And so maybe your family needs to ride it out right now, maybe your marriage needs to ride it out right now, your kids, your job, your church, your health, your finances, whatever area right now is sputtering, can you just keep walking? I think it's a good time to step back and take some inventory. It's a good reminder for all of us that even the Lord Jesus Christ had mountaintops, but he also had those valleys. And we'll all have them. We'll have them for the rest of our life. The final valley we must pass through is known as the Valley of the Shadow of Death. And once we pass through that one, folks, it's all mountain. It's all mountain. But until that time, when it comes to life, there will be mountains and there will be valleys. The Bible says that the gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation. Welcome to Pulpit Power featuring Pastor Tony Skeving, Senior Pastor of Fargo Baptist Church in Fargo, North Dakota. Today's message was previously preached before a church audience. And now, here's Pastor Skeving. Let's take our Bibles, please, and turn to the Gospel of John and the 12th chapter, John chapter 12. know during his 33 years on this earth the Lord Jesus Christ made a number of trips to the Temple in Jerusalem for the Passover but we find him now making his final trip there. It's six days before the Passover. He has just finished a supper at the home in Bethany of Simon the leper about a couple of miles just outside of Jerusalem and we that's where Mary had come and anointed Him, prepared Him for the burial and such. And it's also where Judas and company protested and said, why was this waste? It should have been sold for 300 pence, given to the poor. Well, the Lord rebukes Judas and company there and that's where we pick up with it here. In John 12 beginning in verse number 9, The Bible says, much people of the Jews therefore knew that he, Jesus, was there. And they came not for Jesus' sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also, whom he had raised from the dead. But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death, because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away and believed on Jesus. On the next day, much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna, blessed is the King of Israel, that cometh in the name of the Lord. And Jesus, when he had found a young ass, sat thereon, as it is written, Fear not, daughter of Sion, behold, thy king cometh, sitting on an ass's colt. These things understood not his disciples at the first. But when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him and that he or that they had done these things unto him. Now we find Christ here at the pinnacle of his popularity. And we've seen this thing kind of go back and forth. We've seen him kind of a hero carried off on people's shoulders. We've seen him in the eyes of the Pharisees as the dirty dog and they're out to kill him. And so we've seen this up and down kind of a thing here with the ministry of Christ, but we find it now at its peak, at its zenith. But at this point, it goes downhill. And we find those things are true in life of us. We find the same pattern that in life, there are those mountains and there are those valleys. And I think this would be a good time of the year to take a step back and talk about those things, the mountains and valleys of life. Let's pray before we begin. Father, we thank you now for the opportunity to be in the house of God for this special Sunday. And Father, our minds whirl as we look back on all your blessings over these past weeks and months. And now as we stand at a threshold and we look ahead, forward, help us now to talk about this subject of life as it plays out quite often, full of mountains and valleys. And help us now to learn some things about them. We pray now and ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. You know, at my age, I find myself liking what they call dad jokes. Dad jokes, my kids call them bad jokes, but they say I'm the king of dad jokes, but they're not a new thing. I remember those corny kind of jokes even in grade school growing up. In fact, I remember one in particular about a physician who called a patient and he said, I've got some good news, I've got some bad news. The patient said, well, what's the good news? The good news is that you have 24 hours to live. The guy said, what's the bad news? He said, I forgot to call you yesterday. And those are the kind of, I got a million of them by the way, jokes my kids don't appreciate. But you know, we find that life is full of good news and it's full of bad news. And it's also full of good days and bad days. We all have them, the mountains and the valleys of life. You know, we talk about that as a metaphor, knowing that there are these peaks that we live on sometimes, everything's going great, it's just wonderful. But then we find ourself after that plummeting down into a valley in life, and we find Christ now on the mountaintop. I mean, this is it. I mean, literally, he's coming down the Mount of Olives, he's going up Mount Zion, he's going into the temple here, and his popularity has exploded. But we know within a very short time, matter of days, that same crowd is going to be crying out for His blood. They're going to be saying, crucify Him, crucify Him. And oh how quickly life can change, and oh how quickly that switch can flip, and we can go from this mountain, we can find ourselves down in this valley. I want to talk about this, and I think it's a practical subject at this time of the year to think about. As we deal with the mountains and the valleys of life in this text, this wonderful passage here, we see several things. And the first of which I see here is what I call the supernatural seekers. Now, this all started with these folks who are on the side of the Lord Jesus Christ. They're His fans. there's this hysteria he's he's gonna come into Jerusalem now he's a celebrity and we read this in verse number nine it says much people of the Jews therefore knew that he was there and they came not for Jesus sake only but that they might see Lazarus also whom he had raised from the dead." So we find there's a lot of people in town, they're there to see Jesus, kind of, but they are also there to see Lazarus. And you say, well, why Lazarus? Remember last time in chapter 11? Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead after four days. So you've got really a living testimony of a great miracle here, and there are a lot of people in town to see Lazarus. You know, there's an expression, and I think most of us are familiar with the expression, a storm chaser. What's a storm chaser? Well, these daredevils who drive around, they like to follow tornadoes and chase storms. There's also an expression called ambulance chasers. What are they? Well, they're opportunists who drive around, and hopefully we'll get a lawsuit out of this following an ambulance. Well, there's another expression I have called signs and wonder chasers. And there are those folks who follow miracles around. They follow these signs and these wonders and they look for these supernatural events. They're supernatural seekers or you might say miracle mongers. They're always interested in a miracle, and quite often they're more interested in the miracle than the Lord Jesus Christ. And such is the case here. We find some folks in Jerusalem, they're not there really for Jesus, they're there to see Lazarus, because this miracle had taken place and Lazarus is the guy that had been raised from the dead. Now, that poses a question to us all. is every miracle of God. Because if somebody sees a supernatural event, some kind of a spiritual miracle, they immediately attribute that to God and say, well, this was God, is every miracle of God. You know, back in St. Medard, that's in France, back in the 1800s, there was a miracle that took place. It was 1772, and there was a man, a faithful man, a particular church at that time. He died kind of young, and at his funeral, There was this boy in attendance who had been a cripple since, I mean, he was a little toddler. He was walking with the limp and so on. And so the story goes that the boy was passing by the coffin to pay his respects. He touched the coffin, it zapped him, knocked him back. And when men helped him to his feet, he could stand by himself. He could jump up and down. He could leap. And they said, this is a miracle. You know, in 1920 in Ireland, there was a statue apparently of Jesus Christ that was bleeding. And they said, how can this happen? They attributed it to a miracle. In 1995, there was a statue of Mary, a Madonna over in Italy that apparently was bleeding and nobody could explain it. And then throughout South America or Latin America, there have been a number of sightings of statues of Mary that are crying. And you say, wow, this is a miracle. Well, yeah, these are things that are hard to explain. There was a faith healer not too long ago that apparently was able to lengthen a leg that was shorter than another leg on an individual and they couldn't explain how he's able to do it. It's a miracle. And people say, it's a miracle. Okay. All right, it's a miracle, but the big question is, who's behind this miracle, folks? Is this miracle of God? I mean, if you remember back in the book of Exodus, you know that the sorcerers, the warlocks of Pharaoh were able to duplicate some of the miracles that God was doing through Aaron and Moses. And we find that they were able to turn the water into blood, and the sorcerers of Pharaoh came along and said, well, you can do that, and they did. And they were able to turn these frogs on the land and the sorcerer said, well, we can do that too. And they did. And those weren't of God. Those were of the devil. And folks, there are demons at work. I don't deny there's some supernatural stuff taking place out there, but be careful about what you're following and why you're following it, because there are demons at work in this world. In fact, The greatest deception that's going to take place is yet to come when this Antichrist comes on the scene with his false prophet and deceives the masses. And we read about it in 2 Thessalonians 2.9, it mentions even him. whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders. So friend, the devil can do miracles and you have to be careful about seeking these miracles. In fact, Jesus said in Matthew 24, for there shall arise false prophets and shall show great signs and wonders in so much that if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. And so there's going to be a lot of deception and you and I have to be discerning and spiritually perceptive not to fall for this stuff. You say, well, pastor, how do we sidestep the landmines here that the devil has out there to suck people in? It's real simple. Just stick with the Bible. Just stick with the Bible. Now, up until the Bible was complete, yes, there was fire falling from the sky, and there were Red Seas parting, and there were amazing things taking place. But about 100 A.D., roughly, God said, okay, I'm shutting the book, and that's the end of that stuff, and that stuff ceased, and now we have a God who wants us to live by faith. He comes along and He says that just shall live by faith three times. We find Him saying what serves not of faith is sin. We find Him saying without faith, It's impossible to please me. And so you say, well, where do we get faith? We're told in Romans 10, faith comes by hearing the word of God in a nutshell. So we get our faith from the Bible. We live by our faith and we have to follow this book and not be taken in because there is a devil out there and he is busy sucking people in because he has some very strong supernatural power. I believe he can even control the weather. And so we find you have to watch out for the devil's ploys by sticking with the Bible. You know, we find Peter at one time during the life of Christ, going up on the top of Mount Tabor with James and John, and up there, those three fall asleep while Christ is praying. And when they wake up, Peter sees Jesus, but he's as just white as snow. He also sees with him Elijah, and he sees with him Moses, his boyhood heroes. Man, he had learned about it at the synagogue, and he's just overwhelmed. And he says, Lord, it's great for us to be here. Let's make three altars, one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah. And it's at that time the voice of God the Father thunders from the clouds, and he says, no, no, no, this is my beloved Son. Hear Him. He singles out the Son of God. Well, Peter is told on the way back down the mountain not to tell that vision to anybody until Christ is resurrected, and so some years fly by and now he's an old man, probably in his 60s, he's writing his final epistles, and he talks about it. He says in 2 Peter 1.18, this voice which came from heaven, we heard when we were with him, Jesus in the Holy Mount. But we have also a more sure word of prophecy, where unto you do well, that you take heed." What's he saying? He's saying there's something that trumps this supernatural sign or wonder or miracle. It's the Word of God. Don't you ever trump the Word of God with some sign or wonder or miracle. I've seen people do that over and over and over again. You go with the Bible. You say, well, pastor, how do I know if a certain miracle is of God or it's of the devil? It's real simple. First of all, look at the source. If it's somebody who takes the signs and the wonders over the word of God, you have your answer right there. But another way to identify a counterfeit is by their doctrine. Follow me carefully here. Jesus says, by their fruit you shall know them. So look at the doctrine of the person apparently able to do the miracle. If they teach and preach a work salvation, you know it's not of God. If they teach and preach something like baptism or regeneration, you know it's not of God. If they believe that you can lose your salvation after you've been born again, you know it's not of God. By their fruit you shall know them. But here's the bottom line. The Bible says if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. That's how you know. If their doctrine is not according to this book, they're darkness. There's no light in them. By their fruit you shall know them. So don't go seeking that stuff. In fact, Jesus said a wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign. There were some people in Jerusalem guilty of just being there because Lazarus was there. This miracle, this living miracle was there and they were seeking something supernatural. A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign. Be careful. There's a lot of supernatural stuff going on out there. There's a supernatural world. It's invisible. It's silent. It's going on in this room right now. You don't see it. But be careful about what you get sucked into. We're told in 1 John 4, 1, Beloved, Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, notice this, whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. You see them on television, they write books, and they make a lot of money, and so you find out, don't get taken in by it. Well, we read on in verse number 10. It says, But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death, because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away and believed on Jesus. So we find the chief priests and they said we not only need to get rid of Jesus we need to get rid of Lazarus. You say, well, why? Because, well, people were believing on Jesus because of Lazarus. And not only that, but this posed a really embarrassing dilemma to the Sanhedrin, because on the Sanhedrin, the leading elders on that board, if you will, of 70 men, were the Sadducees. And what did the Sadducees believe? They didn't believe in a resurrection. They didn't believe in life after death. Here's a living example of that. You got Lazarus who's come back from the dead. And so they're saying, well, he's got to die as well. Remember in the previous chapter when old Caiaphas was trying to act pious and said, he said, it's expedient that one man die for the people than that all, wait a minute, what's that? Make that two men die for all the people. Now they're going to kill Lazarus as well. Why? They've got to get rid of the evidence. If you can't beat them, kill them. That was their philosophy. And so we find them now ready to kill Lazarus as well. We see the supernatural seekers, but secondly, We see the skewed surmising, also known as a supposition or an expectation or something that the people were anticipating that should happen at this point, but it wasn't going to happen. Do you ever have unfulfilled Expectations. I'll never forget the Christmas. I was probably about this tall. And the latest rage was Hot Wheels. I was a little boy who loved Hot Wheels. I guess they're still around to this day, but I was dropping some pretty strong hints about getting some Hot Wheels for Christmas. The mom commercial had come on. I'd go, hmm, you know, and try and get her that message that I wanted Hot Wheels. And Christmas came along. There was a box all wrapped up. I unwrapped it. And inside is a viewmaster. How many of you remember viewmasters? Those cheesy little things you held up to the light and you looked at the thing, so lame, not at all like a Hot Wheel. I got a viewmaster and I had unfulfilled expectations. Well folks, the Jewish nation is about to be disappointed. Because the Jewish nation is expecting this Messiah to finally arrive on the scene and to take over, to dispose of Rome. And we find that they were thinking, because the Bible does mention such a Messiah, that this is their Messiah and he's going to rule, he's going to reign, he's going to overthrow that yoke of oppression of the enemies. But you see, the Bible speaks of two comings of Jesus Christ. The first coming was to bleed and die and suffer and be a savior, sacrifice himself for the sins of mankind. The second coming is when he's going to rule and reign as a king, that kind of Messiah. But they had this skewed surmising, they had this expectation and it ended up in disappointment. We pick it up in verse number 12. It says, on the next day, much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees and went forth to meet him and cried, Hosanna, blessed is the King of Israel, that cometh in the name of the Lord. We know this to be Palm Sunday in our secular society here. Jesus Christ makes his descent on a donkey down the slope of the Mount of Olives from the east toward the west. He's coming up. to the eastern gate, and he's coming into the temple, and as he's making his way down that path, and I just walked in here a couple of years ago, they're putting these palm branches down in his path, and they're making way for their king, this grand entrance for their Messiah. Verse 14 says, And Jesus, when he had found a young ass, sat thereon, as it is written, Fear not, daughter of Zion, behold, thy king cometh sitting on an ass's coat. Now, this is the fulfillment of a prophecy. And I mentioned before, there are 330 prophecies in our Old Testament about the first coming of Christ. This is one of them. It's found in the book of Zechariah, chapter 9, verse 9. It says, daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, thy king cometh unto thee. He is just, and having salvation, lowly, and riding on a colt the foal of an ass." And so we find this prophecy in the Old Testament written several hundred years prior to this, and Jesus Christ is fulfilling it on this very day with His triumphant entry into Jerusalem. However, I think there's even a greater prophecy than this that was fulfilled on that day, and we've talked about that in the book of Daniel. Remember that? We don't have to wonder when the Messiah came. And the Jews even today in the 21st century are still waiting and looking for this Messiah to come on the scene. But folks, it's too late. He's come and gone. And we know the time. We know the time period. Daniel chapter 9 talks about this commandment going forth to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. When that takes place, just start your stopwatch, because 483 years to the day, Jesus Christ is going to make his triumphant entry into Jerusalem. I don't have time to reteach that, it's a whole message, but you can go back to Daniel 9, you can listen to it again. Well, in 456 BC, that commandment came forth, that stopwatch started, and now 483 years have been ticking off, and we are now at the very date when Christ now makes his triumphant entry into Jerusalem here, and it is one of the most critical days in Jewish history. It's certainly one they should have had circled on their calendar, and they should have been waiting for this thing, but they missed it. Now we find in verse number 13, they took the branches of palm trees and they laid them in the path. You say, Pastor, why did they do that? Well, this was something that they had been doing for some time at least going back to the Maccabean Revolution there. They had done it a couple of times celebrating events in 164 B.C. and again 141 B.C. when there had been these great victories by the Jewish people over the oppressors and And they would take these palms and the victors would ride into town on these palms. And the Jewish coins even found at that time, they had these palms minted into them. And so what's in their mind at this point? Well, who is over Israel at this time? It was Rome. Rome was the world power, and they absolutely hated being under the boot of the Italian people of Rome at that time. And so they're thinking, they're thinking, here comes our Messiah, here comes our victor, and they're saying, Hosanna, Hosanna. And you know what Hosanna means? It means, oh, save. In fact, it's with an exclamation point, save us now. That's what they're saying. We want relief, save us now. And so they're saying, Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. And this is probably a quote from Psalm 118.26. Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord, we have blessed you out of the house of the Lord. And so they're shouting this thing out and saying, here comes our king, here comes our relief from Roman oppression. Now, there was a number of times when Christ made an entry into Jerusalem, actually from the time he was a a baby boy, eight days of age, they brought him into the temple. And we find him as a 12 year old, he's going into the temple, but for all these years, hey, for three decades, he had come to the temple as a worshiper. but that was all gonna change now. He was coming now to the temple to rescue his people, to die on that cross. They didn't get it. They didn't realize that there was confusion in the air and it got worse as he went into the temple and he cleansed it. It's not recorded in John's gospel. It is recorded in the other gospels that he went in there and he cleaned house and that's when the wheels fell off the whole thing. Now, here comes this Messiah down the hill, and he's on a donkey. And you go, wow, that's not really impressive. I thought he'd be on a war horse, a white stallion, a steed of some kind, and maybe in a chariot making his entrance in, and a big pizazz. But no, he's on a donkey. He's on a donkey. The Jews at this time were desperate for deliverance. They were primed for somebody to help them. And we find that Christ comes down from the Mount of Olives, and I think there's some confusion in their mind at this point, that here comes this Messiah, because Zechariah does mention him making his entrance from the Mount of Olives. But that's when he comes back the second time. You see how they could get confused. So they just wanted somebody to come along and rescue them from their plight. They were tired of being a doormat in the world. They were tired of being a punching bag. Ever since the time of David when they were the world power, they had gone downhill. And they'd become the punching bag of the Babylonians, they'd become the doormat of the Assyrians, of the Greeks, and they were tired of all of these countries here bullying them. The Philistines were a constant thorn in their side, the Amalekites, the Egyptians, Antiochus Epiphanes, they had gone through all this, and so they wanted deliverance from all of this. They thought, finally, finally we have our Messiah, and we'll get rid of all this stuff. And I also this last week thought of the apostles themselves who were there, because this was a peak for them. They were thinking, you know what? We've invested three, three and a half years of our lives. We've been following him around. We've been eating this common food. We've been living off the land. We've been sleeping under the stars. It hasn't been easy, but we are just sure he's gonna be that ruling, reigning Messiah. And we will be alongside of him, ruling and reigning. And they're thinking, that's how it's going to play out here. But again, there are two comings to the Messiah, the first to suffer, the second one to reign. And we find as a result here, there's some skewed surmising and with it, a big disappointment. You know, after Jesus Christ died on the cross that same day, he showed up, but he didn't reveal himself to a couple of believers, one named Cleopas, and they're walking the Emmaus Road, and they're talking about all the events that had happened that day, how that tomb is empty, and what's going on here, and Jesus comes up alongside them. He starts to talk to them and so on, and says, what's going on, fellas? Well, you're from some other country. Haven't you heard? And they begin to explain. this Jesus of Nazareth and in Luke 24 20 they say, our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death and have crucified him, but we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel. But we thought that he would be this Messiah, we had this expectation that he would be the one, we had been doing some surmising and supposition and now he's crucified. It's all over, and it led to an unfulfilled expectation. Have you ever had unfulfilled expectations? You know, many folks have a shade of idealism in them. Are you an idealistic person? You say, well, this is the way it should be. In the perfect little world, this is the way it should turn out. If you have that mindset, you're going to get disappointed over and over again because it's not a perfect little world. It's not realistic. In fact, there was a biblical counselor by the name of Mike Hayes. Some of you remember Brother Hayes. He used to come here years ago in the old building, and he'd preach, and then he would line up counseling, and he'd do counseling with some of our folks. I'll never forget, I was sitting in on one session with him, and he was talking to the counselee, and this counselee had been let down by somebody. They'd been actually stabbed in the back by somebody they trusted and respected. this council, he said, I didn't think that would ever happen. Brother Hayes looked at this individual and said, why didn't you? I mean he didn't say, oh my, my, that shocks me too. He said, look we're all depraved and it should not, it should not shock you. We find unfulfilled expectations at work. We find them out in society because we're all depraved. And a lot of folks go through life saying these two words over and over again or three words, but I thought But I thought, but I thought, yes, you did. But in the real world, it doesn't often play out that way. And when you get those hopes up so high, you're gonna have unfulfilled expectations. When you put your confidence in people, you're going to have unfulfilled expectations, because that's delusional. You cannot do that. Bible says in Psalm 118.8, it is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. If you're going around all the time saying, but I thought you have these expectations in people, you're going to end up indignant, you're going to end up offended, you're going to end up with unforgiveness in your heart, and you're going to go around let down. And I'm talking to Christian people. Because even Christian people, in fact, great Christian people can have high expectations that don't come to pass. I'm thinking of the one that Christ called the greatest prophet ever born of women, John the Baptist. John the Baptist was fearless. There he is out in the Jordan around the Dead Sea. People are flocking out to see him. He's calling people in on the carpet. I mean, he's really letting even the officials have it. And finally, that gets him in trouble. Herod Herodias bring a man he gets beheaded before the thing's over with but he's languishing for a period in a dungeon when he sends a couple of his followers to Jesus and he says look are you he that should come or should we be looking for another? We find here John the Baptist at a low ebb, maybe thinking that Christ would be that ruling, reigning Messiah, or maybe thinking that at least he'd come along and he'd get him out of this dungeon, and that wasn't happening. And so we find him let down. We find him susceptible. We can all get in that place. We can get in a bad place. Well, we find in Matthew 11, those words, aren't thou he that should come, or do we look for another? we find here unfulfilled expectations. Life is full of those things. Maybe you sit here today and you've had health issues, and you've taken proactive steps, and you said, I've changed my diet, I've done this, I'm doing that, and so on and so forth, and it just hasn't gotten better. Or maybe you sit here today, and you've worked for a promotion, and you say, I've showed up early every day, I've gone home late, I've gone the extra mile, I should get that promotion, and it doesn't happen. Somebody else gets it. Maybe you sit here today, and you thought your spouse would come through, they'd do this, they'd do that, and they didn't, and your hopes were dashed. Maybe you sit here today, and a friend has let you down. Somebody you thought was a true blue friend, they never stabbed you in the back, but they did, and you have unfulfilled expectations. Maybe you've made an investment, and you thought this would sustain you for some time, and it went bad, unfulfilled expectation. We find a crowd here in Jerusalem, and Christ is coming into town. It's risen to a fever pitch. Everybody is just so excited about this, And they thought, once and for all, this is deliverance. This is it. Did you ever have that moment when a dream died? I think most of us have. That moment when a dream died. You come to the intersection of expectation and disappointment. And you say, what happened here? You thought, you thought that relationship would last and last and last and it didn't. You thought that that child will excel for God and they didn't. You thought that job should be yours and they gave it to somebody else. You thought that you'd probably be spending your golden years in Florida. with a metal detector and baggy shorts walking on the beach and just kind of taking it easy and instead the market went south, the investment went bad, inflation just crushed your portfolio and you have this unfulfilled expectation. We find these all over the Bible. We find the Jews actually finally, after hundreds of years of Egyptian bondage, of horrible slavery, being let out one night with a high hand, everybody leaves rejoicing, spoiling the Egyptians, heading out in the wilderness thinking, gonna be easy street from this point on, but it wasn't. It wasn't. There were struggles as they got out there. And the spirit of the people turned sour. And may I just stop here and say, you and I have to be careful when it comes to unfulfilled expectations that we don't sour. Be careful not to slip into skepticism. I've seen a number of people do this. As we are on the threshold of another year, I want you to remember this. You're gonna have some unfulfilled expectations this year, but keep your eyes on the Lord. And don't backslide, don't get out of church. That's something I've never understood. Somebody goes sour or somebody in church lets them down, they're, that's it, that's it. You know, my Bible says that Jesus loved the church and gave himself for it. And my faithfulness to it is not intertwined with some person, some human, some depraved sinner who doesn't meet up as I think they should. I don't gauge my faithfulness on that. You shouldn't either. It has nothing to do with it. You know, Gandhi, I think, was the fellow who said, I would be a Christian if it weren't for Christians. Not me. Had nothing to do with me being a Christian. That's no excuse. There's absolutely no correlation there. I expect people let me down. We're all depraved. And so don't use that as an excuse to backslide because it's skewed surmising an unfulfilled expectation. These folks are in Jerusalem this day. They thought it was going this way and it went that way. It's room for a loop. We see the supernatural seekers, the skewed surmising, and finally, we see the saints' sequence. You say, what is that sequence? It's good days, it's bad days. It's mountains, it's valleys. This is the pattern you're gonna go through through life. Because here, it's a zenith. I mean, if we just stopped here, I mean, everybody loves Jesus. They're saying, Hosanna, at least now. But within days, the same crowd would be saying, crucify him. Look in verse number 16. The Bible says, these things understood not his disciples at the first, but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him and that they had done these things unto him. Now remember that John is writing this years later, decades later, so he has a clear picture. It's played out, he sees it now, but at this point, there's a lot of learning to take place yet. A lot of things to figure out. Here's Christ coming down the Mount of Olives, going up into the temple, and we find out he's on this mountain. And by the way, did you know that the Bible is full of mountains and valleys? I mean, we don't see it here where we live. Everything's flat. But you got a little country over there about an eighth of the size of North Dakota, and it's just full of mountains. It's just full of valleys. You can count it sometimes. Mountains are mentioned over 300 times in the Bible. Valleys over 150 times in the Bible. So you have Christ now on a zenith. He's up here on this peak. but then he cleanses the temple and they hate him. Within days, they'll say crucify him. And that's the pattern, the saints sequence. And we could talk about this going on over and over in the Bible. We saw the sisters of Lazarus mourning for four days for him. Oh, he's dead, this is awful. Christ comes to town, raises him from the dead and the pendulum swings back that way. Oh, this is the greatest day of our lives. Bible says in Psalm 35, Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. Now, wouldn't it be wonderful if we could just stay upon the mountain? Remember Peter up there on that mountain saying, it's good for us to be here. Let's make all these tabernacles. And Jesus said, no, no, it's time to go down now. And there at the base of the mountain, we find a desperate dad with a demon possessed boy needing help. And folks, that's the real world. We have to come off the mountain for that. That's the pattern of life. You know, we find so many in the Bible that went from mountains to valleys. You take David, he kills a giant. You go, man, he's on the mountain. Yeah, but then King Saul wants his life, and so he's fleeing in the wilderness there. We find him crowned finally when Saul dies, but there's still those Philistines. I have to deal with those. We find the Ark of the Covenant coming to town. It's a banner day for David until he goes home, and his wife throws the cold water on him, and there's the valley. We see him go through victory after victory, but there's those events with Absalom and and so many others, and he goes from mountains to valleys. But folks, it was during that time that David wrote dozens of some of the sweetest psalms that he wrote. They were in those valleys. We could talk about Elijah on Mount Carmel, and then he finds himself later on in a cave. because we can't be on the mountain all the time. In the same way that sunshine all the time would be wonderful to enjoy, it doesn't grow crops. We have to have things cloud up, we have to have rain falling, and so it's valleys that put our faith to the test. In 1 Peter 1, Peter said, We're in you, greatly rejoiced, though now for a season, if need be, you're in heaviness through manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. Now that's a mouthful, but Peter's just simply saying, look, in the midst of those valleys, God is still good. We tend to categorize God. If things are going good, God is good. If things are going bad, well, you know, where's God? Well, let me just say this about God. His ways are so different than ours. You know, God often chooses a different route. than we choose. I mean, Moses and company thought, hey, we're gonna just make a beeline over to the promised land, and God takes them to the edge of the Red Sea, and he puts their back to the Egyptians, and you're going, why are we here? God's route is often different than ours. Jesus said, my sheep are my voice, I know them, and they follow me. And for the past 43 years, I've been trying to follow him. But you know what that means? That means he's picked the route. I'm following him. That's how it works. Proverbs 3.5 says, trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding, but in all thy ways acknowledge him, notice, and he shall direct thy path. Sometimes that path is through a valley, because sometimes God's ways are very different than our ways. I have had times in my Christian life when God's ways were shocking. I said, this can't be, but it was. So valleys require faith and you just have to hold on because God's orchestrating something. He's up to something again. Now valleys are also for God's glory. And here's a familiar verse at a great time of the year, which reminds us that we know that all things work together for good to them that love God. We like that part. But it goes on and it says to them who are the called according to his purpose. Don't forget the end of that. That's very important. I got saved, I got called according to his purpose. And so life goes back and forth. But you know, as we go through valleys, I find that the presence of God is more real. I don't know if you've ever noticed that, the presence of God is more real. I find also that at such times, he restoreth my soul, kind of reboots our lives, if you will. And so I've tried to learn at this point not to dig in, or you'll stunt the process, you'll sour, and you'll be like Jonah, who's having a pity party, they're sulking, and you won't go forward. May I give you just two words if you're going through a valley? Keep walking. It's real simple. Just keep walking, all right? Valleys are not meant to be a permanent place, and they won't be if you keep walking. And folks, there have been times when I just couldn't do anything else, but keep walking. You keep walking. Also, let me just say this, keep trusting. God hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. I will never leave thee nor forsake me. Can God lie? No. Is that a promise from God? Yeah, he hath said, it's God talking, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. And so you keep walking and you keep trusting as you're walking through that valley. And by the way, the Bible doesn't refer to Jesus Christ as the lily of the mountain. We don't say he's the lily of the mountain. No, no. What's he the lily of? He's the lily of the valley. That's where he blossoms and that's where you'll blossom. By the way, he's the Lord of the mountain and the valley, according to 1 Kings 20. And so life will have good days, life will have bad days. You can expect both. Last week I gave you a story, we were talking about angels of all things, and my car having trouble down the freeway there in LA. And I had folks come up to me afterwards, you left us hanging, so what happened there? So here is the rest of the story, as they say. I had a little blue Subaru coupe, and there we are on a sunrise morning on our honeymoon in Arizona, and that's the car that started on fire. We got it out to San Diego where we honeymooned there and we decided to drive about an hour and a half up north and to go to Disneyland. So we did. We had a great time and it was dark and so we're heading back, driving down the freeway and the car is backfiring and I'm going, wow, this is running rough here and so on. And that's when the guy came up to us and he said, your car is on fire. And I went, what? I looked out, and there's flames licking out from the underside of it. So I pulled over right away, and I said, it's going to blow. And we started to run to the, no, everything's slow motion at that time. But that's what happens in the movies, right? And so we got away from it. I mean, we just ran away from it as fast as we could. The guy who had said that to us stopped. And that's where we're watching the underside of the car, just flames licking out of it. And that's when the station wagon pulls up, this guy gets out with a fire extinguisher. My wife said afterwards, you didn't mention the blonde hair and I forget all the details, but he just blew it out and got in his car and left. And that's where I'm going, did I just entertain an angel unaware? But it got even freakier. A fire truck comes up on an LA freeway at night and stops. The car's out at this point. Everything okay? Yeah, everything's okay. But there we are with a smoldering car in Southern California on our honeymoon going, what next? We got towed to this place that the guy recommended, who told us the car was on fire. He was nice enough to take us to this dive of a motel, and we stayed there overnight. Next morning, he picks us up, and the mechanic shop was open, and they did some work on it. What happened is it had a gasket leak, and oil had accumulated on the underside. It was backfiring, ignitions, whatever. But it started on fire, and all it was was a distributor cap. And so he replaces the distributor cap. It was $45 at that time. It'd be like $150 today. And we're on our way. And so we went from a valley to a mountain. Things work out sometimes that way, not always. But you know, that'll be 40 years ago next weekend. Have we had any mountains and valleys in the past 40 years? You better believe it. You better believe it. But it kind of galvanizes you. You know what I mean? We're not fully galvanized at this point, but I'm telling you, you learn to take more in stride. I thought of the Apostle Paul. And we could stand here today and we could talk about all that he went through and, oh, what a resume of suffering and mountains and valleys and so on. But he said this in Philippians 4, and I'll close with this verse. He said, I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content everywhere and in all things I'm instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. And he wrote it out. He wrote it out. He kept walking. And so maybe your family needs to ride it out right now. Maybe your marriage needs to ride it out right now. Your kids, your job, your church, your health, your finances, whatever area right now is sputtering, can you just keep walking? I think on this, the last Sunday of the year, it's a good time to step back and take some inventory. It's a good reminder for all of us that even the Lord Jesus Christ had mountaintops, but he also had those valleys. And we'll all have them. We'll have them for the rest of our life. The final valley we must pass through is known as the Valley of the Shadow of Death. And once we pass through that one, folks, it's all mountain. It's all mountain. But until that time, when it comes to life, there will be mountains and there will be valleys. You've been listening to Pastor Tony Skeving of the Fargo Baptist Church in Fargo, North Dakota. If you would like a CD of today's message, you can obtain one by sending a gift of $2 to Fargo Baptist Church, 3303 23rd Avenue South, Fargo, North Dakota, 58103. That address again, Fargo Baptist Church, 3303 23rd Avenue South Fargo, North Dakota 58103. We hope you'll join Pastor Skeving next time right here on Pulpit Power. Pulpit Power is a production of Heaven 88.7.