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  PROCLAIM WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED
  by Charles E. Cowman
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Summary: The sermon encourages believers to share the insights gained
from their struggles and the darkness they endure, emphasizing God's
purpose in these experiences.

Topics: "Spiritual Growth", "Divine Guidance"
Scripture References: Exodus 24:18, 1 Kings 19:8, Psalm 46:10, Matthew 10:27, Galatians 1:17

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DESCRIPTION
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Charles E. Cowman preaches about how God often takes us into dark and
challenging situations to reveal His secrets and truths to us. These
moments of solitude and suffering are opportunities for us to hear God's
voice clearly and deeply, preparing us to share His message with others
when we emerge into the light. Just like Moses, Elijah, and Paul had
their periods of solitude and fellowship with God, we too must have
times of quiet reflection and communion with Him to strengthen our faith
and prepare us for our mission in the world.

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CONTENT
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"What I tell you in the darkness, speak ye in the light" (Matt. 10:27).

Our Lord is constantly taking us into the dark, that He may tell us
things. Into the dark of the shadowed home, where bereavement has drawn
the blinds; into the dark of the lonely, desolate life, where some
infirmity closes us in from the light and stir of life; into the dark of
some crushing sorrow and disappointment.

Then He tells us His secrets, great and wonderful, eternal and infinite;
He causes the eye which has become dazzled by the glare of earth to
behold the heavenly constellations; and the car to detect the undertones
of His voice, which is often drowned amid the tumult of earth's strident
cries.

But such revelations always imply a corresponding responsibility--'that
speak ye in the light--that proclaim upon the housetops."

We are not meant to always linger in the dark, or stay in the closet;
presently we shall be summoned to take our place in the rush and storm
of life; and when that moment comes, we are to speak and proclaim what
we have learned.

This gives a new meaning to suffering, the saddest element in which is
often its apparent aimlessness. "How useless I am!" "What am I doing for
the betterment of men?" "Wherefore this waste of the precious spikenard
of my soul?"

Such are the desperate laments of the sufferer. But God has a purpose in
it all. He has withdrawn His child to the higher altitudes of
fellowship, that he may hear God speaking face to face, and bear the
message to his fellows at the mountain foot.

Were the forty days wasted that Moses spent on the Mount, or the period
spent at Horeb by Elijah, or the years spent in Arabia by Paul?

There is no short cut to the life of faith, which is the all-vital
condition of a holy and victorious life. We must have periods of lonely
meditation and fellowship with God. That our souls should have their
mountains of fellowship, their valley of quiet rest beneath the shadow
of a great rock, their nights beneath the stars, when darkness has
veiled the material and silenced the stir of human life, and has opened
the view of the infinite and eternal, is as indispensable as that our
bodies should have food.

Thus alone can the sense of God's presence become the fixed possession
of the soul, enabling it to say repeatedly, with the Psalmist, "Thou art
near, 0 God." --F. B. Meyer

"Some hearts, like evening primroses, open more beautifully in the
shadows of life."

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Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/charles-e-cowman/proclaim-what-you-have-learned/
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