Lecture

Well, we’re making a big shift right in the middle of our Testing of Your Faith series. In between sessions one, two, and three and four, there’s a major shift. We’re leaving the elementary, the foundational in one and two, and we’re moving a major step up in sessions three and four. We’re going to deal with some intermediate level. We’re going to give you some actual practical tools you could use when you’re in the midst of a test of your faith.

This first one in session three is “The Stages in Test Failure.” You know, no one ever plans on failing a test, right? Especially one that’s from God, but we all do. And what I want to do is to give you the stages that you go through before you finally fail the test. So you’ll know, Uh oh, I’ve just started to lean toward that failing thing I’m in, stage one of a test failure. If you don’t watch out, you’ll slip into stage two of a test failure and you could even fall into stage three, and then it’s over.

Wait till you find this out. It it’s going to be shocking when you see it with your own eyes, from the verses, as God begins to inform you of this initiation process into the mysteries that we’re talking about. So this is a little bit more challenging, and it’s going to be critical when we unveil one of the warnings God gives to people who are in the midst of an initiation process. It’s kind of a shocking warning, so hold on. We’re really going to make some major shifts in your life in stage three and session three and session four.

But before we go further, we want to cement all this into you because to go on in the initiation process, you need to know the early stages so you can build upon them in the intermediate stages, so all the way back to session number one, “The Purpose of Tests of Faith.” And by now we hope this chart is cemented. In fact, when you dream at night, not a nightmare, but a good dream, we hope that this is showing up in your mind. It goes with the joy and rejoice in the response to a test of faith, rather than dread, rather than getting angry at God, we understand His purpose.

And the second is, the reality is we are in a trial, aren’t we? And the trial is shockingly something more. It’s like we think of a trial, but we really miss the big idea from God’s point of view, why He sent the trial. It is a test of your faith, and it’s grievous.

That’s the reality, and the big challenge is the red arrow. The issue of enduring it until it has its perfect work. And that’s the responsibility that each of us has, as we move into the result and the reward, the earthly of becoming more perfect, more complete, more lacking nothing, and the heavenly, at the revelation of Christ when He comes back the second time, He gives us praise, honor and glory, which you’re going to want from that one Person more than anything else in your life at that moment. You’re hoping I get that praise, honor and glory from Christ. You know, the “well done” to you is going to depend on how you deal with these tests of your faith, got it? Review that together as a team, if you’re with a small group or with a church.

And then the next thing we dealt with is we built on that, and we said, “Let’s give you the patterns, give you a vocabulary of the tests of faith.” And we gave you five: one, two, three, four, five. These three right here are longer in time. These two are shorter in time. And these need to become words that you just normally think of now, the marathon, the crisis, the ordeal, the cluster, and the loop. And you remember how these move—the marathon goes on and on and on and on. The crisis is a short term, (yelps) that’s how it feels, crisis. The ordeal is a crisis that continues going on and on and on and on. And this is very difficult to handle. And then we talked about this one right here, the cluster, where all of a sudden, this went wrong and this went wrong, and this one, all at the same time, and you feel like your life is falling apart, like Job did.

Job is the extreme picture in the Bible. And you know what Job didn’t know, that you and I know? Is God’s reputation in front of all the angels was on showcasing Job because God started it. Did you just, Satan, did you see my man Job? And Satan challenges Him. And so God says, “Okay, you can do whatever you want, but you can’t touch him.” And Satan came up with the most terrible approach, fire from heaven destroyed this, and the wind came and killed all your children. And the Sabeans came and the Chaldeans came, and all of this, and Job blessed God, my goodness.

And the loop. Now, are you ready to build on this? Because somewhere along in here, we run into danger of failing somewhere right in here, somewhere right in here, somewhere, but maybe after the first two we’re in failure, and maybe in the loop, we’re in challenges of a failure. So I can’t wait to teach this to you. This is so practical, and it’s got an aha, which is the initiation information that you’re going to see, that it’s my prayer that you will never go back. Never go back to the old way once you see the secret, because there’s a lead domino in all of this, in the first stage of a test failure. And if you don’t knock over the first domino, you’re not going to go to stage two or stage three.

So are you ready, are you ready? The initiation process is a gift from God to you, right from His word, right to your ears, right to your heart. What are you going to do with it? Let’s go discover it together.

What we want to do at this point is lay a little bit more foundation so you can get ready to understand the stages in a test failure. The failure is both from your point of view, but really it’s most importantly from God’s point of view. How does the person who gives the test feel about how you did in the test? Did you endure until the test was completely over, or did you get up, rip the test in half, and stomp out of the room, angry at the teacher for giving you the test?

So let’s get into this in our introduction. The ways of God include His tests of faith. Let’s go back to one of the verses we taught you in the earliest session. “The Lord is in his holy temple, The Lord’s throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, his eyelids test the sons of men. The Lord tests the righteous” (Psalm 11:4–5a NKJV). Well, what does it mean, He tests? It means it’s ongoing. He’s involved in lots of tests. That’s His habitual way of acting toward mankind, is to test them.

Let me broaden this concept into what the Bible calls this: in Jeremiah 9, it says, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches, but let him who glories glory in this, that he,’” now this is shocking, if you think about it, “‘understands and knows me’” (Jeremiah 9:23–24). What’s God saying? You’re supposed to understand me. How can you know me in any degree of depth if you don’t understand me? People think, “I can’t understand God.” That’s exactly the opposite of what the Bible teaches. You can understand God. And that’s how you know God.

Let me see if I can’t prove that to you with a little bit more passages for you. In Isaiah 55, God speaking, “‘For My thoughts,’” God’s thoughts, “‘are not your thoughts.’” Whoa, well, how can I understand you? If your thoughts of how you think about things are not the way I think about things? “‘Nor are your ways.’” What do you mean ways? “‘Nor are your ways My ways’” (Isaiah 55:8). What’s His way mean? It’s a course of life. The mode of action, it’s the habitual practice of a person. This is a habitual practice of God. What can you expect God to do? He goes in this way; these are His ways. But He’s saying, Listen, even though I have this pattern, my pattern isn’t your pattern, and how I think isn’t how you think. Well then, how on earth can I possibly understand you if I don’t understand how you think, because I don’t think that way. Good question, hold on to it.

“‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways,’”—My habits of doing things—“‘higher than yours, and My thoughts are higher than your thoughts’” (Isaiah 55:9). It’s not just a little bit different. It’s as high as the highest heavens are from the Earth. Well, how can I think that way, because I’m down here? Answer: You can’t, unless something happens.

In Exodus 33, Moses and God are having a conversation, and what Moses asks God for is really something. Moses says to God, “‘Now therefore, I pray, if”—here’s a condition—“if I have found grace in your sight”—meaning you’re pleased with me, if you are pleased with me—“‘show me . . .’” Now watch this, show me what, show me your power? No, “‘Show me your way.’” How do you habitually do things with me? Show me your way.

Why does Moses—this is so important, this is so important—why is he asking God to show him His ways? Why? “‘That,’” or here’s the purpose, why I’m asking, “‘that I may know you.’” Do you put the two together? You know God by knowing His ways, “‘. . . and that I might find grace in your sight’” (Exodus 33:13). Why? I finally understand your way so I can live my life in relationship to your way, because your way isn’t my way, and I can’t bring you back to my way. I’m the one who comes to you, because you’re God. And I need to know your way, so I can know you. You getting this? Oh my goodness.

God’s really grieved with the nation of Israel in the Old Testament, when they left Egypt and they go through the wilderness and the wandering and all that, God says this. “‘When your fathers tested me; they tried me, though they saw my work.’” His miracles. “‘For forty years . . .’” This is shocking, for forty years. “‘For forty years I was grieved,’” with you guys. Oh man, have you ever been grieved with somebody you love? Because God loved the nation of Israel—if you’re grieved with somebody for an hour, it’s a long time, or a day, or maybe as an estranged relationship and it’s a few years, but to be grieved for 40 years? Oh my goodness, “‘And said, “it is a people.” ‘“ God says this, The people that grieve me,” ‘“It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know my ways”‘“ (Psalm 95:9–10). Therefore they [don’t] understand what I’m doing, but what a profound insight. It’s called the initiation into the mysteries about God. If you understood His ways, you could say to yourself, I understand what God’s doing there. I know His habits of living; this is how He thinks about it even though it’s not how I think about it. For instance, we saw that God tests all of us. He makes it hard, for our benefit, to grow us.

When I was in college, I played basketball and I played soccer, and the soccer coach made us begin practice in college at 5:30 in the morning. I mean it was dark out, it was dark. We’re running laps, we’re running with the ball. We’re going through all kinds of exercises at 5:30 in the morning. At seven o’clock, we went in for breakfast, and the class began at eight. Why did coach make us do that? For our good, so that we had endurance, and we went undefeated in the entire league, the entire year. Nobody could keep up with this team. Why? It’s because of how hard the coach, in his ways, in his ways, made us suffer so that our endurance got stronger and stronger, and we didn’t tire out in the game. Man, we had run many games and practices, so that our endurance was strong.

For instance, think about this, when God says, My ways are not your ways, as far as the heavens are above the earth, so my ways are above yours. How do we think, for instance, about raising our kids? If I’ve heard one parent say this, I’ve heard a hundred parents say this, I want to make it easier on my kids. I don’t want them to have as hard a time as I did. I’m going to make it easier on my kids. What’s God’s point of view with His kids, His children, us? I’m going to make it harder on you. Why? Because that’s how you grow, that’s how you mature. That’s how you become like Christ, through challenges, through scratches, through difficulties, through things you don’t quite like at all. You see the difference? We want to relieve it, and parents who do this end up usually raising spoiled children who don’t have that strong moral fiber inside.

You see how the difference is? We want God to make it easy because that’s how we want it. When the truth of it is we have to understand that’s not His way, and my friends, He’s not going to change His way because we gripe at Him or we get angry at Him or we avoid Him. He’s for us, the long term. I mean He’s worked with the nation of Israel for 40 years, when they grieved Him 40 years, 40 years.

Now, here’s part of God’s heart. “‘Oh, that my people would listen to me, That Israel would walk in my ways’” (Psalm 81:13). God doesn’t want to walk in our footsteps. He wants us to walk in His footsteps, to find His path and walk on it, that’s how you please God. And that’s how you become everything that God wishes you would become, if you let Him work in your life. My goodness, are you getting this?

This is so powerful. The tests of God are because of the ways of God and it’s going to continue. They don’t get tested all the time, and all the tests aren’t so hard. But every test that He sends is for your good, at the end. Is it acceptable to you to learn the secret about God’s habitual practice in your life? Some of the guys on the soccer team would gripe and say, “Come on, coach, we got to go 5:30 again tomorrow morning?”

“Yes, you do,”

“I don’t want to do it, Coach.”

Coach would say, “If you want to play on the game Saturday, you’ll be here tomorrow morning at 5:30, and if you’re not, you’ll sit on the bench, son.” It’s the pattern of coach Walt Wiley, that’s who did this to us, that’s why we were undefeated. Is it okay with you? Really?

Well, this session is going to open your eyes in what causes us to fail in the tests. Let me see if I can go a little bit further for you. What are the warning signs of a test failure? You’re driving down the road and there’s a green light. What’s the yellow light, blinking? It’s a warning sign: Slow down, there is a red light coming. You’re going to have to stop, or you may get in an accident. What are the warning signs that that’s going to happen to us? What am I going to do? Hold onto this now. What am I going to do as I start failing in a test God sends to me? Do you know what? It’s the same thing you are going to do when you start failing. These aren’t somebody individually in their test. This is . . . everybody follows these same three stages and the five warning steps.

So let’s go back to our key chart. We’re talking about the warning signs of a test failure. Where does a test failure take place? Right here during the time that we are to endure the test. God in His love and His all-knowing and all-powerful has decided what’s best for this, my child, at this time, right now. For what I want that person to be coming to do for me on the earth, is I’m going to send them this kind of test. And the challenge of a test is, will you, come on now, endure?

Where does this happen, this failure? It typically happens about right in this window right there. And we begin slowly to veer off and our faith begins to weaken, and we go through three stages: one, two, three, until there’s a failure.

In session four, we’re going to flip this over and talk about, how do you have test success? What steps can I take to ensure that I succeed in a test? Because the whole point of this course is that you will be getting a gold star from heaven on your test. Well done son, you passed it perfectly. That’s what God wants. He doesn’t want us to fail the test, my goodness.

I want to just give you a little bit of a review of this idea, because what I did, how do I come up with this? I’ve studied the Bible a lot, and I asked myself the question, where in all the Bible are there more tests from God that I can study? Where is the “tests of God” primary source? And I found it’s in Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. It’s in those three books, and I began to study all the tests I could find. Tests of the country, the nation of Israel, the tests of Moses, the tests of Aaron, and what they did, as they headed toward a failure, what did they do, and then I began to compare this person’s failure and Israel’s failure. What did they do, what led to what, which led to what? Do you understand? That’s how wisdom surfaces. You meditate on it and say, what’s the universal warning sign? What’s the universal point in which we’re going to go through a failure?

And here’s what I found, take a look at this. “So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea; then they went out into the Wilderness of Shur. And they went three days in the wilderness and found no water” (Exodus 15:22). Why not? Because God sent them a test. What’s the test? Will you trust me? Right? To take care of you because I promised I would? Would you ask me to give you water? What does God want the people to do? To learn to trust Him. What is that? A test of their faith. Did they ask for God to give them water, or did they say to God, You know, you gave those ten plagues, and you saved Israel from all of them, and you saved our children from dying in the plague and you opened the Red Sea, my goodness, and destroyed our enemy. You could do anything, and you love us, and you’re going to take care of us, don’t worry. Don’t worry, God’s going to come through.

Do you know, not one, not one time, not one time, no matter how many tests God gave to the nation of Israel, did they pass. Not one time, no matter how many times God came through for the people of Israel, did they ever say this, “Thank God for the water. Thank God for the manna.”

And if there was this test of water and they failed it, but God then came through and then they travel a little bit further down this pathway and God says, “Let’s have a review, because you failed the last quiz.” And God doesn’t announce that I’m giving you your midterm in three days. God gives pop quizzes, unannounced, unexpected. And guess what He does? He tests them again in water, but not at the same place, because He taught them some more, and there was a problem of no water. Guess who did that to them? You got to put one and one together. God did that on purpose. What did He want the people to do? He wanted the people to do this, watch. “Oh man, God came through back here, don’t worry. God’s here, He promised to take us to the Promised Land, so we can’t die here. Lord, please give us water.” Not one time.

That’s why God said, Oh, why didn’t you learn my ways? Why didn’t you learn my ways? I wanted you to learn to trust me, because the big tests are coming later, when you go into the Promised Land and have to fight against all these giants and all these major countries. You have to learn to trust me in the little things before I lead you to the big things. And they never did. How sad is that? That’s why God said, I was grieved with that generation for forty years.

May this not picture you. So when your tests come, where are you with God? Or are you grieving the heart of God over and over again? Failing test after test, after test, after test, because you get mad at Him. Oh man, because you don’t understand, “This is my gift to you.” Come on, getting ready for the game.

So, “They came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore, the name of it was called Marah. And the people complained against Moses, saying, ‘What shall we drink?’” Why didn’t they say, Let’s ask God for the water? No, they complained, whoa, they complained. Whoa, “‘What shall we drink?’ So he cried out to the Lord,”—because Moses knew God supplies their needs—“and the Lord showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet” (Exodus 15:23–25). Right?

What’s God doing? He’s making it so in your face, taking a tree and throwing into a foul pond of water, that’s going to give water for at least a couple million, if not more people. A tree isn’t going to turn a whole lake. What was God doing? He’s saying, You all got to put one and one together here, I’m doing this, it’s not the tree, it’s me. Not the tree, it’s me. Remember this the next time I send you a test, and “the waters were made sweet. There he made a statute and an ordinance for them “and there he,”—What’s the word?—“tested them” (Exodus 15:25). What was their first reaction in the test? Whoa, they complained. Isn’t that interesting?

Alright, let’s go to the next point. I’m going to give you a little bit of the big picture before we study the parts. Is this helpful to you? You know my goal is to turn the light on over and over and over so that you say, Oh man, I’ve been thinking about this altogether backwards. I’ve not been doing all my tests. Maybe that’s why you’ve stayed in the fourth grade. You only go on with God if you pass His tests. Not all of them, but most of them.

So what are these stages? Well, the first thing that everybody does in a test, because there’s three stages: You are dissatisfied with the situation that’s going on. In this case, they’re dissatisfied there’s no water. What is that? That’s the situation. So the first stage, just, just watch this. You don’t have to write this down. We always put charts in for you of the necessary information, so just relax. This is to kind of prepare you to learn.

What do we do? We react to the negative situation around us. Now, if the situation gets better, then there is no problem. But let’s say this situation stays that way. Or maybe whoa, it gets even worse. Well, your frustration in this grows and grows and grows, and grows and it kind of jumps over this to the next spot. What do we normally do? We look for the source or the cause. “Moses, why did you do this to us?” They left the issue of the situation that there’s no water and they’re coming after the person they blame - that’s the human source.

But the truth of this case is who tested them, Moses or God? Ah, oh man, turn the light on, turn the light on. The leader didn’t cause the test, the leader was used by God to bring the test. But at this level, level two, the second stage of a test failure, you’re blaming that person. Maybe it’s your boss. Maybe it’s a government, maybe it’s . . . interesting, isn’t it? I know it’s tough to get your head around it, but think about this, come on, you must get initiated at this level or else you’re not going to really get the big-time truth, later on. God’s behind . . . wait till you get to session six. Oh my goodness, your mind is going to be blown when you see what God really does in our lives. All the buts and the ifs and it can’t be, no kidding, is going to disappear. Right from the Bible, session six, you almost need to start preparing yourself for session six.

But if this source doesn’t solve this situation, you get more and more angry and frustrated, and eventually if the suffering of the situation continues more and more, who do we jump to? And nobody tells us, no one tells us to do this. Do you realize that? No one tells us to do this. There’s no script. Who do we start blaming? God. “What, what, where are you? How come you let this happen? If you were loving, you wouldn’t have . . .” Wait a minute. How come everybody ends up there? How come, listen to this, why does everyone end up there? If we don’t think that God is involved in this situation, that it’s just the human source that caused this situation, if it becomes more and more of a challenge, come on now, more and more of a challenge and more suffering and more frustration grows, who do we start complaining to? You got to put it together. We start complaining against God.

Wait a minute. We don’t think God’s involved with the situation. But if it gets hard enough and wrong enough and deep enough and severe enough, guess what we’ll do? “Why are you doing this to me?” Why do we all end here? We should begin here. Oh mercy, come on, we should begin here. Why, why should we begin here? If we begin here, that’s how we can have joy. I know God sent this to me. I know God loves me. I know that this is for my good. I am going to endure till the end. I’m not going to back off. I’m not turning to the left or the right, I’m not retreating. This is where you’ve got to go at the beginning. Don’t be a fool and wait till you fail, fail, fail, and you’re angry at God, blaming Him for that which He gifted to you. Oh mercy, come on, can you put this together? Oh, we always end up here, because ultimately, we all know God, and only God, is in control of everything ultimately, and He could’ve, and He didn’t, and we become angry.

So it goes from the situation to the human source. And where does it end up? It ends up with what I call the sovereign God, sovereign. And the challenge, come on now, the challenge is to know that up front, and to know the truth. It is a gift from God for my benefit. And if it’s at 5:30 in the morning to make us become strong and like Christ, it’s 5:30 and it’s okay with me. Those are the three stages.

It is your focus. What are you focusing on? Are you focusing on the situation? Okay, that’s early. Or are you looking for somebody to get mad at and blame and attack and argue with and murmur about? Okay, you moved into the second stage. Have you got past that? You’re so sick and tired of it, up to here, if that (making strangling sounds) whoa, that’s how it goes.

Now I’m going to give you five warning signs as we go through this. Warning sign one is right here. What do we do in this? But if it moves here, we change our focus. And there are two warning signs. Here and here. And if it goes past here, there are two other warning signs. These warning signs can go across the lines, but ultimately your focus moves from here excuse me for this, to here to here. You got it? Let’s see if we can’t picture that for you.

There’s our first focus. We’re looking at the situation. We go this way, and we have one warning sign. The second one is to go after the person we blame for it. And there’s two different warning signs. And if the situation isn’t solved, we go this way and there’s two much more serious warning signs, and then failure comes. Got it? Watch, here it is, here it is. That’s it, think about it.

Okay, what’s the first warning sign? Thank you for asking. Look at our little logo there of a guy speaking. It says in Numbers 11:1, “Now when the people complained . . .” (NKJV) about the situation, in the passage we just read, “and the people complained against Moses” (Exodus 15:24), against Moses, not just the situation, they’re moving into the second level. It is to complain. That’s the lead domino, to complain. What does to complain mean? It means to express displeasure, or dissatisfaction, to grumble, to protest both out loud and internally. I had a good friend who called me up about a month ago and says, “I’m a closet complainer.” He said, “Only my wife knows how much I complain, but I never complain out loud, it’s always inside.” That’s it, he’s still doing it.

“And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, ‘How long shall I bear with this evil congregation who complains against me’” (Numbers 14:26–27)? So complaining goes from the situation, to the source, to the sovereign. “‘I have heard the complaints which the children of Israel make against me’” (Numbers 14:27).

Point number two, now let’s move from the situation, complain, to the human source. And what’s happened to poor Moses here? What are the people doing to him? Take a look at the passage. “Now there was no water for the congregation; so they gathered together against Moses and Aaron. And the people contended . . .” I’m going to use the actual biblical words, they “contended with Moses” (Numbers 20:2–3). What does it mean to contend? To struggle in opposition, to strive against, to argue intensely. There it is right there, they argue, they attack the source. What’s the truth, come on? If you’re initiated yet about this, who brought them to this place is God, but the person isn’t ready to go that far yet. Is it the government? Well, isn’t that interesting? “This was the water of Meribah, because the children of Israel contended,” whoa, “with the Lord” (Numbers 20:13).

If the contention, the debate, the attack, the verbal, the hatred that’s going on, what will an individual or a group of people eventually do to the source? That’s warning sign three. “So Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, ‘What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me’” (Exodus 17:4). Whoo-hoo, lynch him, yeah, because we’re suffering, and of course, God’s not in the picture. It’s you. “And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, ‘If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness!’ . . . So they said to one another, ‘Let us select a leader and return to Egypt [where we were slaves]’” (Numbers 14:2,4). What is this? This is reject.

Situation, warning sign, complain. Second stage, the source, the human source. What happens here? You contend. It’s all verbal, and you want to reject that. If that doesn’t solve the problem, eventually, you’ll jump to the last level. See the people rising up with pitchforks? What is that? We want to overthrow this person. But look at the rejection toward God. “Then the Lord said to Moses: ‘How long will these people reject me’” (Numbers 14:11)? It leaks over before the person makes a full transition.

I want to read a passage to you without commenting on it, just to make you think more deeply. Romans 13: “Let every soul,”—every person—“be subject”— or submit to—“governing authorities. For there is no”—no source—“no authority.” There is some authorities that aren’t from God, under certain conditions. “There is no authority except from God,” Wow, “and the authorities that do exist are appointed by God.” Oof, hard to handle. Especially if the authorities are doing things that cause you to suffer and me to suffer. I’m not getting into the theology of this. I’m just reading it with you. “Therefore whoever resists the authority, resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist”—the authority that God set up—“will bring judgment on themselves” (Romans 13:1–2). From whom? From God.

How you interpret this, and the exceptions you want to add, is up to you. But Christ had a perspective about this when He was with Pilate, and Jesus answered to Pilate and says, “You could have absolutely no power at all against me unless it had been given you from above” (John 19:11). What did Christ say? You can’t do anything that Heaven has not already given you power to do. Why? All authority, all authority has been set up by God. Wicked ones? Yes. The Babylonians conquering Judah, Assyrians conquering Israel in the North. Wicked, yes.

Alright, let’s go jump over to the final one. So, situation, warning sign, complain. Source, source, contend, argue, debate, criticize, reject. Sovereign, what’s the first thing we do here? And what’s the last thing we do here? Numbers 11, “‘You shall eat’” said God, “‘not one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days . . .’” This is all about the quail that God was going to send. “‘But for a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you . . .’” Why is that going to be? Why is God doing that? Because, here’s the reason I’m doing this to you. You failed the test son, “‘because you have . . .’” ah, oh man, “‘despised the Lord’” (Numbers 11:19–20).

What does it mean to despise the Lord? To regard with contempt, disgust, to revile, to loathe. What happens when God doesn’t change the situation or the source, your suffering or your contention about this isn’t solved, and God doesn’t change it for you? Eventually we get angry with Him and we look down on Him and we despise Him. Think about what you’re hearing. Have you ever despised God? Of course. That’s when we say, You are not fair, you are not good. If you love me, you would never have, that’s going above God, looking down at Him and despising Him, the sovereign God.

And the last thing, what do we do? “‘Nevertheless,’”—Deuteronomy 1—“‘you would not go up, but rebelled, [rebelled] against the command of the Lord your God; and you complained in your tents, and said, “Because the Lord hates us . . .” ‘“ Did God hate them? He loved them. He redeemed them out of the land.” ‘“He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us”’ (Deuteronomy 1:26–27). Is that God’s motive? But isn’t that how we evaluate it? When our suffering is considerable, we rebel against God. That’s warning sign number five, to rebel, to refuse to submit, to rise up against authority, to be defiant.

So how can we summarize this? What’s stage one? You’re looking down at the situation. What’s the warning sign? Complain. Two, the human source, person or persons, or government behind it. What do we do? Contend, and then we reject. Last one, we despise God, and we rebel against God.

So let’s take a look at the stages, the stages in the test failure. We’ve kind of put all this together. Stage number one in your workbook is the word “situation.” Situation, it’s a circumstance that we are suffering in. Number two, stage two, is the source or the cause. Number three is the Sovereign or the Creator. Now look at these logos, the complaining, the contending, the rejection, the despising and the rebellion. So what are our fill-ins? Complain, contend, reject, despise, and rebel.

Now, before I go on a little bit further, I want to stop and give you a warning that God, through Christ, gave to each one of us. Why? Because you are receiving a massive amount of revelation right from Scripture about how we respond to the ways of God in each of our lives, and depending upon how you hear what you’re learning, do you keep your ears open and your heart open? And secondly, do you change your behavior about the information God’s giving you?

So Christ does something absolutely remarkable here. He reveals a big-time secret way of God, of how God responds to a person who is being invited, like we’ve invited you, into the initiation process, into the mysteries. How are you handling this information? Like Christ says, “Do you have ears to hear?” Here’s what Christ said, and He, Christ said to them, “‘Take heed,’”—watch out—“‘what you hear.’” Watch out what you hear, you’re hearing right now lots of truth. “‘Take heed what you hear. With the same measure you’” (Mark 4:24), —whoa, use the truth. It’s not with same measure you hear the truth, it’s the same measure you use it. Meaning, I learned about this, and you’re going to learn it right now as we wrap this thing up, you’re going to learn what not to do. Will you then take what you’ve learned and use it? Or will you leave and say, “This was a helpful session,” and your behavior doesn’t change?

Is there any consequence to a person? Let’s say there’s two people sitting side by side, listening to this right now, and this person hears it. They get it, and they say, “That was a good Bible study.” And they leave and nothing changes. How does God react to that? Versus a person who hears and says, Whoa, I’ve blown this many times. I apologize to God; I repent of it. I confess it, and I am no longer going to do that. And they stop. How does God respond to this person versus this person? Most people think that nothing negative happens to this person. Do you think something negative happens? What does God do to this person, anything? Most people think not.

“‘With the same measure you use it,’”—the same amount that you use what you’ve heard — “‘it will be measured to you.’” If you use it a lot, you’re going to get more, “‘and to you who hear, more will be given. For whoever has, to him, more will be given; but whoever does not have . . .’” the new truth, because they’ve rejected it, here it comes. “‘Even what he has will be,’”—passive tense—“‘taken away from [you]’” (Mark 4:24–25). Meaning, the more truth you hear that requires a behavioral change, if you don’t make the behavioral change, even the truth you used to know will be taken away from you, sovereignly, by God. It’s not something you do to yourself or some other human does to you. God makes you retreat, because He gave you truth to set you free, not to write in a notebook. He wants you to be transformed in the image of Christ from glory to glory. And if you constantly just listen and not change, you will have a negative consequence in your life. But if you do take it, then as He says, the same measure you use, it’ll be given to you more and more and more, more will be given.

That’s why certain people grow like this, and other people go backwards, it’s this very secret. God judges a person who learns the truth—this is deep truth, and we’re only on the intermediate level right now—and doesn’t change their behavior, there are negative consequences. And my encouragement as a person who seeks to be a friend with you, caring for you, which I do, is if you’re not going to change your behavior, don’t come to the course anymore. Stop, stop. You’ll be inviting judgment.

So let’s summarize. What’s the takeaway from this? What’s the starting point for every test failure? The starting point of every faith failure is to complain, is to complain. It’s in the situation before the source, before the sovereign, and that’s what it looks like. It’s either external complaint or internal complaint. I read through Exodus and Numbers, and I just want to show you this in your workbook you have this, Exodus 15, “The people complained”; 16:2, “the children of Israel complained”; Exodus 16:8, “The Lord hears your complaints which you make . . . your complaints are not against us but against the Lord”; “He has heard your complaints” (Exodus 16:9). Look at all these complaints. “The people complained, it displeased the Lord; for the Lord heard it, and His anger was aroused” (Numbers 11:1).

How does God, come on, how does God feel about you complaining and me complaining about His test? That’s the big idea. He gives it. Whether you’ve never understood this until this very moment, He gives every single test to you as a gift. Get up at 5:30 and run your laps, and then you’ll win the race. “All the children of Israel complained against Moses” (Numbers 14:2). [Numbers] 14:27: “‘I have heard the complaints which the children of Israel make against Me’” (NKJV). “. . . who have complained against Me shall fall in this wilderness” (Numbers 14:29). “‘What is Aaron that you complain against him’” (Numbers 16:11)? “On the next day . . . the children of Israel complained against Moses” (Numbers 16:41), over and over and over and over and over and over, and guess what? Every one of those complaints is tied to a test. Guess who sent the test? God. Guess who didn’t send the test? Moses. “‘That you may put their complaints away from Me, lest they die’” (Numbers 17:10).

Now, what happens if you go back to our first session and your response to a test, a trial, isn’t to complain about the situation, because you’ve reinterpreted it so much so, you are now free to rejoice, to rejoice and have joy? Then that isn’t a lead domino that knocks, listen to me, complaining knocks over contend and contend knocks over reject, and reject knocks over despising God, and despising God always leads to rebellion against God. But what happens if you have the exact opposite reaction to the test? None of this happens. The dominoes don’t fall. And we want to show you this little video about some dominoes to make the point, don’t push over the first domino.

“Everybody knows about playing with dominoes, but what you may not know is that a domino can knock over another domino which is about one and a half times larger. So what I have here is a chain of dominoes. Each one is one and a half times larger than the previous one, and the smallest domino is about five millimeters high and one millimeter thick, and I will carefully place it. And there are thirteen dominoes. The largest domino, it weighs about a hundred pounds and is more than a meter tall. Ready? (dominoes crashing) Ooh. (dominoes crashing) That was 13 dominoes. If I had 29 dominoes, the last domino would be as tall as the Empire State Building.”

Isn’t that absolutely incredible? The power of complaining, watch this. It grows every time it knocks the next one. You’re not going to get the great big domino knocked down if you don’t push over the first one. How could a person never push over the first one? Never complain, let’s see if we can explain this to you.

The definition of complain is to express dissatisfaction, ultimately against God. The response of complaining in a grievance or distressful situation, stage one, is the trigger point or the domino for complaining against a human source, and then for complaining against the sovereign. Got it? Situation, source, sovereign.

Number four is serious. The Lord views complaining as a serious, serious sin against Him personally. Why? He’s the one who invented the test, who arranged the test, who put all the parts of the pieces of it together, and who launched it for your good, and you’re complaining about the situation, not putting one and one together that the person who invented the test for you as a gift is Him. And He takes it personally, just as if in a college classroom, if somebody starts yelling at the teacher, “You are not fair in giving us this pop quiz. You didn’t warn us, you’re not a good teacher.”

“‘The carcasses of you who have complained against me,’”—notice what He links it to—“‘shall fall in the wilderness.’” Shall die in the wilderness. “‘All of you who were numbered, according to your entire number, from twenty years old and above.’” You are mature enough to be responsible. “‘I the Lord have spoken this. I will surely do so to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against . . .’” Now, watch this. This is how God feels about this, “‘against Me’” (Numbers 14:29, 35). You complain, you think it’s against the situation. It’s not. It’s directly against the person behind the situation. “‘In this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die’” (Numbers 14:35). They shall die.

Well, I want you to look at one passage I almost didn’t put in this workbook or this course, because it’s so serious. This is in 1 Corinthians, chapter 10. This is New Testament, “Nor,” don’t do this, “Nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were,”—read this with me—“and were destroyed by the destroyer” (1 Corinthians 10:10). What was the sin? Complain. It’s a serious sin against Him personally, and now your mind has been stretched to understand this and you can never go back, my friend. This is the truth you may have been missing. And the truth that you learn can set you free. You are now free to never again, oh man, allow this mouth or this inner mouth to complain and express dissatisfaction with the ways of God in your life. The verse goes on, “Now, all these things happened to them as examples,”—including the complaining one—“and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Corinthians 10:11). Why is that passage included in Corinthians? So that we do not complain.

Conclusion: The commitment to replace complaining with rejoicing. It’s not enough, okay, to move from complaining, right? To not complaining. That’s from, let’s say a minus one hundred to a zero. That’s better, but God doesn’t want you to come to zero. He wants you to go to plus one hundred over here. What’s plus one hundred? Rejoicing. That’s when a person, ah, that’s when a person who used to be in the dark about all this, in the dark, just doesn’t have a clue. And finally, they get it and they, oh my goodness. Have I been misunderstanding God? Yes. You haven’t understood the ways of God. And as God said, “Oh, I wish my people would know my ways.” Now you know His ways. Think about this, get into the light.

So what’s the full light look like? Well, here it is. Hold on to this. This is the last piece of this initiation. Now please hear it and grab ahold of it, and never let it go. Never again complain. And if everything of you wants to complain, bite your lip until it bleeds. No more complaining about any situation or any person. Instead, not just to zero, but to go to one hundred. What am I supposed to do? Look at this, this is an imperative. This is a command and its present, means continually, actively “Do all things without complaining” (Philippians 2:14). What’s that Greek word mean? To mutter, to murmur, to grumble, to say in low turn, to discontentedly complain. Do all things without, do some things, do all that I command you, said God. I command you, stop, do all things without this. No more, no more of this, stop. And don’t do it with disputing. What’s disputing? It’s an inward reasoning, an opinion, questioning, a doubt. This is the closet complainer, who doesn’t say it, but thinks it. Do all things without this, and without this. Why? “That,”—here’s the purpose—“that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation” (Philippians 2:15). God knows you’re in there. He put you in the middle of the perverse generation because He wants you to rise up and never complain and never grumble and never dispute. “. . . among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15).

What is His point? Stop it all. Stop it all. Can you stop it? Of course you can. Can I stop it? I have stopped it. Next passage, “Rejoice,”—it’s going to look familiar, present active imperative, I command you. Here’s where it goes from zero to plus one hundred. I command you “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:4). Why? You don’t rejoice in the situation, which is grievous and distressful and difficult and painful. You rejoice in the Lord. I trust you, I know you are good. I know you’ve given this as a gift to me. I know I’m going to be more perfect, more complete, more lacking nothing, and if I follow it through, I will receive more glory and honor and praise from you, which I desperately want at the end of time when you come back, I want to hear that from you more than anything, then bless you. I trust you and I will endure by your grace to the end. Ah, that’s huge, rejoice in the Lord, always. “Again . . .” I love how Paul says, and I got to say this again, “I will say rejoice” (Philippians 4:4), another imperative.

Here’s the last passage. “In everything . . .” look at this. “Rejoice in the Lord always,” all the time. Now he flips it up on end, “In everything . . .” There’s nothing left over. “In everything give thanks;”—active imperative—“for this is the will of God . . . for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Oh, do you got it?

What about this? Man, no more. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? How do you feel about all this complaining that’s gone on? How do you feel about it? How has God felt about this, emotionally, coming from you? You may say to yourself, “I wasn’t trying to complain against God,” but God says, “You were, because I’m the one who sent it.” Do you think you owe this person we call God an apology, a confession? How do you get rid of this baggage of being all these years complaining? How do you get it off your back? How do you get rid of the guilt? How do you do this? You do this by asking forgiveness right now for this.

Father in Heaven—You might want to bow your heads with this. If you’re serious, if you want to go on, bow your heads with this. Father in Heaven,—kind of say this to Him—I am ashamed. I have complained so many times and now I know it was against you. Please forgive me for all of it. I repent, I turn away from it. Please cleanse my mouth and my heart of all this wickedness of complaining. I hereby pledge to you by your grace and your enablement, I will stop complaining right this minute and I will begin practicing joy and rejoicing in the circumstances that I used to complain in, to bring you joy in your life, in Jesus’ name, amen.

Well, what a time we’ve had, it’ll probably take you two weeks to bite your lip to break that habit. It won’t take longer. And as soon as you hear yourself starting to complain, just say out loud, “Ugh, that’s complaining and I’m not complaining anymore, I take that back. Blessed be God,” and go on. Just do that a number of times, it won’t even take you ten times, and you will become sensitized to the sin of complaining and you move into the promised land of rejoicing and being thankful in all things, in every time.

Well, that wraps up session number three. I cannot wait to turn the page for our next session, session number four, and give you the tools to help you have test success. What do you do to have success? Where do you learn these? It’s as revolutionary as this session. On behalf of Teach Every Nation and the whole team that’s behind this in this country and every country around the world, we hope that you will never be the same, and that Heaven will say to you, You became a person who lived with a grateful and rejoicing heart because of testing of your faith.