Richard Ellis Talks

Richard Ellis: Today on Richard Ellis Talks. If you're out there in the world, playing sports, at work, wherever it is, whatever is in somebody's heart is coming out of their mouth sooner or later. They cannot stop it. Whoever you really are, everybody you work with, everybody who knows you, whatever's in your heart is coming out of your mouth.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Richard Ellis Talks with Richard Ellis. Richard's style is unlike anyone else's, where he shares the life-changing message of the gospel in a way that's real, refreshing, focused, and fun. We know that life is pretty challenging these days, but these talks will help you meet those challenges head-on with biblical truth, encouragement, and direction.

Now, if you're not able to stick around with us for all of today's talk, you can always listen to, download, and even share this entire message with a friend right from our website, richardellis.com. So, let's jump right in with today's talk. Here is Richard Ellis.

Richard Ellis: The title of today's message is "Firing Blanks," and I'd like you to turn to Deuteronomy chapter 18. As usual, I'll try to go from left to right with these verses. Part of my job, part of a church's job, leadership in the church, is to pray for the people sitting out there that listen, whether you're here or listen on radio or wherever you're on a CD in a truck or a car someplace listening on the internet, whatever it is.

And you think, well, that's their job. They're supposed to take care of us. But part of your process of coming into a place like this and listening to a message is if you don't think you're going to hear some scripture or something that makes sense or encourages you in your life, then you're just going through the motions. I mean, you say, I come for the music, I don't care what the sermon's about, I don't care what the Bible verses are about. It's just the music and to meet people, whatever you're doing here. There are a lot of reasons people go to church.

But if you actually want something to happen of some spiritual significance and you want God to speak to you, you have a responsibility. And your responsibility is to pray that whoever is going to be speaking in whatever church you're attending, that it may sound like it actually has some significance. Of course people use the scriptures. Let me tell you something, more and more today, you listen to messages or go to a church, and you may not hear a single verse out of the Bible. There is just no scripture.

And it's all very carefully designed and choreographed and all spelled out, every word carefully done. But you go, where was the gospel? Where's the scripture? Well, no one wants to hear that anymore because that's written thousands of years ago and it can't possibly have any relevance. It does, but you need to be praying specifically for me. Now, some people say, if you just preach expository sermons, then you'd be okay. Then you wouldn't have to think about what you're going to preach about next.

And expository sermons are basically when you take the book of Romans and you go through that for three or four years verse by verse. I'm not against people teaching through the Bible that way. There's just really not any example of it in scripture. And people always say there is. There's no expository preacher in the Bible. Those people had to speak to who they spoke to and have a word from God. So it is easier almost to do expository preaching because you don't have to think about it, you just go to the next verse and keep moving.

The challenge that I have is to actually know the sheep that I'm dealing with and take some pulse and listen to what's going on and say, okay, God, not where are all people on the planet or what's going on in all churches, but what's going on here? What's really going on in the lives of people so that you can speak to the people that are actually listening? Now, it just so happens if you're speaking to people in a specific room, sometimes that translates beyond that space.

But if you want to hear something specific from God, you need to be praying for the person delivering that message. Because I am not opening this book and putting a finger down and going, let's just make up some title and go with this and see what happens. It's all scripture, it'd probably be okay, wouldn't it? It might all be true, but it may not be the truth that you need right now today.

So, let's start in Deuteronomy 18 and let me give you some examples of where this can be a disaster. Verse 15 and following. "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear, according to all you desired of the Lord your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, 'Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore, lest I die.' And the Lord said to me, 'What they have spoken is good. I will raise up for them a prophet—and big P Prophet here—like you from among the brethren, and will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I have commanded him. And it shall be that whoever will not hear my words, which he speaks in my name, I will require it of him. But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.'"

Now, there was a day when this was very serious. Getting up and reading out of the Bible or saying some "thus saith the Lord," if it turned out and God said that has nothing to do with me, people died. Because you can't be standing up saying I represent God and jerk a verse out of here and make it say something to back up some position you have. It is a huge responsibility. Go to Jeremiah 23. Jeremiah 23:16, this is what it says.

"Thus says the Lord of hosts: 'Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They make you worthless. They speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of the Lord. They continually say to those who despise me, 'The Lord has said, "You shall have peace"'; and to everyone who walks according to the dictates of his own heart, they say, 'No evil shall come upon you.' For who has stood in the counsel of the Lord, and has perceived and heard his word? Who has marked his word and heard it? Behold, a whirlwind of the Lord has gone forth in fury—a violent whirlwind! It will fall violently on the head of the wicked. The anger of the Lord will not turn back until he has executed and performed the thoughts of his heart. In the latter days you will understand it perfectly. I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they would have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their doings.'"

Now, let me read verse 22 again. Let me give you one indicator if somebody's actually speaking for God and giving you truth, then here is something that's going to happen that wasn't happening here. "If they had stood in my counsel and had caused my people to hear my words," what would have happened? "Then they would have turned from their evil way and from the evil of their doings." Somebody's life is going to be changed and if it's not, then there's probably not much truth going out. It is impossible to preach the truth, to speak the truth, to do this for any amount of time. Either you run everybody off or the people that you have that can stay and listen, eventually their lives are changed. It may be one at a time, it may be one day at a time, which it usually is, but things begin to change. Your heart, your mind, your way of thinking, your way of living. You can't just do what you want to do and say God will understand. There has to be some change.

Verse 23, "'Am I a God near at hand,' says the Lord, 'and not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places, so I shall not see him?' says the Lord. 'Do I not fill heaven and earth?' says the Lord. 'I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in my name, saying, "I have dreamed, I have dreamed!" How long will this be in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies? Indeed they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart, who try to make my people forget my name by their dreams which everyone tells his neighbor, as their fathers forgot my name for Baal. The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream; and he who has my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat?' says the Lord. 'Is not my word like a fire?' says the Lord, 'and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?'"

Now, let me tell you another reason why, and honestly, there are mornings where I get up and steal away some time and read the scriptures. And I have days when I open the book and I go, Lord, this is like old stuff. Like this was written a long time ago in a whole another setting. This isn't really all that fresh. I'm going to have to figure this out, what this means. And the enemy starts hitting me with this. The book's kind of obsolete. You ever have that feeling?

I'm reading stories about stuff that nobody does anymore and I'm not a sheep herder and whatever these people did, it's not relevant. And I kind of get thrown a little bit and I say, whoa, this is the word of God. And whether it's the New Testament or the Old Testament, you open up and all of a sudden you start reading this stuff and something happens. You say you're just saying that because you're trying to get people to buy Bibles or whatever it is you think I'm doing.

Something happens when you read this book. If it's not working for you, don't give up on the Bible. It'll change your life, it'll change your day, but you've got to give him a chance to do just that. Verse 30, "'Therefore behold, I am against the prophets,' says the Lord, 'who steal my words every one from his neighbor. Behold, I am against the prophets,' says the Lord, 'who use their tongues and say, "He says." Behold, I am against those who prophesy false dreams,' says the Lord, 'and tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies and by their recklessness. Yet I did not send them or command them; therefore they shall not profit these people at all,' says the Lord."

Be careful who you listen to. Part of the reason I read so much scripture is I'm going to have to answer for this one day. And the more I say, the more I've got to answer for. The safest thing I can do for you is read you scripture. In context, not trying to jerk a verse and make it say something, because I trust this. And there are so many people out there who don't have time for scripture. They say they've got a new word from the Lord. You know what, I'm having trouble doing what's written down.

I need somebody to come along, not giving me some newfangled thing if I don't even know who they are. When somebody looks at you and says, "thus saith the Lord," and then they take off, if they're not quoting scripture, you better know who they are and be very comfortable with what's going down because it can get really, really wacky really, really fast. And there's all kind of people popping off, they were in the Old Testament and they're here today. Read the book. There's enough in here to keep you busy for a lifetime. But we don't want to study this. We don't want to work. We want somebody walking up with some quick fix and then we go off and do that like that was what God said, and we're not interested in what it says written down.

Go to Matthew chapter 10, New Testament. Now, there are those out there, and this sounds maybe like this kind of situation, and there are those that will say, well, I don't prepare sermons, I just take the scripture, I read the scriptures, and then when I stand up, I open the Bible and I let God speak through me. And how's that working out for you? I'm not against someone if that happens every once in a while, but I do believe you need to be prepared.

And part of the process of you being used by God to speak—this isn't about me now, this is about us—you say, I wish God would use me more and I get in situations and people have problems, they say, what do you think? I never know what to say. Let me make a suggestion. You want to know something to say? Memorize scripture. Then when you get in that situation, the Holy Spirit will recall that verse and now you've got something to say. Because they don't really need to know what you and I think anyway. They need to know what God says. That's why they're asking you what you think. They're really saying, do you know what God thinks? And they don't know how to find it by themselves. Well, I think you should do this, Oprah said, you know, whatever.

Matthew 10. Matthew 10 verse 1, he called his 12 disciples to him, he gave them power over unclean spirits to cast them out, to heal all kind of sickness, all kind of disease. Names them and then jump down to verse 27. He's told, given all these instructions and then this is one I want to highlight, verse 27. "Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the house tops." Now, in our situation, in my situation, when I hide away someplace and say, okay Lord, I'm not just get up and talk to these people, you've got to show me what to say, you've got to be listening.

I can't just go, well, you didn't come through this week, so I'm just going to make something up. It'll all be true, but it won't be what they need. You say that's not what we're really after. It would be like going to the doctor and he's saying, well, how are you feeling? Okay, well, I'm not really sure about this prescription thing, but I saw a commercial about this drug, try that one. You're not going to take some drug just because the doctor saw a commercial. You want something prescribed to you where you are, what's going on with you, what's going on today.

So he tells these disciples, "Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light." Now, for me, there are times in the middle of the night, maybe it's just so with you, on a Saturday night before a Sunday message, I dream this stuff. I hardly sleep. It just gets in my head and my brain and my heart and stuff rolls. I have to get up sometimes and write stuff down and it's pretty much a nightmare process. If you are spending time with God privately, personally, the stuff that he tells you there, not in the moment, not in the hustle and bustle of life, it's the stuff you connect with him there, then you'd be amazed how often you have an opportunity out somewhere to say something.

I was driving down the street Monday this week. I stopped at a stoplight, was about to go through this light, a building, this 20-something story building near downtown Dallas, was under construction. Really windy day and out of the sky falls a six-foot piece of steel, careening to the ground. Straight when it fell, hit the deal, clang on the ground. I look up, I'm like, are you kidding me? If that had hit somebody, not a good thing.

So I opened my door in the middle of traffic, pick the thing up, pull in the construction site, and start thinking, okay Lord, what's this about? Stuff starts falling out of the sky, get your attention. Pull in there, find the supervisor for the site, show him my trophy. And he looks at me and has to write a report about this thing. So there's another guy standing next to him that just moved to town. And I said, you know, I'm still holding this thing, a piece of steel fell out of the sky for me to get right here with you today.

I said, so I don't know who you are, I don't know what you're doing, what's going on in your life, but I'm going to give you a radio station and some times to listen to something. And maybe that's the only reason I almost got hit by this piece of steel. Have a great day, God bless you, I'm out. Now, I could have pulled up, what the son of a, just all upset, this almost killed me, you stupid people. If you're all upset, freaking out, you're not in the right place, you miss the opportunity. It wasn't about the piece falling off the building, it was about some guy on a construction site I wouldn't have met in a lifetime.

But God orchestrates your life. You spend time with him, you get in a good place, you get a good attitude, you say, okay Lord, no matter what happens today, I'm yours. I'll go where you want me to go, do what you want me to do, say what you want me to say, give me something to say. So when you're whatever he tells you in that dark place, speak that in the light. What you hear in the ear, preach on the house tops.

And how's God going to speak to you? Back then they didn't all have a copy of the Bible. We have no excuse. We have the word of God, we've got the scriptures. You can read it, you can memorize it, you can spend all the time you want in the thing. And you'd be amazed the more you put it in you, the more you have something to say when you get in these situations. Go to Luke chapter 6 verse 45.

And this is Jesus speaking, said a bunch of stuff around this, but for sake of time let me just read this one verse. "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil; for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks." Now, it's not fair because if I tell anybody what I do, they clean up their act.

But I'm going to tell you something about all of us. If you're out there in the world, playing sports, at work, wherever it is, whatever is in somebody's heart is coming out of their mouth sooner or later. They cannot stop it. Whoever you really are, everybody you work with, everybody who knows you, whatever's in your heart is coming out of your mouth. Now, that sounds like a negative. The great thing about that verse is if you've got real treasure in your heart, when you open your mouth, that's what's coming out.

And we all know people, look in the mirror. There's probably a lot of changed lives right here in this room where you remember a day when the junk that came out of your mouth, all of a sudden that same junk's not coming out of your mouth anymore. And he literally has cleaned up your mouth. That's what you think. It's not your mouth he cleaned up, it's your heart he cleaned up. And when your heart gets changed, what comes out of your mouth has to change. And that's a great indicator of someone's actually had some change in their life.

Go to 1 Corinthians 13. Now, let me go back to the title "Firing Blanks." If you know what blanks are, if you get shot with a gun that has blanks in it, you think you're dead and then you realize there's no bullet. You say there's a bullet or there wouldn't be a blank. A blank is just a cartridge with gunpowder in it, but there's no bullet. The thing in there that the gunpowder's supposed to be shooting at you is not there. So what is it? It's just noise. It's scary noise, but it's got nothing to it.

And the Christian life is not about making noise. It's about hitting the target and having something in that bullet. Read 1 Corinthians 13 with me and hopefully this will make this make a little more sense. Paul here writing about charity in the King James Version or love you may have. He says, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal." You're just firing blanks.

You say, wow, but isn't that pretty impressive, the tongues of men. What if I could speak the language of angels? If you don't love anybody, who cares? We get all enthralled with people doing miracles, and didn't we do this in your name? We said, Lord, Lord, didn't we cast out demons? You know what, stop getting so enthralled with all the miracles and start looking for some love, some life, some truth in what people are saying and living. It's not about all this flashy stuff.

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. Though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing." You're firing blanks. You say you're a really good person. Yeah, but who cares if there's not love behind it, if it's not changing your life and anybody else's life around you. It's just noise. And that doesn't change the world, it just makes it noisier.

2 Peter chapter 2 verse 18. And he talks here about false teachers and some of this what we've read in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy and Jeremiah. And here it is in the New Testament. And he describes them, 2 Peter 2:18, "For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness—" great swelling words of emptiness. I've heard preachers before and you go in there and they're the most articulate, educated, the rhetoric is just amazing. And you leave, you go, wow, I have no idea what he said, but that was so impressive. Smart guy, but I'm not smart enough to have a clue what he said or what it meant.

And so these false teachers he says come along. "When they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error—" and go on and read that on your own time, it just describes this whole process. Go to Jude, a few pages over, Jude chapter 1, which there only is one. Jude 16, verse 16.

Jude 16 and following. And again, these are people who've gone away from the faith. "These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage. But you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how they told you that there would be mockers in the last days who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts. These are sensual persons who cause divisions, not having the Spirit."

I need you to pray for me so I don't fire blanks. And we need to pray for each other and for ourselves that we don't fire blanks. It is very easy just to become some religious person and say a few little things and get through life and not impact a soul. And they go, he's religious, but he's just firing blanks, there's nothing to it. When you open your mouth, whatever's in your heart is going to come out.

And you need to have something to say. You need to have a reason for the hope that's within you and how to articulate that. And the only way that's going to happen—you'll be stunned at how it happens—you fill your heart and your mind with truth, I promise you the Holy Spirit will bring it to mind and you'll have something to say in that situation. And I don't always tell them, in Jeremiah it says this. Sometimes I give them the verse in the conversation and they're hearing scripture and have no idea they're hearing scripture.

And it's just truth coming out of your mouth. But it's not going to come out unless it's in there to begin with. And people say Jesus was God, he didn't have to learn the scripture. Let me tell you something, he grew up a Jewish little boy learning everything everybody else had to learn. And when he regurgitated it, it was because he had taken time to study it and to put it in there, and that's why it came out the way it did.

In a very selfish way, and I don't do this kind of stuff very often, people say how can I pray for you? You need to pray that I stay walking with him in such a way so that when it comes time for him to say something to me that needs to be said to you, I get it right and I'm not just up here firing blanks and saying something just because it's true. It needs to be truth so that mixed with the Holy Spirit of God, his word, it comes alive in me through me to you through us, and the world actually gets changed, we get changed in the process, and the stuff makes a difference.

Guest (Male): Before Richard comes back to wrap things up for us today, I'd like to share a couple important things with you. Let me encourage you to take a minute and check out our website, richardellis.com. You'll find today's talk right there in the talks page along with all of Richard's audio and video messages. You can even forward them to a friend so they can hear them too.

You'll also find the prayer wall to add your prayer requests, a link so you can connect with us, the contribute page for you to be able to give to this ministry, all of our social media links, and much more. So check it out, richardellis.com. And Richard's back now to wrap up today's talk.

Richard Ellis: All right, let's pray. And our Father, thank you for your word. Trustworthy, dependable, that is food for our souls, Lord, and ammunition, live ammunition, Lord, when it comes to reaching the world around us. We've got time for everything else in the world usually, Lord, but you. And we pray for our needs and our wants and our desires, but Father I pray that we would get beyond us to somebody else, whether it be a pastor where we attend church or people around us, Lord, that have great need way beyond our own.

Father, I pray also for anyone listening today who doesn't know you and has been looking for some truth, been looking for a word literally, a word from you, Father. I thank you that you did send a word and his name was Jesus. That the word became flesh and literally lived here among us. I thank you for the difference, Lord Jesus, that you have made in the world and you've made in our lives and can make in the lives of these who are searching and may today for the first time in their life reach out the hands of their heart and say, "God, I don't know why I didn't get this before, but it finally makes sense. I see who you are, I see what you've been trying to do. I thank you for allowing all that's happened to me to get me to the place where I acknowledge my need for you, that I'm a sinner, that I need your forgiveness. I thank you that Jesus was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life so he could die the ultimate perfect sacrifice for my sin. That he shed his blood on that cross, was buried and raised from the dead, not just to give me eternal life but abundant life. I accept the forgiveness of sins that he offers free of charge and this gift of eternal life that is just that, a gift. I say thank you, I know I could never pay for it, but I do want to give you my life and ask you to use it to bring honor and glory to yourself, not to me anymore."

Father, give us the wisdom, the courage, the strength, the discipline we need to spend time with you every day and what we hear in the dark to proclaim widely. Thank you for choosing to use us, Lord. Make us usable. And we pray it in Jesus' name, amen.

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