Adversities

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. I want to greet you in Jesus' name this morning, the name that is above every name, the name that every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess, that he is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. I invite you this morning to turn with me to Psalm 31. Psalm 31, I'd like to read the first 11 verses. [00:00:33] The Psalm of David, where he says, In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. Let me never be ashamed. Deliver me in thy righteousness. Bow down thine ear to me. Deliver me speedily. Be thou my strong rock for a house of defense to save me. For thou art my rock and my fortress. Therefore, for thy name's sake, lead me and guide me. Pull me out of the net that they have laid privately for me, for thou art my strength. Into thine hand I commit my spirit. Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth. I have hated them that regard lying vanities, but I trust in the Lord. [00:01:09] I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy, for thou hast considered my trouble. Thou hast known my soul in adversities. Thou hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy. Thou hast set my feet in a large room. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am in trouble. Mine eye is consumed with grief, yea, my soul and my belly. For my life is spent with grief, my ears with sighing. My strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed. [00:01:44] I was a reproach among all mine enemies, but especially among my neighbors, and a fear to mine acquaintance. They that did see me without fled from me. This is a psalm of David. We know that David was a man who had a lot of different experiences in life. And he experienced a lot of what we see in the word, in the last word in verse 7 It's a word that I don't like and probably you don't like [00:02:17] But it's a part of life That word is adversities Adversities Thou hast known my soul in adversities I believe that God was with him many times as he was experiencing the adversities of life. We find that word again a few more times in scripture. I'd like to turn now to Ecclesiastes chapter 7. Ecclesiastes chapter 7, we'll read verses 11 to 14. [00:02:49] Wisdom is good with an inheritance, and by it there is profit to them that see the sun. For wisdom is a defense, and money is a defense. But the excellency of knowledge is that wisdom giveth life to them that have it. Consider the work of God, for who can make that straight which hath made crooked? In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider. God also hath set the one over against the other to the end that man should find nothing after him. [00:03:26] The Living Bible paraphrase would give it something like this, Enjoy prosperity whenever you can, and when hard times strike, realize that God gives one as well as the other, so that everyone will realize that nothing is certain in this life. As we think of the word adversity, the definition of that is a condition of suffering, destitution, or affliction, and also a calamitous or disastrous experience. [00:04:00] You know, adversity, trouble, sorrow, sickness, disappointment, they're all a part of life. But I think we have an all-wise God who is over us, who does this for us as a loving provision to the sinful human race. We know that after Adam and Eve had sinned there in the Garden of Eden, he had given them the assurance rather quickly [00:04:31] that they're going to face a life of sorrow and trouble. We find that in Genesis chapter 3, right after they had sinned. Chapter 3 and verse 16 through 19 says, Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I command thee, saying, [00:05:02] Thou shalt not eat of it, cursed is the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground. For out of it wast thou taken, for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. So we can see that because of man's sin, he tells them here that they're going to have hard labor. [00:05:34] There's going to be thorns and thistles. There's going to be, you know, we know there's weeds out there. Most all of us have a garden, and we don't have to be very old until we're involved in gardening. And we go out there, and we have to fight those weeds. And it takes a long time, many times, to root out those weeds and it's a hard job and it's hot out there and we have to sweat. But these are just part of life. I think they're intended on being the heritage of every person. Adversity, we believe, is an appointed and a necessary thing for the sinning race. [00:06:10] And it's not just for sinners, but it is also for us as believers. We know that some of the choices of God's saints were those who suffered the most. We all know the story of Joseph. Young Joseph, 17 years old, went to see his brothers and see how they were doing. And as a young, innocent lad, he was sold into slavery by his brothers. And there he was slandered by Potiphar's wife. And then he languished, forgotten, in a prison for many years. [00:06:44] But we can see how the purity of his life and his devotion to God, they shine forth as he went through this time of adversity, this time of suffering in his life. And at the end, his attitude, I believe, made a lot of difference in the end. His brothers, you know, they had a little bit of adversity of their own, and a little distress as they went to Egypt there to buy bread. [00:07:20] In verse 21 in chapter 42 of Genesis, And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us, and we would not hear. Therefore is this distress come upon us. So there was some distress, there was some adversity brought upon them for their part in what they had done. But Joseph, I really like his attitude and we find more about that in chapter 45, verses 5 through 8 [00:07:52] He says here, Now therefore be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither For God did send me before you to preserve life For these two years hath the famine been in the land and yet there are five years in the which there shall be neither earing nor harvest And God sent me before you to preserve you of posterity in the earth and to save your lives by great deliverance So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God. And he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. [00:08:25] So he had the right spirit, the right heart about all of this that he had gone through. But yet still in the back of the mind, his brothers were wondering, Now, what is going to happen, you know, after a little later on when their father passed away? They were wondering, now what? Well, we find that in chapter 50, and this is precious. Verse 15 to 21, And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, [00:08:57] Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him. And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, thy father did command before he died saying so shall you say unto Joseph forgive I pray thee now the trespass of thy brethren and their sin for they did unto the evil and now we pray thee forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father and Joseph wept when they speak unto him and his brethren also went and fell down before his face and they said behold we be thy servants and Joseph said unto them fear not for am I in the place of God but as for you you thought evil against me but God meant it unto good to bring to pass [00:09:34] as it is this day to save alive much people. Now, therefore, fear ye not. I will nourish you and your little ones. And he comforted them. And he spake kindly unto them. After all that he'd been through and what they put him through, he still spake kindly unto them. David, we've already read a psalm written by him. But David, we know, was the man after God's own heart. He had to flee from Saul for his life for quite a while. [00:10:11] And we find in 2 Samuel, you know, he had that one, there was that one time there he had the opportunity to slay Saul. Saul was out hunting him and lay down in a cave and him and his men were on the outside of the cave. They saw Saul here, and he was laying down, and he was encouraged to go, get rid of him, he's your adversary, get rid of him. But he didn't want to do that, but he went up and he cut off part of his garment. [00:10:46] And then he felt bad doing that. He felt bad that here he had, you know, this was the Lord's anointed, and he felt bad about just doing that. Well, later on, and we'll read this in 2 Samuel 4, after Saul had passed away, 2 Samuel chapter 4, we'll look at verses 8 through 12. And they brought the head of Ish-bosheth unto David to Hebron, and said to the king, Behold, the head of Ish-bosheth, the son of Saul, thine enemy, which sought thy life, and the Lord hath avenged my lord the king this day of Saul and of his seed. [00:11:25] And David answered Rechab and Banna his brother, the sons of Rimen, to Berothite, and said unto them, As the Lord liveth, who hath redeemed my soul out of all adversity? Here we find that word again, adversity. When one told me, saying, Behold, Saul is dead, thinking to have brought good tidings, I took a hold of him and slew him in Ziklag, who thought that I would have given him a reward for his tidings. [00:11:56] How much more, when the wicked men have slain a righteous person in his own house upon his bed, shall I not therefore now require his blood of your hand and take you away from the earth? And David commanded his young men, and they slew them and cut off their hands and their feet and hanged them up over the pool of Hebron. But they took up the head of Ish-bosheth and buried it in the sepulchre of Abner in Hebron. As the Lord liveth, he hath redeemed my soul out of all adversity. And I appreciate his attitude toward the one who was his adversary. [00:12:32] As we think of life, you know, in Hebrews it tells us that no chastening, and I think we could add to that, no testing. or no adversity for the present seemeth to be joyous. But what does it say? Afterward it yieldeth the peaceful fruit of righteousness unto them who are exercised thereby. Another good example we have in Scripture of one who experienced adversity. [00:13:04] And he had also experienced a lot of good times as well because he was very wealthy. We read about him and Job. Job was a perfect and upright man, it tells us in scripture. That is, he was mature, complete, well-rounded, and properly balanced. He was a good man. He was upright. He walked straight. But Satan then came along as an accuser He's an accuser of the brethren [00:13:35] He says to God, look at him No wonder he serves you Now look at all them donkeys And all those camels And all those oxen Look at all the money he has No wonder he loves you No wonder he serves you Well, it was arranged then that God allowed Satan to take away his possessions, his family. [00:14:07] It was all taken. What was his response? The Lord hath given. The Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And then it says in all this, verse 22, In all this, Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly. Well, in the next chapter, well, skin for skin. Yea, all a man hath will he give for his health, for his life. So now let's afflict him physically, and then we'll see what happens. [00:14:42] So God gave him permission. And then he got that physical affliction of the boils. Itching, scratching himself. What a sight to behold as he was there in that condition. And then what? What did his wife? He was there scraping himself. It took a potsherd, verse 2, to scrape himself withal and he sat down among the ashes. Then the one that was closest to him, that should have been encouraging him. [00:15:15] What did she say? Let's say it is wife unto him. Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God and die But he said unto her thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh What shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil It says in all this did not Job sin with his lips I believe this was put here as an example for us On how we should respond She had a good husband [00:15:45] He was probably as good a husband as she could have possibly wanted And yet this was how she reacted She didn't respond very well But we know that in the end We don't, you know, there's a lot in the book of Job before you get to that He had those miserable comforters Which I believe was another area of adversity that he experienced But then he got it all back [00:16:16] He got it all back plus as far as his livestock and so on He got back double everything that he had before And he got back his seven sons and three daughters Job was faithful Job in difficult adversity He made it through all of this with God's help and we can as well. I guess perhaps as near an example as I could come up with from a modern day Job, [00:16:52] we have a man in our church back home, he's not there this morning but here with us this morning, who in 1971 lost his son at the age of 16 in a truck accident And then in the early 80s, life got cancer, and at the age of 52, she passed away in 1985. And then three years later, his daughter, at the age of 23, also passed away of cancer. [00:17:28] And here, she had a three-year-old son and twin daughters that were two and a half months old. You know, who needs a mother worse than twins that are just two and a half months old? You know, that doesn't seem fair. And there were many other trials in life, many challenges, financial ups and downs, and all of that. And yet, my father, who is here this morning, has been a good example, like Job, in that he has not charged God foolishly. [00:18:03] And I appreciate that example. And by the way, that's one of the reasons that we're here. That three-year-old boy did grow up and yesterday got married. Also, three months, or not three months, the next month after Caleb's mother passed away in my dad's family, after he had remarried his second wife, He also got another boy and another girl. [00:18:37] Got those both at once. So that's some of the similarities that he has had with Job. And I'm sure he would say that it was not nearly as difficult as what Job had gone through. I think the Lord knows what we need, what we can handle. And if we properly accept those things, that it will strengthen us in the inner man. And through those trials, we can become better Christians. We can have a better and a brighter testimony. [00:19:10] Good share, I believe, also a little illustration from nature this morning. And that is about the eagle and her little birds, the little eaglets. When she makes a nest for them, she will find the tallest trees or the loftiest mountain ledges. And there, when she makes her nest, the first thing she will do is she'll put down some thorns and jagged stones and all kinds of sharp objects, which seemingly would make no sense. [00:19:48] Why would you use that to build a nest? Those little birds, they aren't going to want to live in that. Well, they have a reason for it. So then the eagle will cover all that thickly with wool, feathers, fur of other animals that she has killed. Then this nesting place becomes a real nice, soft, comfortable place for the little eagles that she's going to hatch. [00:20:20] But unfortunately, these little eagles are not going to get to stay there forever. It's a comfortable place, but they're not going to get to stay there forever. And so the time will come when the mother is going to come, she's going to go, and she's going to stir up that nest. And those, everything that's in that nest that made it comfortable will now be gone. Now, and these tiny creatures that have had their food delivered and dropped into their mouths will now find that they have a very miserable place. [00:20:58] And now they're unhappy and they're willing to get out of this nest and go somewhere else. It's not comfortable here. We're out of here. And that was by design. It's not comfortable. It's not cruelty on the Mother Eagle's part. It's rather an effort to produce a discontent with the old life of ease and comfort so they can move on to maturity. They're not going to mature if they just lay there in that place of ease. [00:21:34] Now we need to have a balance in our lives. We don't need to always have things good, always have things going our way. So I believe it's good when God sends things into our lives to test us, to help us, to bring us to maturity. I like the verse in Proverbs 30, and I think it should be kind of a guide for our lives in general, where it says, The first two things have I required of thee, Proverbs 30, verse 7. Deny them not before I die. [00:22:07] Remove far from me vanity and lies. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Why not? Because it says, feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full. Lest I be rich and increased with goods and have need of no one or nothing And say who is the Lord Or lest I be poor and steal And take the name of my God in vain [00:22:39] Not too much, not too little, but just right Should be our desire You know as we think about the economy I don't know what you're experiencing here in this community I know that you have greater unemployment in this county than many counties have. So if you have a job, I'm sure you're blessed and are thankful for it. But we know that there are people who don't have jobs, and how do we feel for them? [00:23:14] You know, it's times like that that make the Lord's Prayer mean a little more. You know, in the Lord's Prayer, one of the things that we're asking God is Give us this day our daily bread Notice it doesn't say, give me this week my weekly paycheck Or give me this month my monthly salary Or, yeah, my monthly checks Or my annual salary, it doesn't say that [00:23:45] Just give me, give us this day our daily bread. I had an interesting visit a few weeks ago in Missouri at a funeral. I was talking to a minister there who builds windows. And the economy had been affecting him. And his business wasn't near what it used to be. And he told me how that one morning at the breakfast table they were praying. [00:24:17] They had no orders. There weren't any. And they would like to have something to do or like to have some business. So at the house before they went out to the shop, they prayed that God would send them some orders. Well, guess what? He goes out in the shop, and there on the fax machine is an order for 49 windows. And wow, you know, that was quite something. [00:24:49] You know, here they had no orders, now they have an order for 49 windows, after they had prayed. And things look different when we need a daily provision. So, let's think about that and let's remember those who are less fortunate. We realize that you here as a congregation have been through some adverse times as well. [00:25:23] And, of course, directly affecting some families here, a husband whose wife left in an unexpected manner. And that's, we would consider that a time of adversity or a calamitous or disastrous experience. And, you know, most people have no idea how to relate to that. I haven't experienced it, but my mom had two uncles who took their own lives. [00:26:04] And one of them happened when I was three years old, so I remember nothing about that. But the other one happened when I was 17. And it made quite an impression on me because he was a man that I had worked for. We, sometimes we would do a little bit of custom work for the Amish people in the community, and he was a farmer. Also, he was an Amish deacon. And I had spent quite a number of hours in his fields doing some work for him. [00:26:35] And I would go to the house at noon, and his wife would make good meals and have a time there of sharing, and I had appreciation for him. But I'm not sure, you know, what all happened there. You know, not everyone's coping mechanism is the same, but he ended his life. So, you know, it doesn't happen a lot. It doesn't happen everywhere in every church. Maybe not even every community, but it has happened in other areas. [00:27:12] And so we feel for you here. May God give you strength and grace to cast your burdens upon the Lord. Psalm 55, 22, And he shall sustain thee, he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. May God give you strength as you continue on in the situations that you have. As we think about the thing of prosperity versus adversity, versus having hard times financially, [00:27:48] we also think a bit of the thing of freedom versus no freedom. I remember years ago, Bishop Dave Vontrager used to go over to Russia And so he'd come back with a lot of stories about the Christians over there behind the Iron Curtain Let's pray for those Christians behind the Iron Curtain They need our prayers But they might be faithful And we would But, you know, we'd come together in prayer meetings and we'd pray for them Well, I don't know how often this happened, but I believe it needed to happen [00:28:24] You know, they were over there, they needed our prayers, but guess what? They were over there praying for us. We had freedom. We had prosperity. Now, the question I would ask is, who needed the prayer the worst? They or did we? You know, I think we both did. So, those times of freedom can not always be the best for us. So I'd like to share with you now a prayer that was prayed by an Ethiopian. [00:29:01] And here's how it went. He says, Almighty God, from the depth of my heart I plead with thee to send us trouble. When our king was exiled, we were in much trouble with the foreign rulers. We had to meet in secret and were in constant danger of our lives. That was the time when we worked in harmony with our fellow Christians. Many a night after I had locked my door and gone to bed, tired from a day's long journey of preaching and teaching, there came a persistent knocking. Lord, how I wanted to sleep, and surely but they wouldn't want to be baptized at night [00:29:36] and be hunted and chased and put in prison and beaten. But they said they had seen the Christians' joy, and they too wanted that religion. Every night there was more and more. We read thy word and talked about it and prayed through the nights. We shared our joy in the Lord. We worked side by side with only one desire, to preach and teach the gospel. Then, Lord, our King came back. The foreign rulers were forced to leave our country. [00:30:09] We have peace in our land. We baptize in the daytime. We are not beaten. We meet and pray, yes, but we are beginning to grow careless in our zeal for thee. Petty troubles take on in large meetings. We are selfish in our ambitions. Dear Lord, send us more trouble, I pray thee, that we may forget ourselves and be so dependent on thee that we have no time to become selfish and jealous of our fellow Christians. [00:30:43] For Jesus' sake, Amen. Now we believe that God is nearer to the widow than to one who has a husband. He is nearer to the orphan than to one that is provided for and protected by parents. He was nearer to the prodigal son out there in the hog pen than he was to the elder brother who was back safe at home. He was nearer to the publican, the guilty sinner, than he was to the moral Pharisee. And God was nearer to the dying thief than he was to the scribes and the elders. [00:31:21] God is very near in the times of trouble and adversity. Psalm 50, verse 15, he says, Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. James 1, 12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation And I don't think it will do injustice to this scripture to say that endureth trials, that endureth adversities For when he is tried he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him [00:31:57] And then in Job 23 verse 10 But he knoweth the way that I take When he hath tried me Maybe I shall come forth as gold. You know, gold, in order to become gold, has to go through a purification process. It has to go through the fire to become pure. And may it be that way for us as well. May the trials, the difficulties, the adversities of our lives cause us to come forth as gold. [00:32:33] Tried in the fire And that we can then Hear those words Well done, good and faithful servant Enter into the joy of the Lord Shall we with these thoughts Kneel for prayer