Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
11 Kings 3:9-20
Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
“Suppose I accept this gospel, what will I find?”
Brendon’s response was, “You will stumble upon wonder upon
wonder and everyone of them true!”
Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
Teihard de Chardin said—We are not human beings having a
spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a
human experience.
The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People—Covey—319
Has our life experience somehow become just human?
Where is the wonder?
Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
Jeremiah 9:23
This is what the Lord says, “Let not the wise man boast in his
wisdom, or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich
man of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this;
that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who
exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for
in these I delight.”
Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
Graham Scroggie, in his book METHOD OF PRAYER says:
One of the greatest mistakes that a Christian can make, is to
imagine that increased social or spiritual activity can be any
compensation for the lack of secret communion with God…
Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
A prayerful life is always a powerful life; and a prayerless life
is always a powerless life. If we cannot pray, we really can
do nothing right; but how slow we are to believe that. We
find a spiritual law at work in the uniform experience that
the more we pray; the more we need to, and want to; and
the less we pray; the less is the desire to do so.
Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
UNDERLYING ISSUES CANNOT BE IGNORED…II Kings
3:1-7
• Is there any evidence that they consulted God?
• Is there evidence of an unequal yoke?
Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
II Corinthians 6:14-16 says…
Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do
righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what
fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is
there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer
have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is
there between he temple of God and idols? For we are the
temple of the living God…
Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
UNDERLYING ISSUES INEVITABLY SURFACE…II Kings
3:8-14
Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
Matthew 6:8…your Father knows what you need before you
ask Him
Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
How many of us receive blessing because of our spouse, our
father or mother or grandparents and what will we do when
they are gone?
Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
UNANTICIPATED INTERVENTION BRINGS WONDER…II
Kings 3:15-24
Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
Make this valley full of ditches, for this is what the Lord says:
You will see neither wind nor rain, yet this valley will be
filled with water, and you, your cattle and your other
animals will drink. This is an easy thing in the eyes of the
Lord; He will also hand Moab over to you…
Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
Jesus is the source of water. He said…
If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever
believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living
water will flow from within him. By this He meant the
Spirit…
Are we thirsty enough to dig?
Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
The water came to the desert…the next morning, about the
time for offering the sacrifice, there it was—water flowing
from the direction of Edom! AND THE LAND WAS FILLED
WITH WATER…v 20
Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
It came because they dug the ditches. They decided the size
of God’s miracle, the size of the invasion of wonder by the
depth of the ditches they dug.
Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
Prayer is not overcoming God’s unwillingness, it is laying hold
of His great willingness.
Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
Let me give you 6 ditches to dig…
1. Jeremiah 33:3
Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and
unsearchable things you do not know
• God we need water and wonder
Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
2. James 5:16
The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective
• God, please make us righteous
Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
3. Hebrews 4:16
Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence,
so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in
our time of need.
• God, our desert needs your mercy and grace.
Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
4. Philippians 4:19
And my God will meet all your needs according to His
glorious riches in Christ Jesus
• God, we have needs that demand your glorious riches in
Christ Jesus
Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
5. I John 5:14-15
This is the confidence we have in approaching God; that
if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And
we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know
that we have what we asked of Him
• God, we know that everyone in our desert needs Jesus
and it is your will that they not perish without Him.
Please save them.
Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
6.
•
II Corinthians 10:4-5
The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the
world. On the contrary, they have divine power to
demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and
every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge
of God, and we take captive every thought to make it
obedient to Christ.
God, bring down the strongholds in us, in our desert, in
our church, in our city
Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
Visit us with the wonder of water in the desert again!
Ditch Digging is the Highest Calling
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