DON’T ASK GOD FOR SMALL THINGS. GOD FEELS HONOURED WHEN YOU ASK HIM FOR BIG THINGS
IF YOU DON’T ASK, YOU WON’T GET. CALEB ASKED FOR A MOUNTAIN AND GOT IT
THERE ARE SOME MOUNTAINS FROM WHERE YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO SEE THE GLORY OF GOD CLEARLY
OUR BELOVED NIGERIA AIRWAYS (OF BLESSED MEMORY) WAS JUST GOING TO CRASH AND CATCH FIRE BUT GOD USED THE MEDIUM TO GAIN MY ATTENTION
ON THE MOUNTAIN WHERE YOU CAN HEAR GOD MORE CLEARLY, HE CAN TELL YOU ABOUT YOUR SUCCESSOR
THERE ARE MOUNTAINS THAT ARE NECESSARY TO PUT YOU BEYOND THE REACH OF THE ENEMIES
ANYBODY CAN CALL HIMSELF A PROPHET BUT GENUINE PROPHETS ARE REVEALED IN A NATIONAL CRISIS
SOME MOUNTAINS ARE NECESSARY FOR A MAJOR NATIONAL REVIVAL LIKE THE CASE OF ELIJAH ON MOUNT CARMEL
IT MAY TAKE A MOUNTAIN TO PREPARE YOU TO HEAR GOD CLEARLY AND KNOW THE FUTURE
DAVID HAD BEEN ANOINTED BUT NOBODY KNEW ABOUT THIS ANOINTING UNTIL GOLIATH APPEARED
SOME MOUNTAINS ARE ALLOWED IN OUR LIVES BY GOD TO ANNOUNCE OUR ANOINTING TO THE PEOPLE
SOME PROBLEMS COME TO COMPEL YOU TO GET CLOSER TO THE SOURCE OF ANOINTING – GOD
NOT ALL MOUNTAINS ARE TO BE MOVED; YOU BORE YOUR WAY THROUGH SOME MOUNTAINS LIKE IN THE CASE OF THE RED SEA
SOME MOUNTAINS ARE NOT TO BE WIPED OUT BUT TO SERVE A PURPOSE IF YOU ARE ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN
THE RED SEA CLOSED AGAIN SO THAT THE ISRAELITES WON’T BE ABLE TO GO BACK TO EGYPT
THE VERY BIG LESSON WE LEARN FROM CALEB IS THAT HE WAS THE MAN WHO ASKED FOR THE MOUNTAIN!
- Pastor E. A. Adeboye on “FOR WHOM THE HEAVENS OPEN (Part 53)” || RCCG Online Sunday Service || 18th August, 2024
We move on to part 53 of our series on “THE ONE FOR WHOM THE HEAVENS OPENS” and we have been using Joshua as our case study and we’ve been on this now for over a year. Well, steadily we are moving towards the close of the series, but in the past couple of weeks we have been talking about a man called Caleb who happens to be someone whose destiny is connected to that of Joshua. Church Gist. We have been looking at Joshua 14:6-14 and those of you who have been with us all along, you know the passage. Those of you who probably might be joining in today, please make sure you read Joshua 14:6-14 because today I just want to look at verse 12 there. Joshua 14:12-13.
Usually when you are discussing with children and you begin to ask them how much of the Bible they know, you ask them, “who was Moses?” They will probably tell you, “Moses was the law giver. The one who brought the 10 commandments from God to the children of Israel.” If you ask them, who was David? Almost invariably, they will tell you, David was the giant killer – the one who killed Goliath. Church Gist. If you ask them, who was Daniel? They are likely to tell you, the man who spent a night with lions in the lion’s den and came out without any hurt. If you now ask them, who was Caleb? A young Christian will probably just say, “oh Caleb! That was the colleague of Joshua. They were friends.” One who is a bit more matured will probably say, “oh he was the old soldier that never died because at the age of 85 he was still ready to go to war because he was as strong at 85 as he was at 40.” Church Gist. But if you ask a really matured Christian, who was Caleb? The answer you are likely to get is: the man who asked for a mountain – that’s one of the very big lessons that we learn from Caleb. The man who asked for the mountain!
So we come to a very important aspect of this particular passage. We learn some serious lessons here basically that not all mountains are to be moved. Church Gist. Yes, according to Mark 11:22-24, mountains can be moved. Yes, according to Joshua 6:1-21, some mountains are to be demolished. You know, the Wall of Jericho is like a mountain because we always think of a mountain as an obstruction to our progress – an obstacle. But there are some mountains that you just need to bore your way through like in the Red sea case in Exodus 14:1-28, the Sea parted and the children of Israel passed through and the Sea closed again. In other words, the mountain was still there but the children of Israel were now on the right side of the mountain. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons that the Sea closed again is so that they won’t be able to go back to Egypt. Church Gist. So some mountains are actually not to be wiped out, they might still serve a purpose if you are on the right side of the mountain.
That means that some enemies, yes, are to be completely annihilated – 1 Samuel 15:1-33. When Saul saved the King alive, Samuel the prophet completed the job – he killed the King. Church Gist. Some enemies are to be dead and buried – Numbers 16:23-34. Even according to Joshua 7:19-26, some enemies are to be killed, burnt, buried and sealed off forever.
However, some mountains are for climbing. There are some mountains that you have to climb. Why? Because they serve some good purposes. For example in Exodus 17:8-13, Moses climbed a mountain and from there he controlled the war in the valley below. Church Gist. So there are some mountains you have to climb that will get you closer to the source of anointing. Not all problems are to be wiped away – there are many atimes that we do not get as close to God as we should be unless we have a really big mountain – a problem sufficiently big that we will be compelled to draw closer to God. Then, there are some mountains that are allowed in our lives by God to announce to the people that we are now anointed. 1 Samuel 17:34-51. It was when Goliath appeared and David handled him, that everybody discovered, there is someone in our midst carrying an unusual anointing. It takes some mountains to announce that God has anointed you. David had been anointed in 1 Samuel 16:11-13, but nobody knew about this anointing until Goliath appeared. Oh the boy knew, the relatives knew, the boy has seen the anointing working privately when the lion came to steal one of the sheep and he grabbed the lion by the beard and boxed it to death and a bear came and he did the same thing. Church Gist. The boy knew it wasn’t the punch of an ordinary boy that killed a lion. He knew it wasn’t the punch of an ordinary boy that killed a bear, he knew it was the anointing at work but nobody knew until Goliath came.
- I almost pray that the mountain that will announce your anointing will come rapidly!
Some mountains are necessary for a major national revival. 1 Kings 18:20-45. It was on Mount Carmel that Elijah had the competition with forces of darkness and demonstrated that there is a God who can answer by fire. Church Gist. It was then the whole nation fell on their face and said, Jehovah is the Lord. National revival! Every prophet, anybody can call himself a prophet, it takes a national crisis before you know that some prophets are genuine. Some mountains are necessary for you to climb so you can hear God more clearly. 1 Kings 19:4-13. It was Horeb on the mountain of God that Elijah heard the still small voice of God. At times God has to get you apart from the noise of the people in the valley before you can hear him more clearly. You can be sure God has been talking to Elijah long before 1 Kings 19. But in 1 Kings 19, that’s where he was able to hear God more clearly because God was speaking in his still small voice. Church Gist. At times, God has to get you away from the hustle and bustle of business, get you apart to himself where everything is quiet and it’s you and him alone now, talking.
Particularly, when God wants to spell out your future to you. 1 Kings 19:14-17 – you hear God telling Elijah, (Elijah who thought he had failed, who was already asking God to kill him) that when God said, no no your ministry is not over yet, your influence is about to expand. Church Gist. Oh, up till now you have been fighting a king, now you are to anoint kings; you’re to move to a new level of ministry. At times it takes a mountain to get you to a place where God will be able to speak to you and tell you about the future.
I remember years ago when I was travelling to London in our beloved Nigeria Airways of blessed memory and we got to Heathrow and suddenly just before we begin to descend, the Captain announced that the door at the belly of the plane refused to open and the implication of that is that the tyres can come out and the implication of that is that, unless something happens, we are going to crash. Church Gist. Ah! and I am telling you, anointing or no anointing, I was afraid and on that particular day like I have told the story before, I was travelling first class because somebody bought the ticket. So there are all manners of big people there. All of a sudden we realized that the rich do fear death. There was all manners of commotion and I said, “oh God, you didn’t tell me this is how it’s going to end. I was saying goodbye to my children yesterday, you didn’t tell me that was the last time I will see them.” He spoke to me and said, “no no, I want to talk to you because I know as soon as you land, the people won’t let us have time.” So the plane kept on going round and round and round and the pilot was adding fuel to the fire: “everybody be quiet now, after all you know that the fire fighters in Britain are very efficient.” Fire fighters? You mean we are not just going to crash, we are going to catch fire? Church Gist. But during that period, during the commotion, when God saw, “now I have gotten your attention,” he told me some things to come.
- May I pray that the mountain where you will be able to hear God more clearly, the Almighty God will bring it your way very soon!
…Because on the mountain where you can hear God more clearly, he can even tell you about your legacy, about who will continue the work that you have been doing because it’s on that mountain that God told Elijah, “hey, there is a boy called Elisha, go and get him.”
There are some mountains that put you beyond the touch of the enemy. Mountains you have to climb so that the enemy can’t reach you easily. For example in 2 Kings 1:9-12. So there are mountains that are necessary to put you beyond the reach of the enemies. Church Gist. If you read 2 kings 6:8-23, when another king wanted to arrest Elisha and he sent an army to go and arrest him, Elisha was on a mountain top and from there he was able to demonstrate his superiority. The army was coming and he was telling his boy, “don’t worry those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” You know the story very well. When they came to him, the Bible says he asked God to blindfold them and then led them into enemy territory and then asked God to open their eyes and they saw they were surrounded by a mighty army. But instead of killing them, he just said, let’s feed them and send them back to sender. Church Gist. The Bible said, from that day onward, the enemy that sent them never attempted it again. There is a mountain from where you can show that the Almighty God your father is really the commander in chief of the host of heaven.
There are some mountains from where you might be able to see the glory of God clearly. Matthew 17:1-10. Jesus climbed the mountain, took 3 people with him. I remember the first time we went to Israel and we got to the mount of transfiguration, we all wept. Church Gist. We all wept because I told the people, what was the offence of the remaining 9 disciples that they were not allowed to come up here and see what the 3 saw? Because he told those three, “don’t tell anyone what you have seen here.” We wept because I said to them, “you know, there was a lot of announcement about us going to Israel. At the end of the day, only 50 of us went.” I said, we must be some special people that God chose us to come up here.
But then, this man asked for a mountain. Another big big lesson from that is that: don’t ask God for small things. God feels honoured when you ask him for big things; he doesn’t feel very comfortable when his children ask him for little things. Psalm 78:41. Don’t limit him. Ask for great things. 2 Kings 4:1-7. Church Gist. The bigger your problem, the bigger your testimony will be. Don’t forget, Ephesians 3:20. Don’t forget that your God owns the Earth and the fullness there of. Don’t forget that silver and gold belong to him. Don’t forget that all the cattle upon a thousand hills are his own. Feel free today to ask for even what money cannot buy. Remember, Solomon asked for wisdom; he got not only wisdom, he got several things in addition.
Finally, don’t forget that if you don’t ask, you won’t get. James 4:2. Church Gist. Caleb asked for a mountain and he got it.
- Whatever you ask God for today, in the name that is above every other name, no matter how big, my God will give it to you!
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