At Wit s End September 19, 2013

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1 Women & More September 19, 2013 Wit is defined as reasoning power (intelligence); mental soundness (sanity); resourcefulness, ingenuity, quickness and cleverness in handling words and ideas. According to Webster: At one s wit s end means: a person is at a loss for a means of solving a problem. That is where our study will go today! God is committed to bringing us to the end of self-assurance and self-effort; he will allow us, if necessary, to be at a loss for a means of solving a problem without him so that we will come back to Him. Without him I could do nothing; Without him I d surely fail. Without him I would be drifting Like a ship without a sail. Mylon R. Lefevre As long as we have it wit we re not inclined to reach out for or draw near to God. Scripture is replete with examples of coming to the end of our ability to solve a problem and crying out to God. God often allows us to come to those places; they can literally be appointments with him, with a purpose of being delivered by him. Jonathan Edwards called God The Hound of Heaven because he pursues us. He does that; and he equally orchestrates circumstances in our lives where we will pursue him almost always at wit s end. Why is it that we have to come to the end of ourselves before we seek God? It is the sinful nature at work in us! Charles Spurgeon: The Lord sometimes suffers His people to be driven into a corner that they may experimentally know how necessary He is to them. In seasons of severe trial, the Christian has nothing on earth that he can trust to, and is therefore compelled to cast himself on his God alone. Happy storm that wrecks a man on such a rock as this! O blessed hurricane that drives the soul to God and God alone! Often we have enough friends and enough resources and enough wit about us to get through life s tribulations, but when the tempest is terrible and the waves are wild; when the storm is sudden and sustained, or brief but brutal, when the dark is deadening with no light in sight, then is when we will turn our eyes, our ears and our hearts to our great God, and he is there ready and waiting to meet us. Hosea 5:15 In their affliction they will seek me early.

2 2 And what is true for us is true for our children! What God uses to draw us closer to him, and even bring us back to him after a season of sin, he will use with our children. We need to recognize when God is emptying our hands our children s hands of resources and wit to solve problems. Because if we think we can do something on our own without God we will tend to try and do it. Jesus reminds us in Luke 18:27 What is impossible with men is possible with God. Look at an Old Testament example: Genesis 32 recounts how Jacob left his Uncle Laban taking his wives, flocks, herds and possessions, and was headed back to meet up with Esau, the brother he had at very least twice-cheated and who was coming now to meet him with 400 men. Jacob had been a deceiver a very clever man, who had all his wits about him until now! Scripture says Jacob was in great fear and distress, and after dividing the people with him into groups of greatest treasure to least, he prayed to God: O God save me I pray from the hand of my brother Esau. During a literal wrestling match with God, Jacob is renamed Israel because God said he had struggled with God and with men and had overcome. Then God leaves his calling card and touches the socket of Jacob s hip, putting it out of joint for life. Jacob will never forget that tussle with the Almighty and being humbled, delivered at wit s end and then blessed. He will doubtless go there wit s end again in his life and God will be there again! The Old Testament recounts so many who, at their wit s end, turned to God and experienced deliverance: Lot in Genesis 14 and Hagar in Genesis 21; Naomi in the Book of Ruth and Jonah in the book bearing his name to list a few. Turning to the New Testament, we find it difficult to select one example, so here are several. While we don t know any of the events leading up to this widow meeting Jesus at her son s funeral, we do know from her grief that she was reaching wit s end. The whole of her resources and sanity her reason for living was lying in a casket ready to be committed to the cold hard earth. Jesus had just healed the centurion s servant from Capernaum and had traveled to Nain with his disciples and a large crowd in tow. In Luke 7:12 As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. 13When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, Don t cry. If the service ended there, Jesus would have been just another well-meaning person who had a bit of a strange way of comforting someone in such loss don t cry, He tells this mother. What kind of words are those?

3 3 Coming from Jesus those words were packed with promise! The Son of God would not ask a grieving mother, and widow at that, to not cry without divine reason. It s the same request he makes of us in Scripture today: Be anxious for nothing. In a world of harrowing madness, mind-numbing wickedness, with catastrophe and chaos galore, God tells us not to be anxious. And he told the widow of Nain weak with grief at her only son s burial service not to cry! Verse 14 picks up: Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, Young man, I say to you, get up! 15The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. Would this widow ever forget wit s end? Would she remember forever this Jesus the One who gave back her only son? Know that our God cares more about our children than we do that he will meet them at wit s end. We need to be mindful and careful not to interfere with God s dealings. Several years ago, I learned that my granddaughter, 20 and in college, was working at a place where she had not been paid but $100 for working some weeks. Her boss paid by cash only and kept putting her off when she tried to talk to him about being paid her salary and her tips, which were substantial. This was a place where she was required to serve mixed drinks so it was not a particularly family-friendly establishment a Martini Bar. In praying for her, I needed to be aware that God may have allowed her not to be paid so that she d reach wit s end and turn to Him for help, and change jobs. We must not rescue ourselves or our children from wit s end, except to encourage from God s Word and pray, pray and pray. Children are a precious gift from God, but much anxiety comes with them, says Spurgeon. O for more agonizing prayer on their behalf sin is there, so let our prayers begin to attack it. Never must we cease to pray until they cease to breathe. No case is hopeless while Jesus lives. God has a way for us to pray at wit s end: And in Colossians 1:9-14 Paul has a prayer for us, one that he prayed. We should model it for ourselves and for our children for that matter, anyone. The five critical points include: 1) Don t stop praying. 2) Ask God to fill (the one) with the knowledge of his will. 3) Ask God to help them live a life worthy of the Lord; a. to please him in every way, b. to bear fruit in every good work, and c. to grow in the knowledge of God. 4) Ask God to strengthen them with God s power for endurance and patience. 5) And then joyfully give him thanks!

4 4 Conclusion: God has qualified us to pray His will, because he has rescued us and he has redeemed us through forgiveness of sins! Proverbs 14:26 He who fears the Lord has a secure fortress, and for his children it will be a refuge. I cannot finish this lesson without including the Parable of the Lost Son; and you wouldn t want me to. It was at wit s end that the prodigal came to his senses, and it was there that he determined to return to his father s house. After he took his inheritance and squandered his wealth in wild living, Scripture says in Luke 15:14: After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need (resources all gone). 15So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. Friendless and foodless sanitarily challenged and sanity tested notice that he did not even get to eat the pods that the pigs were fortunate enough to eat. O my, this is the place this is it! Consequences of our own decisions have often brought us here, but Jesus wants us to see that this place will cause us to rethink, to reassess, to regroup to be of a repentant mind. It will bring about change: first in our attitudes and then in our actions. Pick up in verse 17: When he came to his senses (at wit s end), he said, How many of my father s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men. 20So he got up and went to his father. We know that the father was waiting, and that when he saw his son coming he was filled with compassion for him. We know that he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. This parable of Jesus makes the following verses sing: Proverbs 22:6 Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. Malachi 4:6 He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children. Ephesians 6:4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. At wit s end found the woman with an issue of blood for twelve long years reaching out in faith and touching Jesus. At wit s end prompted Peter, after denying the Lord Jesus three times in a public place, to see Jesus and repent weeping bitterly. At wit s end caused Jesus disciples, who had scattered at his crucifixion, to come together the morning after and see their resurrected Lord. At wit s end the blind beggar called out and even shouted out when rebuked by the disciples Son of David, have mercy on me. And his blind eyes saw! At wit s end Zacahaeus climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see Jesus was himself seen by Jesus, and came to a saving relationship with Him.

5 5 The best advice that the world can offer when we ve reached the end of ourselves to deal with life; to figure things out; to keep us going when we ve failed to keep our wits about us is platitudes and to encourage self-effort. Keep your chin up! Don t worry; be happy! Things have a way of working out! When the going gets tough, the tough get going! Look on the bright side! Things have got to get better because they can t get any worse! What goes around comes around! Do the best you can do and leave the rest to chance! When at first you don t succeed, try, try again! When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on! These sayings are not sinful, but they are pods that we cannot eat or digest, because there s no substance in them. But God s Word is rich with gracious help! We must run to the Father through His Son and receive mercy and grace. Hebrews 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. Spurgeon again: Great grace is needed, but great grace is provided! Scripture s 911 passage is Psalm 91:1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. Verse 2 continues: I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust. SKIP to verse 9: If you make the Most High your dwelling even the LORD, who is my refuge 10then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. Comes a day when we re at the end of ourselves; our ability to endure, to persevere, and, certainly, to figure it all out wit s end. This is the point we need to come to turn homeward, heavenward. We can take hope, because this is the same place God will lead our wandering, erring children precisely the point at which we and they are ready for God s marvelous grace. God knows how to lead us up to crisis, and he knows how to lead us through. GOD S GRACE is his mercy and unmerited (undeserved) favor to us, and it is saving, transforming, sustaining, all sufficient, and truly amazing!