Regaining Lost Ground

Pastor Shane Idleman: You know that God wants you to do something. It's clear, and you keep avoiding it. Those things you don't want to delay on. I'm not talking about things where it's like, "Lord, is this You? I don't know," and you know those; it's good to wait on Him. But if you know He's told you to do something, that delay can be disastrous. From repairing a marriage to maybe a pursuit or something. There's times where we've got to move quickly. The Bible doesn't talk too highly of procrastination. I haven't found one verse yet that supports procrastination.

Guest (Male): Thank you for joining us here at Westside Christian Fellowship, located in Leona Valley, California, one hour north of Los Angeles. Today on Regaining Lost Ground, we hear part one of this timely, urgent message titled "In Case of Emergency: Break This."

Preacher Oswald Chambers once said, "We are not responsible for the circumstances we are in, but we are responsible for the way we allow those circumstances to affect us. We can either allow them to get on top of us, or we can allow them to transform us into what God wants us to be."

Listen now as Pastor Shane pulls the emergency switch, sounding the alarm for every believer to be alert and engaged in prayer and God's living Word as we see the spiritual warfare ramping up in the world around us. Equip yourself with this spiritual survival guide today here on Regaining Lost Ground. You can hear the whole message at Pastor Shane's YouTube and Rumble channels. Make sure to subscribe today. For more information, visit us online at WestsideChristianFellowship.org. We also encourage you to hear more truth from Pastor Shane with the Idleman Unplugged weekly podcast. And now from Westside Christian Fellowship in Leona Valley, California, here's Pastor Shane Idleman.

Pastor Shane Idleman: Where we find ourselves this morning, the title is "In Case of Emergency, Break This." It's been a few weeks in Acts—I believe it's Acts 12 still, of course—but I wanted to really camp out for a little while. That's where the message came from a few Sundays ago, "When Your World Falls Apart" and then "The Dark Night of the Soul" and now "In Case of Emergency, Break This." So make sure you listen to all three of those.

Believe it or not, I came across someone who's actually putting those messages down on paper, and I'm going to turn them into a booklet or an article for the church. Each message is about 13 or 14 pages, and so we're editing those because the content is so important on trusting in God's sovereignty.

If your world hasn't fallen apart yet, just keep living. If you don't know what the dark night of the soul is, just keep living. Christians are faced with enormous challenges, and we really have to just trust in God's sovereignty. Obviously, "In Case of Emergency, Break This," the message is on prayer that the early church prayed. I want to submit to you that although that's a catchy title, you don't wait until an emergency to break this.

Prayer should be part of who you are, part of your life and your lifestyle. It's really the heartbeat of a Christian. I believe it was E.M. Bounds who said, "When faith ceases to pray, faith ceases to live." It's our heartbeat. It's who we are. It's not just a quick prayer here and there; it's a church that prays and worships and looks to God's Word. That's the three-fold cord or strand that is not easily broken.

So let's look at Acts 12. We are going through verse by verse. I do it a little bit differently because some things really pop and I want to camp out sometimes. It's usually on the rabbit trails that have the most benefits to the congregation. They say, "That spoke directly to me," and I'm like, "Well, it did me too because I just thought of it this morning." God put it in my heart, I believe.

Acts 12:5-17. Remember, Peter's in prison, and he was kept in prison, but here's an interesting word: "but constant—constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church." So while Peter sits in prison, the church prays. They do not know the outcome, they do not control the situation, but they refuse to do nothing. So as you're going through, we've got handouts; give your kids a dollar if they can fill in all the words. It'll keep them interested.

You'll see throughout that there are some important words that come out of this, and that word is "constant." It's interesting: in the Bible, prayer is called wrestling. Prayer is called—and uses terms such as—fervent. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man. Prayer is fire. It's called agony. It's labor. It's striving. So this is why it's difficult for us to have a prayer life.

It's not just some, "let me just put this aside and let me just sit here and be bored." Most people feel that boredom because they don't realize it's a wrestling match with the satanic realm. There's an agony, there's a laboring, there's a striving because your flesh doesn't want to do it. So that's where the battle is. But once you overcome that hurdle and say, "Come on flesh, we're doing it anyway," and you have that breakthrough—many of you know about the breakthrough, many of you don't—I want to encourage you to just keep seeking God.

That breakthrough will come when prayer actually becomes more important than food. It's the breath you must breathe in the morning. It's that time with the Lord because you've been refreshed and renewed with God and your heart's right with Him. What stifles prayer more than anything else is sin and pride and a critical heart and contention and bitterness—all these things, this sick heart. The sick heart keeps us away from the prayer closet.

You can tell when that has drifted into your heart. You become cynical. You become kind of cranky. Have you ever been there? Attitude—you're not real fun to be around. You're kind of just upset. It's because when the Christian loses their prayer life, they lose the spiritual life that keeps them living and vibrant and healthy and filled with joy. But praise God you can get back this morning. You can just say, "Lord, I need to get that back. Lord, I need to get that back."

I love what E.M. Bounds said: "Men would pray better if they lived better." Boy, let that sink in. Men would pray better if they lived better. You could reverse that: men would live better if they prayed better. They go together. The greatest hindrance to a strong prayer life is a lack of holiness. The old saints—1700s, 1800s—a lot of those old books I have, man, that was a pivotal message was that life of prayer and holiness.

This is not a Pharisee type of holiness; this is a type of holiness that says, "I don't want to do that because I love my prayer life and I love my relationship with the Lord and the more I seek after God and want to live that life, the stronger my prayer life becomes." That's when you really will see a lot more answered prayers—when you're in right alignment with God, your prayers aren't missing because you're asking amiss, how you might spend it on your fleshly desires.

Anybody ever change their prayer halfway through and you realize, "Lord, just whatever You want. I'm being selfish. Lord, even if this doesn't work out." You're praying for a job, you're praying for a job, and then, "You know what, Lord, even if this doesn't happen, what do You want?" Because your heart's changing, it's lining up with the character and nature of God because He's your pursuit.

So what happened? Herod is about—King Herod is about ready to bring Peter out to kill him. That night, Peter was sleeping. Do you see my bullet point here? Who'd be sleeping? You know you're going to die the next day, and it's not lethal injection where you just fall asleep; it's pretty brutal, and you're sleeping in between two chains, between two soldiers, and the guards before the door were keeping the prison. Now behold, an angel of the Lord stood by him and the light shone in this whole prison area.

So Peter's sleeping. Now he could be exhausted, I don't know. I don't want to read between—I mean, the Bible doesn't say exactly why, but I have a tendency to believe it's because he's trusting in God's sovereignty. When you've seen the Risen Savior, you're going to sleep in the midst of—or maybe he's ready to go see his Lord. As you get older, do you ever say, "Come, Lord Jesus"? The body falls apart and you're like, "Come, Lord Jesus, I am ready. I am ready."

Many of you know I got a root canal pulled recently—completely. I didn't realize what I was getting into. Then they're like, "And next we want to get the molars out." I'm like, "Oh, this is wonderful. Jesus, just come." This happens, and this happens, and this happens, and Peter was maybe ready to go. I don't know. I'm not sure. You don't have to send me stuff on how bad root canals are; I know already. I got them a long time ago.

But the greatest peace you will ever find is resting in God's sovereign arms. The greatest peace you will ever find—somebody needs to hear that this morning—is resting in God's sovereign arms. Because we try to find peace in our situation. How many of you, your moods change when your situation changes? I've been searching for peace for weeks or months, many of you, or years, but it's elusive.

It's elusive because now my job is not working out, now my finances, now my—you have to get to a point where, yes, obey God, live in what is right, and obey His Word and focus on Him, but eventually you've got to just rest in His sovereignty. I've been really getting that point across a lot lately because that's where your sanity is going to come from—resting in the arms of the person, the only person who is in control.

It's a good reminder. It's very simple, but it's not easy. There's not a complex math equation you have to put together: do this, do this, then next week do this, next week do this. Resting in His sovereignty is a choice. It's taking those thoughts captive; it's so simple. "Lord, I've been focusing on the wrong things. I've been letting fear come in and dominate my life. God, I'm just going to trust in Your sovereignty." So simple, not very easy though.

Because as you're doing that, other thoughts are coming in. Those fiery darts of fear and things that are going on in our lives, and we just—it's hard to trust God because we get those opposing thoughts. So it is very simple: make the decision, "Lord, I want to trust in Your sovereignty." Doesn't mean you have to like what He's doing, but you have to trust what He's doing. Big difference.

Always remember: in the darkest prison, there is always light. Thank God. In the darkest times of life, there is always light. It's God's light. I remember I used to, when I came to the Lord, I couldn't stop reading a lot of books and I had a lot of time. Happens when you're single; you have a lot more time to read books. You would read stories of how atheists died versus Christians died, and it's like night and day—literally.

It's horror stories reading how some of these atheists spent their last days because there's no light. There's no light. When you get down to that time, you realize, "Maybe there is something to this. Did I live my whole life—?" But a believer, even though it's challenging and difficult, that light is still there in the darkest times. I talked about Horatio Spafford. I think he had five daughters—I said that, I think it's actually four—he lost in the Atlantic Ocean when his vessel hit another vessel, and from that came that wonderful hymn, "It is Well with My Soul." This applies because there was the light of seeing his family again, knowing that they are—actually, we say it and it's contrite, and you don't want to say it at the wrong time, but they are in a better spot now. As hard as that would be, they're with their Savior.

Focusing on that, and as with Peter and with us, God often slows us down—puts us in jail, some people—He slows us down to increase or to awaken our pursuit of Him. Have you seen that happen in your own life? You're busy doing this, busy going here, you've got maybe kids and grandkids and life and a busy schedule, and then something happens where He slows you down. He'll slow you down to get your attention.

You might get that phone call, that diagnosis, or that challenging situation, and He uses that to slow us down. Now, it should increase our pursuit of Him. Sometimes if you're running in a wrong direction, God says, "Wait, let me change that direction. Let me get your pursuit back on Me and not on what's going around you."

So here's the first key: activity cannot run past intimacy. Wish I could say that came from me, but I heard it from a pastor actually this week. Activity—and I just had to write it down and share it with you because isn't that true?—your activity cannot run past your intimacy with God. Active, busy, busy, busy, busy. That happens; the whole point was most pastors, it was a message to pastors that they get so busy and active that it runs past their intimacy. That's where you're going to fall. Anybody will fall. Their intimacy must be the pursuit, and then everything else falls into place.

And so the angel struck Peter on the side and he raised him up, basically woke him up, says, "Get up quickly," and his chains fell off his hands. So he went out and followed the angel, and he did not know what was done by the angel was real but thought he was seeing a vision. I can relate; can you? Right, you're sleeping and wakes you up and you're like, "Oh yeah, right. Okay, but I might as well follow suit. Let's see where this goes."

And so he was making his way out of prison. But I like when the angels tell people to hurry up. They've done that a few times in Scripture as well. They also told Lot to flee Sodom quickly. Get out quickly. God's will often involves action as well as obedience. God's will often involves actions as well as obedience.

So the next key is: delays can be disastrous. Get up quickly. Because we don't know—what about if in Lot's case, what about if he would have hung around Sodom and didn't want to? He probably would have perished. What if Peter didn't believe and said, "No, this can't be real. I'm just going to sit here and wait"? You don't want to delay.

Now I'm talking to those people: you know that God wants you to do something. It's clear and you keep avoiding it. Those things you don't want to delay on. I'm not talking about things where it's like, "Lord, is this You? I don't know," and you know those; it's good to wait on Him. But if you know He's told you to do something, that delay can be disastrous—from repairing a marriage to maybe a pursuit or something.

There's times where we've got to move quickly. The Bible doesn't talk too highly of procrastination. I haven't found one verse yet that supports procrastination. But I see a lot that says, "Today, today when you hear His voice, harden not your heart. Today is the day of salvation. Get up, Peter, let's go. Let's go, Lot, let's go."

And so finally, Peter, when he was past the first and then the second guard post, they came to the iron gate that leads out to the city, and it opened up on its own. They went out and went down the street, and immediately the angel departed from him. Now, there was a lot I was going to say on here and that might be some other time, but there are times where God will lead you, He'll hold your hand. He's right there.

But there's other times where—I mean, can you imagine? "Okay, great. Now what?" He's gone. It's like, "Okay, now what am I supposed to do?" You'll notice that. Don't get frustrated as you get older in your faith. I sometimes get like, "Lord, remember when I was—? Like He would show me so much and hold my hand and just make things clear and it's like, 'Man, this is great.'" And as you get older, it's kind of like when you teach a little baby to walk.

I still can remember some of my kids' first steps, right? And you're right there holding them, and then eventually, though, you need to trust and walk on your own. He will do that, but it's in those deep moments that trust is built. The stronger the faith you have, the stronger the trust you have in God, it's because God went deep with you. I've never met anybody with strong faith, trust in the Lord, who hasn't dug that foundation deep through pain and disappointment and confusion.

Those roots run deep, deep into the soil. It may appear that God doesn't walk as closely with us as He once did, but He's still there. He's still there. I don't know why I've always loved—I remember the first time I read that footprint poem or whatever it was with those footprints in the sand. You know, it's like, "Lord, where were You? First there's two footprints and then there's just mine. Where'd You go?" He said, "Oh no, those are My footprints carrying you."

I've never forgotten that because that's true. There's never a point where God's over by Jupiter and you're here. Jupiter's far; have you ever looked that up? I mean, when they start to say, "This is how far it takes light to get there," you know it's far. But that light is always here. Sometimes you want that comfort, you want that security, but sometimes you're not going to feel it.

That's another key here: the anchor is tested in the storm. The anchor is tested in the storm. Many of you guys know when you fish, you throw out that anchor and if it doesn't stick, where you going to be in about 30 minutes? Halfway down the lake if it's—what's happening? It's just dragging. It's not sticking. It's not grabbing anything. Or I've done that before; I threw it out there and the boat's drifting, and I pull it in and the anchor came off the rope. Wasn't tied good. And there's nothing I could do at that point.

But this is when the anchor is tested. Your faith is actually tested in the storm. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is tested. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is tested. That quote's attributed to Martin Luther in the 1500s, even though we can't locate exactly where he said it.

And I love this part too: "and when Peter had come to himself." Do you know what? There's a point, I believe obviously unbelievers, but there are even points where many Christians have to come to themselves and say, "I'm tired of being distant from God. I'm tired of being bitter and angry and frustrated. I'm tired of—" and you come to yourself and you return to the Lord.

How many recognize that phrase from the book of Luke? Who else came to himself after he was eating with pigs? The prodigal son. Says, "And he came to himself." It's interesting too: if you break down like the Greek words and sometimes we frame words when we translate, but it's a realization of, "Look where I'm at. I don't want to be here anymore, and I'm making different decisions. I come to myself, realize where I'm really at. I'm not going to stay grounded in bitterness and anger and frustration and failure and anger. I'm going to come to myself, I'm going to repent, and I'm going to turn back to God."

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Regaining Lost Ground with Pastor Shane Idleman. You can find more information at WestsideChristianFellowship.org. That's WestsideChristianFellowship.org. And for all the latest on what God is doing with His ministry here, please be sure to follow us on most social media platforms. Westside Christian Fellowship is located 60 miles north of Los Angeles in Leona Valley, California. Thank you again for listening to today's message of Regaining Lost Ground, where we are reminded daily: times change, truth does not.