We never get tired of celebrating good things. I want to celebrate a message this morning. And I want to set this message up, first of all, before I even read the passage and tell you what happened, why these words are coming forth out of the mouth of Moses. This is literally Moses’ last few hours as a human being on the planet. The Lord fills his heart with prophetic words. And all of Israel was comprised of 12 families called the 12 tribes. And the Lord inspired him to prophesy a special message over each of the tribes. Now it’s a lengthy passage in Deuteronomy 33, and I choose not to read the whole passage. But just to remind you he prophesies over every one of those tribes. And it’s worthwhile for all of us to read that passage in Deuteronomy 33, and park your tent for a little bit on each one of those prophecies because every one of them absolutely came true and still so. But he got to the end. He got to the end of the 12th tribe, and he said these words, Asher is most blessed of sons. Let him be favored by his brothers. Let him dip his foot in oil. Your sandals shall be iron and bronze as your days so shall your strength be. That was the concluding message. That was the last try.
And it’s almost like he was coming to the end of this little sermonette. These are the last words that Pastor Moses spoke to his congregation at this point in time was numbering in the millions according to archaeological historical people. It was a lot of people out there, and the Lord had to be amplifying his voice so that all could hear him. And it’s like he came to the end and then another little quickening came, and he now spoke another prophecy over the entire 12 families. This is what he said to all of them. Is there about to continue to embark on a journey now about to cross into the promised land? The promised land was already occupied. This is the piece of land.
There have been no more words in the whole world, no country, no piece of the planet has ever been fought over more times than what some people call Palestine, and what the Lord called Israel. I’m sorry that the world can’t get their act together and talk historically. God called that piece of property Israel all a long time ago. And so here they were about to cross over, and they were going to face some very powerful fierce armies because they were about to occupy. They were about to invade and occupy, but they were doing so according to the Lord. And this actually, as they were crossing over, you and I might sit there and say, that’s unfair. That they’re going in to occupy. Would you rather that the Lord destroy everybody in that part of the country through fire like he did at Sodom and Gomorrah? Or maybe we would prefer that God would have sent a flood and drowned them all. You see when God says, I’m going to judge you if you don’t straighten up your act, he means it. So he did not flood Israel, the property. He did not send down a fire from heaven. He sent Israel. And he said, when you go in, you will occupy it. This is the land I promised you. These people that you’re invading are ungodly.
They worship Satan. They’re pagan. They have forsaken the Word. They have forsaken that which they were given to by the Lord. By the way, this just reminds me of a verse in the Book of Romans that says, everybody is without excuses because we know that there is a Lord. We know that there’s a God. And I’m really anxious to preach a message on how can the Lord get away with saying, you are without excuse. Every one of you knows, and you and I would say, but there are little villages in Africa. They’ve, they know nothing about God. That’s contrary to what this book says. And I believe that in my heart, I have discovered how the Lord gets away with saying that.
I don’t want to get carried away with it now because I’m really feeling strong. I’ve never heard anybody preach on it. I’ve never read anything about it, but I feel strongly in my heart that we’re without excuses. We do know there’s a God. And at some point in everyone’s history, they’ve been confronted by the Lord. I’m going to prove that to you one of these Sundays. But for now, Moses is saying to these people who are about to invade a country that’s overrun by pagan armies, he reminds them, that there’s no God like your God. There’s only one God. The rest of them are manufactured.
I know I’ve said this in times past. It was very troubling for me, and I’m being very careful because I have some very precious friends sitting here today who I hope can relate to this in an okay way. But I was invited to go to the beautiful land of India. Before I left, I was passing a church in London, and a man stood up and said, I believe that we should be praying for our pastor 24 hours a day. While I was in India, that congregation, which was two congregations, twice on Sunday mornings, completely jammed packed. He created a prayer clock, and he had people sign up on the prayer clock for half an hour to eat. In the middle of the night, people were praying for me. I was so excited about this. The Lord had invited me.
He had inspired me, go, I had a very clear invitation. It wasn’t my idea to go. And so just before I left, someone came up to me and said, pastor, here’s something I thought you’d like to read. It’s about the land of India where you’re going. So here I was over the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. And I turned on my little light because it was dark outside. You couldn’t see a thing when you looked out the window. So I turned on this little light that would give me privacy, not disturb my neighbor, and I could read. And I pulled out this, whatever it was, this article, this pamphlet, and I started reading about India where I was going. And here’s what I read at the time. India has 6 million gods. And my heart sank.
I thought, dear Lord, what am I going to say? I know that you already have 6 million gods, but happy day. I have one more for you. You know this guy that’s selling you happy pillows, my pillow, my socks, he says, I’ve put your blankets together with threads that have been grown from cotton. In the land of Jesus somewhere over there, between the Euphrates River and whatever. But hurry, phone right now. He’s been saved for two years. Supplies are limited. He’s got fact, he’s got warehouses. How would he feel if you showed up at his door and made a gift, a presentation to him? Here’s a couple of towels that I bought at Giant Tiger in Beamsville. I just, when I saw these towels, I thought of you, I know how much you love towels. And what would he do with another pair of towels? He’s got warehouses full of them.
I felt like this as I was heading to India that I was going to stand up before these people and say, I’m so glad that you got all these trophy gods. But happy day, I got one more for you. Why should they believe me? Why should anyone even want to listen to me? The good news is they showed up in the thousands. As many gods as they had at that time, according to the article, 6 million, they were still not satisfied. I can’t explain that. If there was somebody showed up in our town tomorrow and announced I have news, I have found a brand new God, I think you would sit down and watch CNN, even though you were going to get fake news. You would not go to a rally. Come and hear about a brand new God. You’d say, no, we have enough.
Thank you. Or lots of people say I don’t even believe in God. So you would never be able to draw a crowd, but there, the crowd was absolutely ginormous. I don’t know if that’s a word. And what I was able to preach and share with them is I serve a God that’s greater than any God. The God that I serve was not made in an art room. He was not fired up in a kiln. He was not crafted with a knife out of a piece of wood. My God that I pray to was not a rock that I have discovered and made it a God. I don’t pray to the sun or the moon. I pray to the God who created it all. And here’s Moses saying, the people that you were about to encroach upon, they all have their gods, but he was saying to them, yeah, there’s no God like your God. And then he goes on to say why there’s no God like your God.
He describes him and it says, he rides in the heavens. He rides the heavens. So those of you who would pray to the sun God, the Lord God that I know created the sun, and he rides in the heavens like his chariot is made of a cloud. However, you want to picture that, he rides through the heavens. When you’re up in the sky, if you get high enough, I think the friction of doing so of travel is reduced. I’m not a scientist. I can’t explain this, but I know that when NASA sends a missile or some kind of a craft out into outer space, it travels quite nicely as it’s traveling through space, but they have to put very special tiles that have been crafted to withstand the heat because when the craft is coming back into the orbit of the earth, it’s starting to meet a resistance that we call air. And those things burn up and turn into nothing because of the resistance. But God moves to the heavens experiencing no friction.
He’s not held back in any which way. He rides in the heavens. And why does he do so? He comes to help you. There’s no God like your God. He’s not demanding of you. Islam is a religion that demands its people. You will kill people who don’t follow my instructions. Every one of us is called an infidel, and it is their responsibility to put us out of our misery. God says I’m not like that. I ride in the heavens. I come. I come to help you. And it goes on to say, and in His Excellency, He rides on the clouds. And why is He doing so?
He’s coming to help you. I love you. So I get this picture in my head. First of all, I have to deal with this theology. Theology is the sum total of what we read in this book. We read all of the prophets. It says in the book of Hebrews chapter 1 in times past Old Testament, God spoke to you in all of these manners by dreams, by visions, by prophets, by drama, by the parting of the Red Sea, by causing Israel to follow a cloud by day, and to warn themselves a night by a fire. He spoke to Moses by a burning bush. He spoke to others like Ezekiel through a dream of seeing a wheel in the middle of the wheel. God in times past spoke to you in all of these manners, but in these last days, He has brought all of those learnings, all of those teachings, all of those marvelous things that we know about God from the Old Testament, and God in summation has put it all together.
He’s spoken to you in these last final days by His Son. And therefore, God has given them a name above all the names of every angel, of every tin God, of every wooden God, of everything that you can imagine. He’s given them a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee not should, every knee will bow. There’s no God like your God who rides in the heavens to help you, our theology, all that we have read in the Old Testament, and everything that we now have discovered in the New Testament, we have come to understand this is our theology, this is our understanding, He’s omnipotent, omnipotent, all-powerful, He’s omniscient, all knowledge, He is omnipresent, He’s everywhere, He’s as close as the air you’re breathing. He says, I’m never far from any one of you, He’s wherever you go. One wrote these words in prophetic vibration, if I make my bed in hell, I can’t escape your presence. If I turn like a bird and fly, if I get on a NASA robotic missile and go to the moon, I can’t escape you.
Wherever I am, there you are. So wait a minute, if he’s everywhere, he’s right beside you right now, Erica, he’s right beside you, Peter, he’s right beside your daughter leading in the world, he’s right there. So why in the name of common sense does Moses say, he will ride in the heavens like he’s on a chariot, he heard your prayer, and he’s coming to meet you? So you see, you are right point B and you’re crying for help. God apparently has that point A, but when you cry at point B and say, I need you, God, he will ride in the heavens to help you. Why does he say, he will ride the heavens to come to where you are? He’s already there. And here’s David’s little addition to his sense of theology.
Have you never been at a point in your life where you felt he wasn’t near? Have you ever heard this term? I prayed, but the heavens felt like brass. Have you never cried out? Are you there? A school bus, I was the driver. I was only 20 years of age in the city of Peterborough. I had my regular route in the afternoons, and I had these teenagers’ bus loaded, and I would take them literally to their front door. And as I got to the end of my route this one late evening, it was dark because this was my third trip. This was the end of my day,
and I got to the very last stop, and somebody got off the bus, as I drove away, I went to turn off the cabin lights, and as I looked in my inside bus mirror view, a young girl was sitting there. So I took my foot off the pedal, and I said, hey, you better get up here. I didn’t want somebody left on my bus. A girl of all things. I can’t have a young lady on the bus with me. This is bad news. You better get up here. I wanted it. You explain yourself. So very timidly she came up, and she saw it in the seat, just adjacent to my bus driving chair. I said, what is your name?
She told me her name. Why are you on the bus? She said you didn’t come to my house. Where is your house? She told me the street, and the number I said, I don’t go down that street. In fact, that street is on my route. She said I know that now. Why are you on my bus? This was my first day, and I’m sorry I got on the wrong bus. I said, oh, okay, okay, okay. This is fine. What’s that
address again? I will take you home, and I left the lights on, right? And I’m nervous. Okay? I’m very nervous. This is not a good situation. And so I said to her, I don’t want you to be afraid. And I wanted her to really understand that she doesn’t have to be afraid. And so I did so this way. I said, my name is David. I’m a student at a college in Peterborough in this city that apparently you have just moved to. And I’m studying there for the ministry. I’m going to be a pastor.
Does that mean anything to you? She said, well, we don’t go to church, but yes, I understand. I said, so don’t be afraid, okay? You’re safe with me. Thank you, sir. So as we’re driving along, she said, can I ask you a question? I said, absolutely. You believe in God. I said, of course. She said, can you tell me something about him? What do you want to know? Everything. I said, you know nothing about God?
My parents have never taken me to a church in my whole life. My parents are atheists. They don’t believe in God. Oh, I said, so why are you asking the question? She said because I believe in him. I said you believe in somebody that you don’t know? And she said I know there’s a God. I just don’t know anything about him. And I don’t know how come I know. Isn’t that intriguing? I know, but I don’t know. Please tell me what you can about him.
And so as I’m driving my bus through that city, you know, when we started, the two of us, alone in that bus, we couldn’t have been farther within the city limits. We couldn’t have been farther from her. I mean, diametrically opposite. So it was quite a journey through the city of Peterborough. I had ample time to exchange with her what I know about the Savior. By the time I got to her house, I realized that God, that this was a God moment. This was a divine God had planned it. Of all the wrong buses she could have got on to. She got on to my wrong bus. And of all things,
this driver knew the answer to the deepest question. She said, I talk to him every night, but I don’t know his name. And she said, oftentimes I fall asleep weeping. Why are you crying? Because I want to know him, but I know nothing about him. Before she got off the bus, I led her in a prayer. And when I finished praying, she did everything but hugged me. She was so excited because all of a sudden there was this settlement in her heart. Suddenly she knew that she knew that she knew that she knew she was in touch with the Master. So you see, here was this girl who told me that at times she would say, are you there?
Can you hear me? I know nothing about you. I don’t know what to call you. Sometimes I feel like you’re right here in the room, but at times she was saying, but I don’t feel you this time. I think you’re far away. And so here was a girl who was saying, is he here or is he there for that girl that night? He heard her cry. And although she felt he was far away, he rode through the heavens to touch her. He moved from A to B. What was A? Okay.
She’s living in B. He said, A, why do I say he left A to come to B? Because A was her conclusion. He’s not here. And whenever you get to that point, and you will come to it if you’re not, because I’ve been there. There was a time I won’t go into, I won’t go into any specific, but there was a time when something horrendous happened to my family. And I remember racing to the basement of my house, and I screamed and tore it, and I yelled, why were you? Where were you? And I cried. I, where were you? He felt so far from me that night. It’s not like he was far away.
It’s that my sensitivity was blocked, and I felt numb. So I believe that God inspired Moses to say this, and I’m putting my rendition on it. If ever you feel, if ever it comes to your mind, I don’t know if it’s that. If it ever comes to your mind, Moses said, you remember, if you ever think he’s far away, whisper his name, he’ll ride the heavens, and he’ll be there. There’s no God like your God because he’ll ride the heavens to help you. And in his excellency, he used the clouds to get there. Why does Moses use these words, such flowery words? Because he’s appealing to your humanity. He can’t speak in glorious, ethereal concepts.
We cannot comprehend his omnipresence, and God doesn’t, God doesn’t chastise us for misunderstanding his eternal glory. He steps up, and he helps me with my unbelief. He sang a song, searching me on God, and helped me. And Siegfried said, just a little while, I’m thinking I’m putting words in his mouth, but it was, help my unbelief. I heard from the mouth of Laurie Price himself, who’s one of my favorite preachers of all time. He was preaching a sermon in London, Ontario, for our youth convention, and he told us about being in the prayer room of Evangel Temple in downtown Toronto. And there was this man in the church who was consistently trying to help him and bolster him and lift him up and support him. But he said, this guy just couldn’t get it together. And he kept on saying, I don’t think I have faith.
I don’t think I have faith. I don’t have a, and he said, I win the prayer room. And he said this man’s on his knees. And he said, the man’s crying out, help my unbelief. And he said, I stopped in my tracks and said, don’t you dare help his unbelief. That was his message. Dear God, don’t help his unbelief. Help my unbelief. We know what the prayer was all about. But the poor pastor was so beside himself.
Hey God, don’t you help him with that? Leave him on his own. If you ever feel like a failure, if you ever feel undone, you feel like you’re never going to produce a harvest. You don’t feel like, like a field that’s been properly planted. The only thing you can feel is that you’re all plowed up. You’re ready for something, but nothing’s showing up. You want to call on God, but you don’t know what words to use. Have you never been there? Have you never, have you never been in a place where you had to make a decision? Do I go to the left or go I too to the right? If I go to the left, I think this would work.
But if I go to the right, maybe this would be better. Oh God, I don’t know what to do. Paul actually felt that constraint. He said, I’m, I’m stretched between two notions. One is to go to be with the Lord. What a glorious moment. Oh, that will be glory, glory for me. But he said, you church, you need me here. And I’m stretched. I want to go to be with him, but I want to be with you. I’m what he’s really telling us. I don’t know which way to pray.
I don’t know if I’m to pray. God, save me from my, from my detractors. Save me from the Roman spear. Save me for God’s preservation. Give me one more year of preaching. Trust me, I know what that feels like. Lord, give me one more year Lord. My knees are hurting. My back is killing me. I sometimes feel like I’ve run out of sermons. Oh God, help me, help me. Or do I pray? Take me now. Take me to send a bus or send a coffin. Send a body bag.
Give me out of here. I’m too old for this. How to pray? How to pray? And when you don’t know how to pray, sit down and stop talking and let God do the talk. Did you know, did you know that prayer is not about you muttering and chattering away? Prayer is about spending time with him. You who are in love to this day or have been and you have a partner, some of the best times in your whole life are when you shut up and it’s sufficient. It’s sufficient to just be there. I long for one more, one more five-minute package. I long this. It’s a dumb idea.
It’s kind of like, I wish I wish I wish. But we all live with all if only. If I could have five more minutes with my papa who’s gone in his very latter days, I would go to his house, his apartment, and my mom would say he’s waiting for you, David. And I’d go into this little room. He’d be sitting in his easy chair and he’d be asleep. He was very old and he spent most of his time sleeping. I’d go over and touch his hand. He’d wake up. Oh, hi, Dave. I’d sit down near him after giving him a little hug.
And I’d sit there and be talking and he’d say, how’s it going, Dave? And I’d think, do you really want to know? Because I wouldn’t get to the third sentence. His eyes would close, and his head would tip over. And all of a sudden you’d wake up and you’d say, pardon? He didn’t realize that he slipped away. So I will learn to go in and greet him. And then I wouldn’t say a word. I would just sit with my papa. And you know, there was something not magical, but something touching, it’s something precious.
I just wanted to be with my papa. He didn’t have to say anything. I didn’t have to say anything. There was a given. There was an understanding. And my mom would come and stand at the door and look at us, an old man and a young man, speechless. But she seemed to know you’re God, what I’d give for one more little five-minute segment. Listen to Pastor. Prayer is not about, yuck, yuck, yuck. Do this. Do that.
Prayer is about sitting there and knowing. He says close to the mention of his name. There’s no God like you’re God. He will never leave you. He’ll never forsake you. Boy, this is so good. I’m running out of time. Let’s move on to the last part. So there’s no God like you’re God. He rides in the heavens. He comes in His Excellency in the clouds. And then this is so incredible. You know He’s omnipresent.
You know He’s always there. But God goes on through Moses and says, yeah, I’m with you. But I want you to be with me. Why did He say that? Why does God say, I need you to be with me? He wants us to acknowledge that we want to be with Him. You see, if I choose only to ask Him to be with me, there might be some optional moments when I say, I haven’t got time for you. I’m going to go fishing. That’s what Peter said. Jesus said to His disciples after He rose, He said to the ladies, go and tell the men. Go and tell your friends.
Go and tell the disciples. I’m on my way to Galilee. I’ll meet you there. They never went. They never went. And then He had to show up where they were. If you’d asked them after He had, they got the message, that Jesus is going to Galilee. He said He’ll meet you there. And everybody sat around, oh, are you going to go? Well, maybe He didn’t say that. Maybe that’s not what He meant. Why would He want us to go to Galilee?
They took the option of not going. So what did He do? He came to them. So here He says, He rides in the heavens to get where you are if you feel like He’s far away. He’s not far away, but you got to that conclusion because of your circumstances. He’ll ride in the heavens. He’ll get there for you. But the Lord says, let me turn the tables and say to you, I’m asking you to be with me because you see, if you’re always with me, you’ll never doubt that I’m with you. Choose to be with me. And He tells you exactly what that’s supposed to look like. The eternal God wants to be your refuge.
The readers at that time fully understood it. Some kings built castles and special places. Nobody else could go without an invitation. The historic place called Masada was built by the king at the time of Israel appointed by the Romans. His name was Herod. He built Himself a royal city on the top of a hill, a mountain called Masada. And then on the side of that hill, He built for Himself a very personal place. And you could only go there by invitation. Here’s an invitation. He’s in a high and lofty place and He wants you to be there. He says I want to be your refuge. I want to be your castle.
I want, I want to be the walls that protect you. I don’t want you to be afraid of the darkness of the night. I don’t want you to be afraid of the enemies. I want you to spend your time with me. I am your refuge. When He says, I want to be your refuge, He means, I want you to count me as home. And when you’re not in my presence, I want you to feel alienated. I want you to long to be home with Papa. Like I said, I’d love to be with my Papa for a moment. I think that day is not far away, except I, He’s not going to come to my house. I’m going to go to His.
Oh Lord, hasten the day. I want to go and be with my Heavenly Father and Jesus. And I’m going to look up Jesus. I’m going to look up my Papa as soon as I can, who I don’t doubt is waiting for me. Come on David, don’t lose hope now. I’m waiting for you here. God says, I want to be, I want to be your strong tower. I want you to be close to me. And I want you to feel alienated if you’re not there. It’s so interesting to me. So many empty seats in churches all over the place. People don’t care to be near to you. You ask them, do you believe in God? Yeah. But you don’t long for His presence. What’s going on with you? For sake, not the assembling of yourselves as is a manner of some, long to come together. Why is it so important that we come together? Well, I got my own Christianity. I don’t need to be there. Here, number one is this, when a certain couple came in this morning, the place lit up.
You know who you are, been away since before Christmas. Do you know, do you know the joy that you brought to this church family when you came through the door this morning? You send us, like a missile out of Cape Canaveral because there’s something delicious and wonderful when the body of Christ comes together. We are the body of Christ. Members, we’re called members in particular. Are you enjoying me doing up here surgery on this little thing? We’re called members in particular. He’s the head. And we’re the body. We’re the arms, the fingers, the hands, the feet. And it’s not natural for me to come this morning and leave my right arm at home.
I wouldn’t be able to go like this and shake my face. It’s not right that I leave one of my eyeballs. It’s not right that I leave my teeth in a glass beside my bed. It’s not right. I would be incomplete. And I would be moderately functional. And so when the body of Christ doesn’t come together, we become dysfunctional. Say a manner of creation. You believe that. Oh, thank you. You are valuable. Just your presence is pure gold because when we come together, we are together as a family enjoying the refuge that is our divine privilege. And we are not to forsake it. We are not to take it for granted. Get out of bed and get to the house of the Lord because we need you here. We need you to be present. His table is set. And there’s an empty chair. Are they not hungry?
I wonder if they’ve lost their way. I want to be your present, your refuge. And now I’m going to finish. I really am. He goes on to the last phrase.
So he’s everywhere, always omnipresent. But if you fear that he’s not near, he’ll come. And he wants to be your refuge so he doesn’t have to come. You live with him. He doesn’t live far away. And then he goes on and he adds one more little line. And this is the glory and the beauty of this book. God’s always putting an exclamation mark at the end of every sentence. And the exclamation mark is often a repetition of what you’ve already heard. And that is Jewish culture. That’s Jewish poetry. Look at Isaiah chapter 53 some other time read one line and then read the next one. And the second line embellishes the first. Do you understand what I just said? If I were to say, I’m so happy to be here. And then I go on to say, it’s so delightful to see you all. And I just feel comfortable. I already said it. I’m so happy to be here.
That should have been enough. No, but I have to go on. I’m David Chaddie. I love to. I’d like to go on and tell you a little bit more, a little bit more. That’s the Lord. He says I want to be your refuge. And then he goes on and he just kind of embellishes a little bit. And he says, remember this. And with all that I’ve told you, there’s one more point you need to know. I am the everlasting arms. So though you know he’s everywhere at all times or they’ll run and fly in a chariot or on the wings of an eagle and get to you on top of the fact that he wants you to always feel at home with him. On top of all of that, he says, oh, and one more thing. Remember, he’s carrying you.
So he’s around you. He’s ready to come. You’re listening to him because he and his presence are home. And then he adds one more thing. And oh, by the way, he is the everlasting arms. I conclude with a very, it’s a long story. I’ll conclude it very shortly. I’ll conclude it soon. Tell him, to give it with all the flavor. A candle pull is not a candy apple unless it’s covered with candy. Davey, our son was three and a half. He had this little sweater. Somebody gave it to him. Or maybe it was on the back.
It said, I’m the boss. We’re popping. I’m the boss. My wife determined to go. I’ll be I switched to this. You don’t hear anything. Pop, pop, pop. We’re hearing something here. So, April went shopping and I was the anointed one to be the baby’s sitter. I’m not good at it. Okay? That’s why I’m not babysitting anymore. And so April went shopping. I fed Davey his lunch and now it’s nap time. So I learned not to use this word.
When your dog is very old and shouldn’t keep him anymore, you know, in all fairness, you put him down. And then some little kid hears that what happened to your dog? Oh, we had to put him down. And then a few minutes later, the wife says to her husband, little Johnny’s bedtime, go put him down and the kid freaks out. So I put him down, but I put him down upstairs. And it was a hot, sultry, hot, sultry day. I said, now you have a little nap and Daddy will wait for you downstairs. So I went down and I plopped on the couch and I was gone to sleep. When I awoke, I thought, boy, he didn’t wake me up. And so up the stairs I went and said, come on, Davey, you can get up now. His bed had been disturbed, but he wasn’t there. I said, okay, hide and seek. You’re here somewhere. I looked under the bed, not there. Look at the clock, not there, not there. I went back down. Now I’m yelling, come on, Davey, the game’s up. Come on, I’ll get you a popsicle. Come on, Davey. No answer. I start to free code. I say, Dave, this is, get out here.
You’re making me nervous. No kid. I went downstairs. He’s not there. I opened the back door from the kitchen going into this little porch affair and the screen door going out to the backyard was ajar it wasn’t caught. I thought, oh, that little rascals out in the backyard. He’s getting in the sand pile. I went out. I call no answer, no kid. And to my horror, I went down the little set of stairs, looked around the corner and the gate to the exit to our property. It’s also ajar. He’s gone. Panic. I ran on the street. I’m bellowing. And in those days, I had a stronger voice than I have now. I think they heard me in Toronto as I bellowed his name and there was no response. Can you even imagine the fright, the horror, the shaking? Dear God, where is he? Where is he? And which way to go? We’re living in the middle of a very large community. Where do I look?
Do I look east, west, or north? Dear Lord, I don’t know. I raced and got the keys to the car. I jumped in the car. Do I go left? Do I go right? Dear God, help me. I raced down the street. I see a couple of teenage girls walk along the road. I stop. I rolled down the window and I said, have you seen a little boy wandering a little wee guy? And they said, does he think he’s the boss? I said, yeah. He thinks he’s the boss. We saw him turn that way. He went down that street. Okay. The trail’s hot. I raced down that street and I couldn’t go very busy boulevard. It’s called Queen’sdale. It’s a busy street. Left or right? For some reason, I turned right. It was accurate. As I’m driving along, heading along this boulevard, cars are coming, cars going behind me. And all of a sudden I see three little figures. Two boys, a little bit bigger, and one with a blue shirt. Without a doubt. I couldn’t make it out from here but without a doubt. It says “I’m the boss.”
And to my horror, the bigger boys were mean. I don’t know where kids learned this one. Each one of them had a hold of his arm or hand. And they were edging out into the middle of the road. And they were swinging his body back and forth. And the kid is screaming blue murder it’s terrifying. There’s a car coming. Can you believe it? They threw him into the path of an oncoming car. Well, the driver of that car was as alert as me, and that car stopped. I jumped out of my car now. I’m close enough. And when somebody saw that an adult had arrived and was getting out of the car, no need for a second. The other car drove off. The two boys ran for their lives.
Good thing. They would have gone to heaven or some other place real soon. My little son, who’s such a tiny little thing, is in total trauma. His eyes are pinched shut. Two legs and two arms are flying in every wits direction. He has no idea that the enemy’s gone and even the car was gone. And he has no idea. I’m there. He’s screaming. I knelt. And as I touched him, he fought me off, never opened his eyes. And finally, I had to say, David, David, David, it’s Dad. It’s Daddy. And suddenly his eyes popped open and he screamed, Daddy! As I was kneeling close to him, he somehow managed to get his hands, his arms up around my neck, and he held onto me, and he was like Velcro.
And he’s talking in my ear. And it’s hardly decipherable because he’s crying so boisterously. It’s like Babel. And as it’s coming out, I was picking up little bits of sentences. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have. And Daddy, I was lost. Daddy, I wanted to go home. I didn’t know which way to go. And he’s gone. And those boys, although those are bad boys, he’s rambling. And I said, stop, stop, stop. That’s okay. I got him into the car. No seat belts in those days. He sat on my knee. Now, where should I take him? He likes ice cream. What if the boys walk by the ice cream parlor? What if I take him to the nearby park? He loves the teeter-totter, the swing. What if there are some boys there? Can you suggest where I might have taken him? Home? Why did I take him home? Because that is a refuge. That’s a familiar place. That’s where Dad rules. That’s where all the comforts are for my little boy.
And how did my little guy get there in my arms? Daddy, I wanted to come, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t get there. I couldn’t find my way. Dear Jesus, I can’t find my way. I don’t even know what words to use. I feel like if I say it, we’re not going to condemn myself. I feel so horrible. I don’t feel like I have faith. Are you even there? Are you listening? Dear God, dear God, dear God. And Moses tells us not to look up. Moses says in a word, if you’re ever in the place of total, total looseness, look down. Because no matter how low you are, there’s something lower. The arms are always there. And before you call, he’s on his way.
I’m not going to say don’t you ever doubt because doubt is part of your frame. He knows that we’re dust. He knows that we’re weak. He knows how weak we are and he knows we need to be reminded. There’s no God like your God. We need to be reminded. He’ll ride to Heaven if you doubt. And you’ll not be in this difficult location. I will spend more time with him. Consider him to be your personal 24-hour-a-day refuge. And always remember when you run out of gas and when your legs can’t get you there. Your pastor has been there.
I wanted to run to Papa. I wanted to find the right verse. Gordon, I couldn’t find the words to pray. All I could scream was where were you? Where were you? Where were you to protect my little ones? Where were you? God, you’ve let me down. I didn’t pray all of that. I just said where were you? But I meant all of these things and 10,000 more. I can’t tell you the disappointment. I can’t tell you how deep I felt. I felt so low, so low. And how blessed I was when I read the story of Cori Tenboom.
Her sister’s laying on the remnants of a pathetic bed tormented and brutalized by the Nazis because they believed in God and because they believed in care. Her mother, her sister’s dying said something to the effect, but she didn’t, she was losing her sense of where is he, where is he? And Cori said to her, there’s no pit so deep he cannot reach down and touch you. Hallelujah. There’s no God like your God. No God like you. No God like you. Whisper Jesus, the songster says, whisper Jesus. That’s all you have to whisper. Just say his name. I don’t know the words. Just whisper his name. There’s comfort in the name of Jesus. When you say his name, you are speaking the sum total of every promise in this book.
I think I need to learn all the promises. No, there’s one promise. His name is Jesus. You call Jesus. You’re claiming every promise in this book. Hello? That’s profound. Stand with me. I want you to do something I don’t think I’ve ever asked you to do before. In fact, I know I haven’t. And if you’re not one of these touchy-feely people, get over it. I want you to move in whatever direction you have to so that you form lines across this auto-troy moment, you know, join hands. Go ahead.
You might have to travel some distance.
And if you’re watching. Just join hands with one another and join us in Prayer today.
