowd to see Him.
We'd ask Him to autograph our hymn books. We'd ask Him about various things. We'd shake His hand. We'd applaud that God Himself has presenced Himself here. That's not what happened when people in the Bible were aware of the presence of God.
May I remind you of Isaiah when he came into the presence of God, there was no great hullabaloo on his part. He just said, woe is me. I'm a man of unclean lips. Peter said, depart from me, O Lord! I am a sinful man!
Even John, Revelation 1, he fell at His feet as if He were dead. You know, I believe that the lack of holiness in my life is likely caused by a lack of the sense of the presence of the Holy God of Heaven who is near.
And I don't mean to be disrespectful for one moment, but I want to be really clear right now. God is not just some dude on our buddy list. God is the high and holy God of eternity. And our preservation depends on living, walking, breathing, thinking consciously in His presence.
That's why a man like Joseph, who was aware of the presence of God, not the presence of Potiphar, the presence of God, said, how can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? You know, one of the indictments that God brings, this is Psalm 50.
You can look this up. Verse 21, Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such one as thyself. You thought that I was just like you. And because you can tolerate sin, then somehow by extension, I can tolerate sin.
Away with it. We need to walk daily in the consciousness of a high and holy God. And I don't want to take away for one minute the idea that God is the very best friend that I have ever had. He's a friend that sticks closer than a brother.
The God I know is a God of infinite tenderness and grace. He's a God when I'm down, He picks me up. And when I'm weak, He carries me. And I'm not taking away from that side of God. But I just want to remind my own heart today and yours too, that if we are going to be preserved in a sinful world, we need to live consciously day by day in the presence of a holy God.
I was having some meetings some time ago about the attributes of God. And after one of the meetings, I don't really know why I did this, but there was a young teenager that came out of a meeting and I just was, honestly, I really just wanted to find out if the meetings were helpful to him.
And so I asked, what did you think about the minister? And this is what he said very flippantly. He said, oh, he said, I already knew all that stuff. Now, I didn't have my little bracelet on that said WWMD.
That's what would Murray do. Because if I did, I would have said, if you know so much about the holiness of God, why hasn't it affected your life more? Now, I didn't say that to him. I just said it to myself.
Brethren, I am reminded of the words of the Lord Jesus, Ye call me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say. And we seem to have developed a schizophrenia that allows us publicly to claim that we know the presence of God and then go out and live as if you were far away.
One of the tools that God wants you and I to employ is to practice the conscious nearness of God 24 hours a day. The second thing I want to talk about is what we have read in Hebrews chapter 12. Because if we are to get a robust view of God and an awareness of his presence with us all of the time, that needs to be coupled with a realistic view of ourselves.
I read Hebrews chapter 12 for one little phrase. The sin which doth so easily beset us. It's not an odd statement from the apostle. And by the way, I don't know what apostle it was, but anyway, isn't that an odd statement?
The sin which doth so easily beset us. You know, the difficulty with a small God is that it leads to an oversized self. Do you know people that have a big view of God? A high view of his holiness? A comprehensive understanding of who God is as revealed in his word?
You know those sorts of people have a very small view of themselves. Real small. It's only those who view God as distant and far away that allow for an inflated view of myself. You know, I was saved in some gospel meetings almost 50 years ago.
Brother Jim Smith, who is here, and Brother Archie Stewart were preaching in a little assembly back in Michigan. And I appreciate their efforts. It has brought endless blessing to my life. And I remember something that Mr. Stewart used to say.
For those of you who are younger, Mr. Archie Stewart was a very colorful speaker. He used to say, if I was half the man I thought I was, I'd be twice the man I really am. Did you all get that one? If I was half the man I thought I was, I'd be twice the man that I really am.
That was a man who understood. He had a realistic view of himself. You know, I'm just going to try a little blinding honesty right now. Far too much of our time interacting with the rest of the Lord's people is spent trying to impress other people with how wonderful our life is.
It wouldn't do, would it, for a man to stand up here and confess to the fact that he struggles with sin? Boy, I wouldn't think of that. Or doubt. Or failure. But you know something? There isn't anybody in the audience that's buying that particular sales pitch.
You know why? Because we all look into our hearts. And we all know the sin that resides there. We all know the dark nights of doubts. We all know the bitter disappointments and failures that come often, again and again in the Christian life.
What does our text say? The sin which occasionally bothers me, but I manage to hide it from the brethren? Not a bit. You and I will be preserved in the measure that we humbly acknowledge that everything about me that will be for God's glory will be produced by Him and not by me.
Let us never succumb to the sort of hubris that John writes about in 1 John 1. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. You know, we may do our best to shut off some of the worst excesses of the secular world that surround us, but listen, we're all affected by it in one degree or another.
And this business of self-esteem that's being taught in the schools. You know, I don't think that children should be taught that they are worthless. I don't think that's correct at all. But I want to tell you that children need to be taught that they're little sinners.
They need to be taught that they have failed to keep God's commandments. You are not just this beautiful, wonderful, self-actualizing being that is being thrust out on the universe to make your mark in this world.
No, actually, you're a disobedient sinner who deserves to be in hell for all eternity. Get over it. You say, well, that sounds flippant. I didn't mean it that way. But the bottom line is that inflating our egos is not going to preserve us.
It's actually going to create a self-confidence that will make us fail when temptation comes. I am not a strong man. I'm not even a spiritual man. I'm a weak man who needs God's help every day. You say, Brother Dan, preachers shouldn't talk like that.
Really? Okay, let me just quote what C .H. Macintosh, some of you have heard of him, right? Said, I do not trust myself for a single moment. For if I am not kept moment by moment by the grace of God, there is no depth of sin to which I will not sink.
That's what real men talk like. That's what honest men talk like. That's what godly men talk like. We need a realistic view of ourselves. We need to understand how incredibly sinful the flesh is. We need to understand that much of what is peddled in this world as ennobling and wonderful is actually just the filth of Satan.
Some of you have heard the story about the newspaper in Holland, Michigan. The evening Sentinel newspaper ran an ad. It said, wanted man or woman for part-time cleaning must be able to recognize dirt.
I like that. May God help us in the presence of a holy God to understand the cruel corruption of sin, to understand the inherent weakness of our own heart, and in utter dependence on God and on his word, trust him to sustain us for his glory.
And so you have two of my tools so far, right? Living daily, conscious of the presence of God. Secondly, a realistic view of ourselves, reminding myself that I am not a strong person. I'm a person who is liable to any sort of sin.
The last tool, I'm gonna end where my brethren started, maybe, because what we have read in Psalm 119 is a wonderful tool as we seek to live and serve God. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word.
Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. You know what we need today is a reintroduction to the word of God. I am convinced more and more that biblical illiteracy is going to be the straw that breaks the back of assembly testimony.
I'm not saying that it is inevitable, but it is highly possible. Because if there are not young men and young women who in the prime of their intellect, while their minds are flexible and young and strong, commit themselves to the daily, systematic, consecutive reading of the word of God, testimony ultimately will fail.
It is not enough to go back to what Brother Bergsma was telling us about to the thousand years when the Bible was a closed book. And just a few men professed to be able to read it and to understand it and tell people what to do.
That's terribly dangerous. And if we ever reach a point where the people at the stout conference are ignorant of the word of God and depending just on some preachers to tell them what it says and what it means, testimony will have failed.
Dear brother, dear sister, when the assembly movement began in northeastern Scotland with men like Donald Ross and Donald Munro and others who discovered the truth of gathering to the Lord's name from the scripture, do you know that there were contemporary news reports that actually stated that the sisters in the local assembly knew more about the Bible than the clergymen in the dead kirks around?
Oh, that God would restore to us again. A thirst for his word. I'm going to read you something that C .H. Macintosh wrote a few years ago, over a hundred years ago now. He said, we know of few things more dangerous than intellectual familiarity with the letter of scripture where the spirit of it does not govern the conscience, form the character, and shape the way.
We want to tremble, he wrote, at the truth of God, to bow down in reverential submission to its holy authority in all things. Listen to this. A single line of scripture ought to be sufficient for souls on any point.
I'm ashamed to read that because I haven't lived up to that. But in the presence of God today, with a sense of our own weakness and failure, let's bring the book. Let's get back to the regular reading and study of God's word.
I'm not correcting what Brother Scott said, but I'm going to add to it. The reason that children today don't know Sunday school stories is not because their Sunday school teachers haven't taught them.
It's often because mom and dad haven't taught them. And I'm a dad, and I'm a grandpa now. And I know how hard it is to read the Bible every day, especially for the moms and dads with teenagers. I understand that in a family, everybody has a different schedule.
It's very hard to get the whole family together just to have a meal, much less to read the word of God. But as we leave the Stout Conference, I don't want to talk in generalities today. I want to talk in living reality.
Let's recommit ourselves personally to the daily study of the word of God. Let's recommit our homes as a place where it is routinely read and studied and appreciated and taught and taught. And I believe that God will completely equip His people to live for Him and serve Him.
What have we talked about? God's tools for a successful Christian life. Live in His presence. Have a low view of self and a high view of Him. And may God help that this book, this living, eternal, unchanging, lovely book will be part and parcel of our lives from this day forward.