Adversity Faith Series

There's an old saying that goes like this, why do bad things happen to good people? How come you can be faithful in church attendance, faithful in giving and serving, and then you get laid off at work or a terrible disease comes your way? Why does it seem that the wicked prosper and all they do is cuss God and live like the devil, yet they seem to have charmed lives? As for the wicked prospering, all I can say is friends, the devil takes care of his own, but there is a common day reckoning, fast approaching, where every man and woman will have to stand before the judge of all the earth and give an account of themselves to him. But why does God allow trouble to come into the life of a believer? Why is Job's family taken away from him? Why is Joseph taken away from his family? Why is Job placed in a period of prolonged suffering? Why is Joseph thrown into a pit and then a prison? I know one thing for sure friends, when God doesn't make sense, you can still sense him. Some of my deepest trials became times of my deepest walks with God.

We are in our faith series and today we will answer the question, why does God allow adversity in our life? Perhaps you are going through a tough time friend, maybe you are in a time of trouble, you feel like the whole world is on your shoulders and your feet are in quicksand, you are overwhelmed in your trial and you don't have a clue how you are going to get out of it or even if you are going to survive it. And on top of all that, God seems like a million miles away and heaven is silent, what are you going to do? Do you believe God is in control of every situation? Do you believe that? Do you believe there isn't a problem too big for God to handle? Do you believe that? Do you believe that not one gnat nor one giant can come into your life without God allowing it? Do you believe that friend? Do you think God is still on his throne or did the devil knock him off? Is God almighty interested in the minute details of your life or is he unconcerned? If you are a parent and your little child is crying and hurt and needs their mommy or daddy, would you just ignore them or would you do all you could, humanly speaking, to help them? God the Father allows adversity to come into the lives of his children and there are three main reasons for God allowing adversity into our life. Number one, for our correction.

Isaiah 30, 20 is a perfect scripture for this. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the word of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner anymore, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers. Perhaps there's an unresolved sin area in our life or a place of disobedience and God is trying to get our attention to it and God will allow adversity to enter our life, to hem us up and get our attention.

And that adversity is there for a reason. It's there for our correction. But who is it that brings the adversity? Will the Lord, it says, give you the bread of adversity? When I've had unrepented sin in my life, God had to deal with me.

Immaturity must become maturity. God will not tolerate sin in the life of a believer. This is how I used to live.

I had a sin area in my life that I kept falling into like a big mud puddle and I'd go and feel bad about myself until I confessed it and claimed 1 John 1, 9. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But I was omitting and ignoring the last part of that verse. All I wanted was forgiveness from a pet sin, which I had no intention of breaking off from.

But Jesus never preached a sin in religion. And that verse can be abused by the unrepentant believer who wants to hang on to his sin and just keep confessing it when he indulges in it. But the emphasis of the verse is the last part where it says, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

God's desire is for us to turn from that sin, to forsake it, to break off from it, to be completely done with it through heartfelt repentance. But if we fail to obey God, He will allow adversity to come into our lives for our chastisement and correction. In Job 5 and verses 17 and 18 we read, Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth.

Therefore, despise not the chastening of the Almighty, for he maketh sore and bindeth up. He woundeth, and his hands make whole. God wants us to get to the place where we part with our idols and our beloved sins.

In the life of faith, we cannot expect to go one skinny inch further with God until we are willing to give up hanging on to our sins. God will take you to the woodshed and deal with you if you are a child of His. Adversity will do its work of correction sooner or later.

Number two, God will allow adversity to come into our life for our instruction. All you have to do, friends, is study the Gospels where Jesus is instructing His disciples by teaching them about faith in adversity. They're out on a storm-tossed sea rowing against the wind all night while Jesus is watching them from His vantage point on the mountainside.

He finally comes to their aid in the fourth watch of the night by walking on the water and that in itself brings terror and unsettles their minds and they cry out like little girls. Jesus says to them, Be of good cheer, it is I. Be not afraid. And the next verse speaks of how their faith was stretched under this instruction.

And they were so amazed in themselves beyond measure and wondered. Jesus was always placing His men in circumstances where they were confronted with adversity to instruct them and to strengthen them and to build their faith. He would ask, Where is your faith? Or He'd say, You have little faith.

He wanted their faith to grow and He grew it through adversity. He was always stretching them and challenging them. And Jesus wants our faith to grow as well, friend.

And He will do it by allowing adversity into our life for our instruction. Number three, God will bring adversity into our life for our enlargement. In Psalm 31, verses 7 and 8, we read, I will be glad and rejoice in Thy mercy, for Thou hast considered my trouble.

Thou hast known my soul in adversities and hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy. Thou hast set my feet in a large room. There will be times when God allows adversity into our lives for our enlargement.

When my wife, died tragically, I went into a period of great grief and loss. I was numb. My energies were given to my teenage daughter at the time who was grieving the sudden loss of her mother.

We were both in a vacuum. We were overwhelmed. But God was there in our pain.

God was there leading us, healing us, strengthening us, and enlarging us through that tragedy. We came out on the other side with a deeper knowledge of Him. So God will, at times, allow adversity into our lives for our correction, for our instruction, and for our enlargement to deepen our faith in Him.

But there also, I believe, is a fourth reason why God allows adversity into the lives of His children. And this is for His purpose and for His glory. Listen, friends.

When you go study the book Job, you see a man of God go through terrible suffering for God. If you read the first chapter of Job, you see the reason why God allowed Satan to touch Job's life. It was for God's glory.

He received glory from Job's sufferings. And if you read the life of Joseph in the book Genesis, you will see a man of God endure terrible adversity. He's abandoned by his brethren, thrown into a pit, and then falsely accused and thrown into a prison.

The pit is the result of his own family forsaking him. The prison is the result of his obedience to God and amidst the temptation of sin. Either way, he is innocent of any wrongdoing.

Yet God allows these times of prolonged adversity into Joseph's life. But when we read Genesis 50, in verse 20, it all makes sense from God's perspective. Joseph tells his brethren, But as for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.

So God allowed adversity to come into the life of Joseph for his purpose. And we can apply the truth of Romans 8, 28 here. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called, according to his purpose.

I'll never forget a story that Dr. Stephen Alford shared with me. He had an uncle in England who was a pharmacist. And one day, he went to visit his uncle at the pharmacy.

Well, he walked into the front door and no one was there. So he walked into a back room. And there, leaning over a long table, was his uncle with various vials and mixing bowls and jars of chemical compounds all around him.

He was pouring in a colored liquid into a bowl and adding some white powder. And then he stirred it up and repeated the process over again until he felt he had the right medicine. Dr. Alford remarked that God was like that.

God was like a divine alchemist mixing a little of this here and a little of that there into the mixing bowl of our life for our good and for his purpose. Well, I hope this little lesson today, on the faith, life, and adversity has been helpful to you as it has been to me. For now, when God brings adversity into my life, I tell him, Lord, I am cooperating with you.

You do what's necessary in me. Let us pray.