Are You OK? - Lighthouse Baptist Church: San Diego, California

all right thank you preacher uh take your bible this morning and look at first peter first peter chapter five and would you also please pick up the book of psalms chapter 107 107 in psalms in 1st peter chapter number 5. brother joe thanks for your preaching this morning preacher thanks for letting me be here first peter chapter number 5 and psalms 107. and in first peter chapter five i'd like you to just study just a couple minutes with me and then we'll go to psalms 107 in just a moment and i want you to see if you would a verse that you've read before it says in verse number five likewise you're younger submit yourselves unto the elder yea all of you be subject one to another and be clothed with say the word humility for the reason we should be clothed with humility is for god resisteth the proud but what he does is he'll give grace to the humble and then it says this in verse number 6 humble yourselves therefore why why is it therefore it is therefore because god giveth grace to the humbles so we would be wise to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of god please don't stop that he may exalt you in due time but do you remember that he says the only way to be exalted is to be what abast humble yourself therefore under the mighty hand of god that he may exalt you remembering that the only way to be exalted is to first of all be abased or be lowered because who he lowers then that allows him to lift him up without the person thinking that they've done it themselves look again at verse six humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of god brother when the mighty hand of god touches us look up here sometimes it lifts us up but sometimes the mighty hand of god that we're under lowers us and pushes us down i want to say this to you again sometimes what we're going through is actually the mighty hand of god lowering us wounding us humbling us putting us lower brethren it was god who allowed satan look up here to lower job god gave job permission each time to lower god gave satan permission each time to lower job why so later on he could exalt job sometimes god determines in fact i'm convinced personally that everybody that god exalts he either lowers them before during or after when paul was allowed to see things and hear things in the third heaven after that was over god says now i have to give you something that's going to keep you lowered and it's going to be a thorn and it's not something that you want but it's something that you're going to learn to embrace and when you learn the glory in it then it'll be what it's supposed to be in your life and it'll keep you humble lest you be exalted above measure so sometimes people go through things and there are men in here going through things and you don't think the mighty hand of god is on you because you don't feel lifted up but the truth of the matter is the god mighty hand of god is on you lowering you and you're right where you're supposed to be but it doesn't seem like it because as he lowers us and as he humbles us and as the mighty hand of god abases us it seems like things are getting worse and worse but what he's trying to do is crucify our old man he's surgically removing the pride he's making us more moldable he's making us more submissive he's going to give us greater understanding because the greatest understanding sometimes comes when we're the lowest is everybody still all right look at it again humble yourselves therefore why is the therefore well because god giveth grace to the humble humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of god why that he may exalt you so what's implied there is you have to be lowered by the mighty hand of god first before he will exalt you and sometimes the mighty hand of god lowers us and i want to make a statement to you i can only humble myself as much as my experience allows me i'll say it again look i can fast for two weeks or three weeks or four weeks or five weeks and i've done all that but we can only be humbled with what our mind understands and sometimes what god does is he says now i'm going to bring you into something that you never ever would have wished upon yourself in fact it's not anything that you even want but it's something that's going to come upon you externally and i'm in control of the whole thing even though it doesn't seem like i am and i'm going to use those external circumstances to bring you lower than you've ever been before i'll make this statement to you the bible says that the lord jesus christ humbled himself took upon the form of a man and became obedient unto death even the death of the cross listen to me and he went into the garden in agony he prayed and god the father put his mighty hand upon his son and began to lower him because he said lord if it's father if it's possible let this cup pass from me nevertheless not my will but thine be done and sometimes brethren we go through things that we would never put upon ourselves but it's the mighty hand of god that is put upon us preacher just mentioned kirby campbell god determined that kirby campbell would go in for an operation and that the uh technician would stick a needle into his back and touch a place and put some liquid in there that went into his spinal column in such a way that he has pain now beyond anything else but god was moving him to a different ministry he would have never wished this upon himself i do not understand the pain that he's in now but i believe with all my heart he's going through an open door but it's a door that required an excruciating humbling sometimes we blame satan when it's actually god's mighty hand that's leading us and touching us in a way where we do not feel lifted up after jesus christ said not my will but thine be done if you remember they came they took him and then began this lowering where he was scourged mocked spit upon beaten and he was lowered and they put him on a cross look up here and he was lowered in the father's will and he was lowered and then on the cross the god if you would allow darkness to come on the face of the earth and he was lowered as he was smitten of god bruised of god lowered and then if i read my bible correctly the bible says in his own self he bear our sins in his own body on the tree therefore the sins of the world came upon him when he was upon the cross and he became sin for us who knew no sin and god lowered him and he cried out eloy eloise of back tonight my god my god why hast thou forsaken me and he was lowered and he became the scapegoat but it wasn't done yet he gave up the ghost and he descended he went into the lower parts of the earth and god lowered him even further and we know i was down there abraham's bosom was opened up and may i say to he preached to the spirits in prison but the bible says like as jonas was in the whale's belly he descended into the heart of the earth three days and three nights and jonas says the whale's belly was the belly of hell what i'm saying to you is that god lowered his son in god's will he lowered his son and i'm glad jesus said not my will but thine be done because he will lower someone in here and it'll seem like it's not the father's will but you're exactly in the father's will and he's lowering you that in due time when his time comes he may exalt you according to the principles of this book under the mighty hand of god sometimes god says we're going lower you're going lower it's the only way to get rid of your pride it's the only way to make you and i what i want you to be it's the only way if you would to uh to have your old man be crucified it's the only way for you to get the understanding of the book i want you to get i need to touch you and when i touch you you'll limp the rest of your life like jacob who became israel joseph you're going to have to go to the pit you're going to have to go to prison you're going to have to be feel the betrayal of your brothers and cry out in anguish in the fetters in the chains before i lift you up uh i was uh 35 years ago i went to uh navy scuba school and i was a marine corps officer and i was going into special forces reconnaissance and uh so i went to navy scuba school which at that time was run by navy seals and a couple of hard hat divers and on our oh maybe uh four or five weeks into the course they said we're going on a deep dive today and uh it's a training dive and we uh pulled out of the harbor and went out into the open ocean and there was just a few of us there and they said now that the course of the day is we'll uh we'll bring you down to 90 feet and then you'll hang there and then the instructors will take you lower and that's all they told us and so uh we went out there and we uh put these old twin 72s on these steel tanks which we wore and back in those days 35 years ago everything wasn't quite as sophisticated as it is now and and everything underwater was hand-in-arm signals there wasn't any you know electronic communications or anything like that yet and and so we uh we all went and we we descended if you would to 90 feet and we just hung there for a little bit 90 fees about three atmospheres and and uh you know you get a little more pressure on you everything but then the instructor came over to me come here brother brad and the instructor came over to me and there was the chief instructor was in front of me and there was an instructor behind him and he looked at me and i was there and he gave me a little extra weight to put on and i've just tucked this weight into my my little uh pockets there and he said okay he said are you ready and it was all hand and arm signals and i said i'm ready and he's looking right at me and he did like this he said we're going down and we drop to about 110 feet and a little more pressure no no big deal though and he said hold and i held and he looked at me and he was looking at my eyes and he says are you okay and i said i'm okay and he looked at me again he said we're going down now he wasn't saying that it was all hand and arm signals he said we're going down and we dropped and i want the the the depth doesn't matter anymore and we dropped and we got lower and he said hold and he's looking right at me he said hold and he looked at me and he was looking at me and what he was looking at he was looking at my eyes he was looking for blood coming out my nose he was looking for blood coming out my ears you see as you go down you get no squeezes or ear squeezes or things can happen to your eyes and he was watching me he was seeing physiologically how i was handling it and he said are you okay and i was breathing right and i had equalized i had cleared and i said i'm okay and then he said this he looked at me and he said we're going down and we dropped and we dropped and look up here as we dropped it got darker it got colder and there was more pressure there was a guy behind me and we dropped and we got down i won't tell you how deep does it matter and we dropped and i started having a problem equalizing and he was watching me he was looking right at me he was about this far away from me and we were dropping down there was a guy behind me i you know didn't matter to me and he was watching me and he could see that i was beginning to struggle a little bit as we dropped we went below below every atmosphere every 30 feet is an atmosphere underwater and we dropped below four atmospheres under water and the pressure was i'd never experienced this before he was watching he could see my eyes and he saw my air bubbles and he knew he knew i was beginning to panic a little bit and he was watching and we were dropping and he said hold and i i started kicking just a little bit and i was holding my place and i was struggling he could see it he said are you okay and i didn't answer because i was trying to clear i was trying to equalize i was trying to neutralize he said are you okay and i give him one of these numbers like no i'm not doing real well right now he said hold and i'm trying to clear and i'm trying to equalize and everything and he's looking at me and he's watching my air bubbles look up here he had already been down there before and lower he was experienced he had taken many people down he knew what he was doing he was watching me very closely he had seen me like guys like me before and he was watching me he said are you okay and i and i still was having a hard time clearing look up here and he swam over to me and he put his hand on my shoulder and he looked right at me and his face was here and my face was here and i was breathing and he was just looking at me and i calmed down and when i calmed down i equalized and he backed off and he said are you okay and i looked at him i said i'm okay you know what he was doing he was getting my body and my mind used to a new depth and he had already been down there he'd already watched guys like me and we just kind of i was just kicking a little bit and he was kicking a little bit and he was just watching me and he watched the air bubbles stop where i was before to where it was just a nice steady flow again he said looked at your depth gauge and i looked at my depth gauge and what he was doing was getting me used to new depth and i looked at my death gage and he said are you okay and i said i'm okay and then he said we're going up you know sometimes i think god says we're going down i'm going to put my mighty hand on you and you're going down you're going down lower than you really want to go but i've been down there before and i've taken many like you down there and i can give you a thorn and initially you're going to say no i don't want it can you take it from me i don't want it can you take it from me and i'm going to tell you my grace is sufficient for you amen and we're going to go down because the only way i can exalt you is if i base you first under my mighty hand and then i'm going to wait for you to get used to it and to adjust to it because some of you all are going to live with it you need it if i'm going to bring you to what i want you to be and make you to become what i want you to become get used to the limp get used to that tragedy get used to that heartache get used to that failure as peter got sifted get used to it are you okay now some of you right now would say no i'm not and he'll just wait let me show you from the book are you okay because we're going down no i don't want to go any farther hold hold hold no no no no no i know you i know what you need i know what's in you i know who you are i know you're old man you're going down and ladies sometimes you gotta watch your husband go down and there's nothing you can do oh god he's not going to make it oh god please lift him up better o god the will of the lord be done with my husband don't lose confidence in him god's making him thanks brother brad there was another training exercise that we went on and again i was i was in reconnaissance so it wasn't just scuba diving or or diving like you would think like you know to go down and pick up lobsters or something like that one of these uh one of these dives was a dive where we were learning escape and evade and we were out in the open ocean and we learned about different things in classrooms about if this happened or if that happened and with this drill this exercise was you were going to leave the surface of the water as quietly as possible and somebody had detected you and so you had to do a straight vertical descent and once you hit bottom we had studied the charts and once you hit bottom then you would escape and evade hoping that the thermal climbs between the surface if you would where they were trying to find you and the detection system that they had they couldn't find you because you swam through a thermocline hopefully and so we we left the surface it was an individual event and the idea was get under the surface turn to where your head is straight down and just start swimming straight down in a vertical place and head for the bottom and so i'm down and i'm swimming and i'm going straight down as fast as i can according to their instructions and i hit something that i never hit before they had talked about it at about 80 feet i hit vertigo and you think of vertigo up in an airplane and what vertigo is is when your inner ear the gyro in there hasn't adjusted properly and you get so disoriented in your inner ear that you don't literally you do not know which way is up which way is down which way is sideward and it's hard to describe but you just go spinning and your dry row gets all messed up and you you literally if somebody say which way is up which way is down which way side where there's no way that your mental can adjust to that and it affects your brain and so i'm swimming straight down and i hit vertigo i'd never experienced this before and it was like this just this this i started to get nauseous and i could not tell which way was up which way was down which way was sideways and what they taught us in the classroom was whatever you do if you're descending and you hit vertigo and if you know the depth that you're in whatever you do do not change directions and keep kicking and keep breathing so i'm down at 80 feet going straight down and i hit vertigo and my head starts to swim and spin and literally i did not know which way was up which way was down but i remembered the training and the training said do not change direction whatever you do do not change direction because if you change direction the problem is under water when you think you're going down you don't know if you're going up or the worst thing you can do is go sideways because when you go sideways you can run out of air and you'll never get out of it and what happens is a diver will just start getting disoriented and he'll start swimming in circles and he'll panic and there's no way out of it and they say whatever you do if you hit vertigo and you lose your sense of direction and they described this spinning and in classroom they said it's like getting drunk beyond getting drunk and you just spin and you can't tell everything and i remember them telling me whatever you do do not change direction and keep swimming and keep breathing just keep just keep keep your legs going and i kept my legs going and i was i closed my eyes because it was just the water it was just there was nothing to see there was nothing to look at it was just i was in space if you would in the water and i didn't have any horizon to look at or anything like that and i was getting sick and i just thought i got to keep kicking i got to keep breathing and whatever i do don't change direction and i don't know how long this lasted seemed like a long time but it wasn't and i kept kicking and i had my eyes closed and when i opened my eyes look up here i was five feet from the bottom and when i saw the bottom my inner ear stopped spinning because my eyes now could focus on something and it told my inner ear that everything's all right because when you can see the bottom or you can see a horizon when you're flying if you can't see the horizon and getting vertigo people start pulling up and pushing down and turning the sideways worst thing you can do and that when going down worst thing you can do is change direction because once you can see the bottom everything in your mind begins to clear up and you stop spinning and i got down there i was five feet from the bottom almost ran into the bottom because i had my eyes closed but when i saw the bottom boy just even out and then i knew what i was doing i could look at my little compass on my my little uh wrist there and i could see which way i was going to go and i continued on with the exercise now look up here sometimes spiritually we can get in a free fall disoriented and we can't see bottom what do you mean hey brother did you hit bottom and you think i wish i would i wish i would hit bottom but uh but i but i don't even know where bottom is right now and if you don't know what i'm talking about you young people and not everybody's going to go through this but part of god's spiritual training is his mighty hand comes on us and he puts us into a situation where we're just oriented in ourselves so we don't trust in ourselves anymore and when you get in that all you can do is keep kicking keep breathing and don't change direction because if you change direction you can get all messed up what you did by faith do not undo by sight when you can't see bottom i was taking flight training in beeville texas and we were flying a t-34 aircraft which is a two-seater it's a prop engine plane but it's built as a fighter it has a stick and it has rudders and it's built as a fighter and the pilot sits in front of you and you set behind the pilot and the pilot took us up to them the maximus maximum height of the airplane we're flying up their level and he says to me i'm in the back seat he's in the front seat and we got this little stick and at that point in time my hands were on my uh my my knees where they were supposed to be and he was flying the aircraft and he said now i'm going to put us into a spin and i want you to take us out of the spin you've been watching you've been watching all the instruments you've had some training and everything he said i understand you're not a pilot yet but i want to show you something that you need to understand and learn about this aircraft and so we are up at the maximum height and uh uh uh many many thousands of feet and he turned this we winged over and he put this thing in a straight dive going straight down and we're spinning like this that the wings are spinning and we're going straight down and he said all right now take us out of the dive and i put my feet on the rudders and i started pushing on this runner i started pushing on that rudder i put my hand on the stick i slightly pulled it this way and pushed on this rudder i slightly pulled it that way and pushed on that rudder i pushed on both runners at the same time i pulled the stick back i pushed it forward and he said in the in the little helmet microphone he said are you done yet and we're spinning like this going down and i said sir i i don't know how to do it he said watch me and do exactly what i do he said put your hands over your head and put them on the top of your helmet and he did the same and i did he said now take your feet off the rudder both of them and i took my feet off the rudder and he said now i've taken my feet off the road and we're still spinning and he said don't move and this plane was built for semi-conscious wounded pilots you know what that airplane did it had a gyro in it and it began to slowly stop the spin and it slowly leveled itself out with about 3000 feet to go he said what do you think i said i'm impressed he said what else do you think i said i don't think i want to be a pilot it was that day it was that experience that i decided i'll jump from airplanes but i don't want to fly them but i learned something in a great way that day later after i got saved you know what i find myself doing sometime when i get in a vertical when i'm disoriented when i don't know what i'm doing when i'm when i think i've messed everything up when god's probably got his mighty hand on me but i don't know it i got i got the rudder in a death grip i mean i started i got the stick and a death grip and i'm taking both my hands and i'm pulling this way and i'm pulling that way and i'm pushing i'm pushing the rudders i'm doing everything i can to get out of the spin and god says take your hands off the stick keep swimming keep kicking don't change direction get your hands off the rudder get your feet off the rudder now relax get used to it i'm in charge here because if you take it out of the spin you'll think you did it and only those who've been in it know what i'm talking about right now there's no formula to get out you don't even know how you got in people go through depression they call me and they say brother fisher i hear you've been through a depression how do you get out and i said take your feet off the rudder and your hands off the stick put your hands on your helmet and just sit there and they say what i said i don't know how you get out but the holy spirit knows how to write you when he's done do and with you what he wants to do because the mighty hand of god is on you and he's lowering you and you've got to get to the place where he looks at you and says are you okay and at the darker depths when it's colder when the pressure's on you just kind of drop your shoulders and relax and trust in him and you don't know how to get out and you just kind of relax and go i got to get used to this thorn i've got to get used to this limp i've got to get used to the fact that my brother's betrayed me i've just got to get used to this because it's not going to change and i'm not a victim and god's in this whole thing and somehow it's all going to work out i just don't know how and i don't know what i'm doing anyway this must be what it's like to be on the potter's wheel and he's marred me he's molded me and i don't even trust myself and god says good before us because the first thing you have to do in trusting me is stop trusting yourself and the refiners fire that brings up the dross there's a lot of consider it not strange the fiery tribes which are trials which are to try you so some strange thing happened to you like god didn't know you know what job said at the end of his trial when god says now i'm ready to release you from captivity job had no idea how god was going to turn his captivity he just knew he was he was he said i thought i knew you. job 42. i i i thought i knew you i want to read that to you because it's so important you don't have to turn there you're still in psalms 107. i know where you're at but look at no don't look let me just read it to you look up here in in in the book of job he says this i have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear but now mine i see it thee and then job says this look up here wherefore i abhor myself as you get lower with the mighty hand of god what happens is you look at yourself and you go i am nobody i don't even like myself enough of this self-esteem stuff when you get closer to god self-esteem goes out the window as you get closer to god god doesn't want us to like ourselves he wants us to love him and the closer we get to him we look at ourselves and go i'm a dirtbag i'm frail stop eating for 30 days and you'll see how weak you are you say well i just can't believe self-esteem and everything like that that's humanism look i didn't say i'm going to beat myself you know i'm going to hit myself it's not asceticism we're not whipping ourselves but you get close to god and he puts his mighty hand on you you'll be so messed up that you'll go i can't trust me and god says good and how does that feel are you okay no i'm not okay hold on get used to it look at psalms 107. i'm watching your time psalms 107. preacher i'm thinking of the time that you said to leave and i'm done now psalms 107 and we're done and just look at this and i want you to read this on your own psalms 107 and it just simply says this verse 23 they that go down to the sea and ships verse 23 and that do business in great great great think about that great waters if you're going to watch out and do something a little larger please see the works of the lord his wonders we're at in the deep but wait a minute when you get out in the deep he commandeth he commandeth raises the stormy wind you know what that does that lifts up the waves and they verse 26 those waves mount up and they go down to the depths and you know what those waves do they melt our soul because of trouble then you know what we do we hit vertigo we reel to and fro can't see bottom stagger like a drunken man can't see up can't see down can't see sideways and then we come to the end of our wit we come to the end of us figuring it out and you know what we do when we get to the end of ourselves then we cry out we cry out in god to god in our trouble we don't we know we can't solve it we can't fix it we're so messed up we cry out and he bringeth them out of their distresses why because he knows how to right the airplane even when you can't do it and then he can make the storm a calm so that the waves thereof are still i'm just saying we can only humble ourselves with the experience that we've had and maybe you're going through an experience now to bring you lower at least i leave you with this little thought look at me are you okay oh yeah yeah i'm fine and then god says look up here okay we're going down i've been down there before you're not going to get lower than i went i've been tempted at all points like us unto you i i've suffered more than you'll ever suffer i've been lower than you'll ever go i'll be lower than you ever take me but i've taken people lower than you've gone we're going down what about the pressure we're going down i'm watching you now stop now hold now look up here get comfortable for a year or two or three or four with what i've just given you to bear i'll exalt you when it's time wait on me let's that's powerheads are you okay no i got vertigo keep kicking i can't see bottom keep kicking don't change direction keep breathing come on husband and wife go and pray with him sister god's making him you say it's not me going through it it's my wife going through it i know sir but it's affecting you it's a child it's my child going to it i know brother but it's affecting you i can't get used to it hold now take your feet off the rudder now take your hand off the stick put your hands on your head on your helmet and sit there be still and wait stop trying to tell everybody else how to get out of it because everybody's a little different and each lowering is a little different than somebody else's the best thing for you to say is i don't know how you get out

Channel: Michael Bastos

Views: 7,883

Rating: 4.688889 out of 5

Keywords: 2011 09 14 AM, Are You OK, Fisher

Id: ULvdbQ91p9Y

Length: 39min 13sec (2353 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 31 2011