Through Many Tribulations

You know, the Bible says that through many tribulations we have to enter the kingdom. Scripture also says that in this world we're going to have trouble, but we can rejoice because Jesus said, I've overcome the world. In the midst of the tribulations and the troubles that each of us encounter every day, we all have them. We're a people who have hope. We shared last week about a hope that doesn't disappoint. Faith, hope, and love, these three, but the greatest it says is love. But greater than faith is hope. Something greater than our saving faith is hope. We have to hope for what we don't see. So when we're going through things that we don't understand, all of us would say we believe in Jesus. All of us say that Jesus is Lord. All of us would say that we want to be baptized and follow Christ. But then when we get into despair and when we get into trouble and we get into difficult situations which we all face, whether they be health situations, whether it be family crisis, whether we lose our jobs, or whether we lose our freedoms, or our businesses being destroyed, our hope has to be in something more than this life. And if our hope is in the things that we have and in our health and in our life that we possess in this world, then we're going to perish. So we have to hope in things that are unseen, which is eternal. I want to share something. I don't know how exactly the Holy Spirit will bring it to us. But how do you deal with a bad report? When a bad report comes to your life, how do you deal? I remember the day when my wife was pregnant with child and we went to the doctors because she had been started bleeding. And I remember how much I prayed. How much I prayed there wouldn't be a bad report, that the child would be okay. And then they couldn't find anything and told us to wait and went home and then all of a sudden one day, a couple days after, I was downstairs and my wife had collapsed and she was thumping on the floor. I couldn't hear her. And she was having an ectopic pregnancy. She was not just losing the baby, but she was losing her life. And when I took her to the hospital and she looked at me and she said goodbye to me because she knew she was dying. She was bleeding internally and we didn't know that. And then they called this code and all these medical people came and they ushered me outside and I was standing alone by myself with my God. And I didn't no longer think about this child and my three or four days of praying for this child. I was now praying for the life of my wife and I had no idea whether there would be a good report or a bad report that would come out to me in the parking lot. All I had was Jesus. That's all I had. I was young in the Lord. I was only one year in the Lord and the Lord had saved me from such a life of destruction and sin and had began to draw me to himself and began to teach me his ways. Your mind is flooded with all kinds of thoughts of unbelief and discouragement and you start thinking and preparing yourself for the worst. It's very difficult to pray in faith when you're preparing for the worst. I had nobody to call. All my friends at that time were unbelievers. They're all church-going unbelievers as I was. I only had Jesus. I didn't know the scriptures very well, but I called on the name of Jesus with all my strength in that parking lot in Abbotsford, in that hospital that day. And I went back in and they said they couldn't find a surgeon and they were trying to stabilize it with fluids. And I went back out to pray. It seemed to go on all night. Finally they found a doctor and they're able to stop the bleeding, but they didn't know if they're going to have to give her a blood transfusion. We didn't want that. And her hemoglobin had gone down to almost 50. They said they'd have to do that. And they said it was time for me to go home. And so I didn't know exactly how things were going to go. I went home and I turned on my little stereo that I had in our big house. And I put on a Brian Dirksen CD called Isn't He? And I worshipped. It's easy to worship when God has given you a victory and when you are encouraged and when you have strength and you have good reports. But when you have a bad report, can you worship? What will be your spiritual state when you're tested? We all get different varying degrees of bad reports from a scale of 1 to 10. And some of us have faith when we get a bad report from 1 to 3. But if it gets over a 5, we lose all hope. And then we start to scramble, survival of the fittest. Some of us will go to the liquor store, go get a bottle. Some of us will go back to the street and we'll find the dealer and we'll go use. Some of us will do some other crazy thing and we'll just get some anxiety pills or some commit suicide, others do other things, they can't cope. But that's why we have to have a faith that translates into hope. Hope that is greater than faith. Where we hope in what we don't see. So whether the outcome is bad or whether the outcome is good, we purpose in ourselves that we are going to continue to walk with God. That God is good even though our circumstances are bad. I thought of a time when the children of Israel got together and Moses sent out 12 spies into the land of Canaan. God had promised to give them a land flowing with milk and honey. And Moses had told them, go and see whether the inhabitants are great or few, whether the land is prosperous or whether it's not so good. Go and see what the cities are like, are they fortified or are they weak. Give us a report of what you find. And the spies had gone out, one from every tribe of the children of Israel. And then when they came back, they gathered all the people together and they began to tell them, they all agreed that the land was a fantastic land. They brought back some of the fruit from the land. They brought grapes and pomegranates and different things they brought and they carried them on poles. It was such enormous, bountiful land. But there was one problem. 10 of the 12 spies brought back a bad report. And the bad report was true. But it didn't change the fact of what God said. God said, I'll give you the land. A land flowing with milk and honey and I will bring you into this land to possess it. And when the spies came back, they said the land, yes, God's, it's true, God's, it's a fantastic land. But there's one problem. There's giants in the land. And these people are larger than us. They're stronger than us. There's more of them. And the cities are fortified. And it is impossible on our own strength to take this land. The day that the spies, the 10 spies of the children of Israel, the leaders who came back and sold the people the truth of a bad report. And all the people lost strength. All the people became faint in heart. And then Joshua and Caleb who were two of the other leaders of the children of Israel said, yes, the giants are big. And yes, there's many of them. And yes, their cities are fortified. But we believe in a God that is bigger than our circumstances. We believe in a God who's able to do exceedingly and abundantly more than we ask, think, hope, or imagine. We believe in a God who is able to raise the dead. We believe that our God is able to deliver us, who has brought us this far and delivered us from the hand of Pharaoh. And he will yet deliver us. And we are able to possess that land. And immediately we should go in the strength and the power of our God, not in the strength and the power of our hands. We need to immediately trust in the Lord now with all of our heart and not lean on our own understanding. And they tried to strengthen the people in faith. And they tried to give the people hope. That, yes, we are not able to overcome them, but our God is able to overcome this troop, this nation, these seven nations greater and mightier than us. God is well able. In your Christian life, you will always find people who grumble and complain and will bring you a bad report. And the bad report may very well be true. But that's not the end of the matter. The end of the matter is what God will do. It's said in the process of the dealings with Shadrach, Beshach, and Abednego, when the king Nebuchadnezzar made a decree. And he said, anyone who won't bow down and worship the image, when all you hear the sound of the psalm tree and the harps and the flute and the lyre, and whoever won't immediately bow and worship the image, which Nebuchadnezzar had set up, would immediately be thrown into the furnace of the fire. And they stood before that almighty king, and he said, O great king, those men, those three boys, they said something very interesting. They said, we want you to know, O king, that our God is able to deliver us, and He will do it. One way or another, He's going to deliver us, because we're not going to bow down to your image. He's going to give us strength to go into that furnace. But if He doesn't bring us out of that furnace, let it be known to you, O king, that we serve the living God, and this is a line we can't cross. He's able and He'll do it, but if not, we're not bowing down to your image. The day that the bad report comes to town, will your faith fail you? Or has your faith grown legs and translated into hope? We don't have to think too many days or months, years past, when our faith failed us in one form or another, and we did things that we are now ashamed of. But yet that's not the end of the matter, because we still have hope. That when we're tested again, and you will be tested again, that your God, who is my God, is able to save to the uttermost those who are being set apart for Him. It doesn't mean that you're going to gain the favor and the victory in the natural. But we know one thing, that God will not allow us to deny Him. When the wind comes and beats on your house, and the flood rises up, as we had floods here in the Fraser Valley, and they come and they destroy everything that you possess, you need to have a faith that translates into hope, my brothers and sisters. The day of the bad report. I want to read a passage in 2 Corinthians 4. When I think of those 10 spies, and caused those people to cry and to grumble and complain, the Lord was angry with that generation. Because they always went astray in their hearts. They always fell victim to unbelief. They always fell victim to discouragement. They always fell victim to fear. And we find ourselves going through these things from time to time. And that is why the scripture says, be anxious in Philippians 4, 6-8. Be anxious about nothing. But in everything, take it to prayer. And supplication. And start giving thanks. It's not easy giving thanks, when your circumstances don't allow for it. But we can give thanks for what He has done for us. We can give thanks that though our outward man perish, our inward man is able to be renewed day by day. Though we go through this slight affliction, which sometimes seems like major affliction, we're able to bear in our bodies the cross, as Brother Alim shared, the cross of Christ, the dying of the Lord Jesus, so that His life might be manifested in our mortal being. In our mortal body. So that people can have hope. Paul said, he was pressed on all sides. Yet, they were not crushed. He said, we went through situations, we were absolutely perplexed. We had no idea what was going on. But you know what, we had hope in God. We were not despairing. We were persecuted as Christians for our faith. But we were not forsaken. God was with them. He said, we were struck down. We got a good beat down by the devil from time to time. Because we don't wrestle people, although sometimes it sure seems like it. But the powers of darkness are working through people. But Paul says, we are not destroyed. We have a hope that is greater than faith. Always carrying about in this body, the cross of Christ. Always carrying about in this body, the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ. So that life can come. Life from the inner man can manifest in this mortal flesh. So people can see that when we are going through absolutely impossible circumstances, where a man could not cope physically, with the burden and the weight and the pressure of a circumstance that he finds himself or her in, we have hope in a God who is seated in the heavens, who loves us and gave his life for us. And if this outward man perish, though we die, yet shall we live. We shall never see death. And in this tent we can groan, being burdened. I got a call from Brother Dan yesterday, and we're going through a trial. I just wanted to talk to him, but all of the pain, the dying that's inside, began to come out. In this tent we groan, being burdened. Not that we should be unclothed and found naked and ashamed, and fail in the test and the trial. But that we should be further clothed with the righteousness of Christ. That we would come through trials and tribulations and testings, stronger, full of faith, hope and love. More love for God, and more love for others. For a purpose. Paul says death is working in us, but life in you. He said we are despairing even of life. But the purpose of it was that so that people who are just new in the faith would say, If God can carry him, God can help me. If Aline needs to overcome in paying the cash and not getting his points, I can overcome in my trial, which is equally as great. And it gives others hope. If someone can lose a loved one through sickness or through an accident, and we don't understand what's going on, and my child, I lose a child, I can sympathize with him. Because God carried us through. And so God allows us to go through things, so that we can sympathize with others, so we can have compassion and mercy on others, who are going through the same things which we also have suffered. And we can comfort them with a comfort, that we ourselves have been comforted by God. Perhaps you've been rejected by family and friends. Dear brother, sister, I can comfort you in that. I can weep with you in that, because I can identify the pain in that. And I can tell you that God is able to carry you through that. That suicide is not the answer. That substance abuse is not the answer. But continue to call in the name of your God. Jesus is able to save to the uttermost those who are being sanctified. And he's also able to raise us up with Christ. So when we go through things, everyone who desires to live godly in Christ is going to suffer persecution. We're going to suffer peril. We're going to suffer among false brethren. We're going to suffer among tribulations. We're going to suffer being cheated by the world. We're going to suffer having our rights taken away. We're going to suffer, some of us, for being Christians. And yet, in all these things, we're able to overcome. Because Jesus overcame. And he is able to intercede for us. Making intercession for us through the Spirit. Through groanings and utterings from the inner being. Which even we don't know how to pray when we're at wit's end. God is able. And we can be worshippers. When David had sinned and his child became sick, and eventually the child died because of his sin with Bathsheba. They thought, man, we can't tell this guy. Look, the guy hasn't eaten. He's been fasting. He's been humbling himself. He's just completely distraught. And when the child died, they didn't understand. The man went and took a bath. Took a shower, cleaned himself up. Put on his royal clothes. And he went into the house of God. When his son died, and he worshipped. And they said, what is this that David is doing now? He said, well, the child was alive. He thought perhaps God would have mercy. There was always a chance. But now that the child is gone, what else can he do? But continue to put his hope in the God who brought him this far. And he bear the consequences of his sins as we bear the consequences of ours. But yet there's mercy with God. There's forgiveness with God. It doesn't matter what you've done, how bad of a hole you've dug for yourself. If you'll humble yourself, he'll lift you out of it. We don't know what that looks like. I remember there was a time when a friend of mine went and confessed to his wife that he'd been unfaithful. And he thought that his wife would have mercy on him, but she divorced him. And he became so despairing, he went to the bottle. And the end of that matter was, he drank himself to death in a hotel room in Vietnam. He lost hope. His hope was that God would save his marriage. That God would restore his family. But we don't have to. We don't know how circumstances are going to go. But we know one thing, that God is well able to save us, even in the midst of crippling circumstances. I think of a man who was crippled and needed to find a way to get to Jesus because he heard Jesus was healing people. And he had no way to get into the house where Jesus was. And he didn't know how long Jesus was going to be there. And he had three or four good friends. And his friends agreed with him that what they would do is they would get him onto the roof of this house. They would find a way to open up the roof and lower him down. Their crippled friend who could not get to Jesus, so that Jesus could have an opportunity to minister to the man. I think of a time when Moses was so weak and tired. And the children of Israel, the second generation, were going in and they were doing battle against the nations that were coming against them. Who were greater and mightier. And their people were losing the battle. And Moses raised his hands to God in prayer, asking for help. And then the people would get the victory. Do you have some friends when you're crippled and when you're discouraged that you can call upon to help lift up your hands in prayer so that you can get the victory? And not remain a spiritual cripple through circumstances that have brought you down? Moses, his hands became weak and tired. And they began to come down. And the people of God began to lose hope. And they began to lose strength. And they began to be defeated by their enemies. Until two men of God came alongside and propped up his arms to help him. And as they helped him and come alongside of him to lift his hands in prayer, the people of God gave their strength and they got the victory in Jesus' name. You know, even men of God fall into discouragement when a bad report comes to town. We talked of David. And we talked of the consequences that come to him before he got into that place where he was king over Israel. He was leading God's sheep. He had a few sheep that were his father's. And all the sheep of the hills are God's. And he was treating those sheep like they were God's sheep. And he laid his life down for those sheep. And he fought a lion and a bear and risked his life for sheep. And God saw that kind of a heart and that kind of a boy and he said, that's the kind of king that the people need. He never had a desire that the people would have a king, that he would be their king. He raised up prophets, but because the people wanted a king like the nations. He gave him a king after their own heart. At the one time he was humble in heart and he became proud. Saul became proud and God removed him from being king. And he said, I'll raise up someone that's better than you. And while Saul was still king, but the spirit of God had left Saul and the evil spirits had come on Saul. He became envious when they began to sing, Saul has slain his thousands. But David is ten thousands who defeated the Goliath and who had defeated many Philistines. And God was raising up to become leader over his people Israel. And it came into Saul's heart to chase David away and to hunt him with hundreds of men, thousands of men to seek to destroy his life. And these men who were disgruntled, let's call them today's misfits. People who were in debt, people who were maybe substance type people who couldn't get along with anyone, who didn't have hope, were rejected by society. And they found a place with David in the caves of Bethlehem and different places. They would go in different places and Saul would get word that David was in the wilderness here or there. And he would pursue him, he would send a troop, he would go there to seek to destroy his son-in-law. David was his son-in-law. And you know what, you can get tired and you can get discouraged when there is years and years of relentless opposition against you as a believer. And you can come to a place in your walk where you say it's useless to serve God. Jeremiah said things like this, Job said things like this. We want to come to a place where we don't deny the Lord Jesus because our circumstances have become too difficult and the waves have swamped us. I think of a scripture that David said to encourage himself in the Lord at times. He said, why are you downcast, O my soul? Why are you disheartened in your inner man? Put your hope in God. Then you're losing faith and you don't have hope in God anymore. You are seeing circumstances and discouragement has swamped you and it has engulfed you and overwhelmed you and you have lost hope in Jesus. You've lost your hope in God. You know, we get tested whether we're fair-weather Christians. When things are good, we serve Jesus. When things are not good, we blame Jesus. I've been guilty of that. We have to grow spiritually that whether in good times or with bad reports, we are faithful to follow Christ. He who endures to the end shall be saved. If we deny him, he also will deny us. He cannot deny himself. If we are faithless, he remains faithful. If we look at this passage in Samuel chapter 27, here is a man of God who has a heart after God. He was definitely not perfect. He definitely made mistakes and he sinned in a number of occasions and God dealt with him as he deals with us as sons and daughters. In Samuel, 1 Samuel 27, and David said in his heart, where did David say it? He didn't tell his men. He didn't talk about it with people. He lost heart. And he spoke to himself in his heart. And this is what he said. Now I shall perish someday by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than that I should speedily and immediately escape to the land of the Philistines, the ones whom I have slain thousands and ten thousands of. And Saul will be discouraged to look for me because I'm in the Philistines' camp. And he'll stop hunting for me like a dog, like a dead fly. And so I will escape from his hand. I'm tired of being beaten down on all sides. I'm tired of being pressed. I'm tired of being struck down. I'm tired of being persecuted. I'm tired of being in perils. I'm tired of being in the deep. I'm tired of being among false countrymen. I'm tired of it all. And I want to go to another place. And I want to go with Demas where Demas is going. And I want to go and find some rest out there. When Samuel had anointed David king of Israel, he said, surely this one shall be king in Israel. But David hadn't seen the fulfillment of it and it had been many, many years. You might have had some words spoken over your life. You might have had some encouraging prophecies or some things spoken when you were young about what would happen in your life. And you don't see it. You don't even see how it's possible. Don't let discouragement come into your life and into your heart and deter you from the course. Because it can happen to men of God. It happened to David. He became unbelieving. He became discouraged. And he made a decision to go and join himself with the Philistines. Even to the point he was willing to fight against his brothers. And David arose and he went over with 600 men who were with him to Achish, the king of Gath. And it says in verse 6, so Achish gave him Ziglag. He gave him the city of Ziglag in the land of the Philistines. And David was there and they would do their raiding and they would seem to be getting provided for nicely. And it was a fantastic city. It was a fantastic place of peace and rest. And they were doing their raids and Philistines left him alone. They probably had fear of David too. And Saul left him alone. Seemed a good place to retire. But God wouldn't leave him there. Because that was not the place God intended for him to be. And so the Lord worked it out that while they were out on raid, the Amalekites came. And their wives and their little ones were there. And they kidnapped their wives and their little ones. And they went and they lit the city on fire and they burnt their houses completely to the ground. And they lost everything. They didn't lose half. They didn't lose three quarters. They lost their wives. They lost their children. They lost their homes and they had no strength. So all they could do, these mighty men of valor that became David's mighty men, they wept. They cried. Then they turned against David and they sought to kill David, to stone him. Because David had brought them there. And it's David's fault. The one who had taken them in and helped them to overcome in the midst of all their other problems. They sought to destroy David. And David, I'm telling you, was all alone with his God. It was him and God. That's all he had. And it says, David strengthened himself in the Lord. He called for the ephod, which is for the priest. He called for the urn and the thumb and he sought to hear from God. What should I do? Should I pursue this enemy? Or shall I not? Because if I go in my own strength, then we'll all perish in the way. And how do I encourage these people to tell them we're going to do this and we're going to do that, unless God is with us. There was a point when the children of Israel were going to go. They said, okay, we're going to go now. We're going to do this. And God said, I'm not going with these people. If God's not going with us, then we don't have a hope. We can make all kinds of plans. We can take all kinds of decisions. We can have all kinds of wisdom. But if God isn't in it, it's going to fail. And you're going to find yourself in a place like zigzag and say, what am I doing here? David strengthened himself in the Lord. Will you become a man who learns in the midst of the worst adversity possible that you can imagine? When the bad report comes, that the city's burned, you've lost everything, everything burned to the ground. Your children and your wife have been kidnapped. And all you have is your best friends that you laid your life down for turn against you and start talking of stoning you. Will you have faith that translates into hope? That you can say, give me the epoch because I know that I can hear from God. I know that God will answer. I know that somehow God will deliver me. I've taken a wrong turn here. He had time to reflect all night as he wept. And now God's going to get me out of my mess. I don't know what it's going to look like, but he will help us. And surely the word of God came to him. You shall pursue them and you shall recover all. He didn't recover the city of Ziklag because that wasn't the place for him. But God moved him to the place where Saul was defeated in the battle where he was going to go actually fight against his brothers. And they came and they made him king over Judah and eventually over Israel. And God restored David to fulfill the prophecy of Samuel over his life to fulfill the purpose and call of God for his life. God is able to do exceedingly and abundantly more than what we can see with our eyes, than what we can ask with our finite minds. He's able to help us, to strengthen us in the inner man and to raise us up with Christ. We can expect always caring about in this body, the dying to the flesh, death to sin, death to self, death to this world's goods. But we know one thing that we have a hope that's greater than our faith. And it's going to translate into something called love, which we won't speak on today. But that the love of God, because of this work that's working in us, will be poured out of our hearts. And people will know that we have the love of God in us. May the Lord Jesus Christ strengthen you with all power and with all might in the inner man that you might overcome in a day of adversity. That you might call on his name in the day of trouble and he will answer you and show you great and awesome things which you don't yet know. The scripture says, call on me and I will answer you and show you great and awesome things which you know not. We need the fear of God. If we fear God, we need fear not our circumstances. I tell you this last week, I've been crippled with fear and anxiety. We're going through a trial that's bigger than things we've gone through till this day. And that's where this message comes from. So I ask you to agree with us. If you'd have a prayer for our family that God would give us hope that we would not deny the Lord in the midst of our trial. We don't know what the circumstances will be, but that we will not deny the Lord. It's hard to pray when you're crippled by anxiety or fear. We can quote scripture, I've been quoting it. God hasn't given us a spirit of fear, but a power of love and of a sound mind. And to be anxious about nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Let your requests be made known to God and the God of peace will comfort you. We know these things, but it has to translate into something that is tangible in the inner man. We have to die to what I'm held by so that the life can manifest in this mortal body. So death is working in us, but praise God, hopefully life in you. Look to the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. That is where our help comes from. He is our source and he is our life. He is our all in all in Jesus name.