The Time of Trouble

I remember, many years ago, at the funeral of my father, a minister recited Psalm 27-5, which reads, For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion. And when I heard those words, I shrank back and rejected them. I said to myself, I don't ever want to be there, in that time of trouble that this preacher just mentioned, because at the time my life was all sunshine and honey blossoms, and I wanted to keep it that way.

Little did I know what God and his providence had in store for me, down the road of my life, and how often, in my times of trouble, would I retreat to the comforts of Psalm 27-5. The Apostle Paul, when he still saw the persecutor of the church, was a troubler to Christians as he seized them and bound them and hauled them off to prison and even death. He was a troubler of Stephen as the young martyr was stoned and Saul held the garments of his murderers.

Then God got a hold of Saul and saved him, changed his name to Paul, and changed the entire direction of his life from a troubler of the church to an ambassador for Christ. And that's what a real conversion experience will do for a person. It will change the course of your life.

When Paul was knocked down from his horse and blinded by the light from heaven and came under conviction of sin by hearing the words of Jesus of Nazareth speak plainly to him and was converted by the grace of God, he had no idea what lay before him as he went from being a troubler to the church to become a sufferer for Christ and the gospel. Jesus told Ananias concerning Paul, Go thy way, for he is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel, for I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake. Notice, friends, that the risen Lord uses a plural to describe Paul's sufferings.

Great things he must suffer for my name's sake. I've known men who said with their lips that they wanted to go out and do great things for God, but they never did it. They went so far with Christ and then pulled back when things got too hot.

They didn't want to enter into the time of trouble. Their self-preservation kept them from being useful to God. God will seldom ever do anything remarkable with a man unless that man is willing to go all out for God no matter the cost, no matter the suffering, no matter the time of trouble.

God wants all you have and all you are, and he will not accept a partial commitment to him. After all, he gave his only begotten Son to suffer and die for your filthy sins, and Christ held nothing back, nor did he shrink from that ignoble cross, but went there with a set face, with a purpose to shed his blood and to die so we could live. I knew a pastor once about twenty-five years ago who had a remarkable move of grace in his Baptist church.

I was there and was an eyewitness to that remarkable revival. The very atmosphere of his church was altered, and we all hung on the edge of eternity. Then this pastor shared that God required him, when he was praying to God one day in the sanctuary, to give him a certain thing, and it was a big thing that God had required from this man.

I never heard the end of the story. I never learned how it came out, but I can say this, when I visited that pastor's new church twenty years later, he had transformed his Baptist church into a nightclub with beads and neon lights and a hard rock band, and this pastor became so irreverent to God that before this man prayed, he told a shocking story of him in the toilet that embarrassed everyone there. This man had apostatized so far away from God because he evidently pulled back from his time of trouble, and instead of being useful to God, he was nothing more but a laughingstock.

Now, I relate this story to you, friends, because it's a warning to me to always be willing to go out for God, no matter the sacrifice or suffering or cost. The risen Christ foretold what his servant Paul would pass through and suffer for his namesake and the sake of the gospel that Paul would pass from being a troubler of the church to being in constant trouble with the world for his testimony in Christ Jesus. Would you like to hear, friends, Paul's laundry list of troubles? In labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft of the Jews, five times received I forty stripes, save one.

Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, night and day I have been in the deep, in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness, besides those things which are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches. I knew two men who, both told me, they felt they were called to God to be pastors, but they each pulled back from that calling. Both men became businessmen.

One man told me he didn't want to be a pastor because he didn't want to be poor, that's why he entered the business world, but this man kept getting fired by every company he worked for, and he was a failure in business. The other man who told me he was called to be a pastor entered the business world and became a great success in business, but the last time I met him, he was on his third marriage for his previous ones had each ended in failure. These three men, who I've mentioned in my message today, friends, backed away from Psalm 27 5, if I may so speak, the time of trouble, but God has a promise to those individuals who follow hard after God and go all out for God and are both useful to Him and suffer for Him.

The last part of that verse promises He shall hide me in His pavilion. No matter what cost or sacrifice God brings a servant of His through, there is the promise of His abiding care in His pavilion. Let us pray.