Grosey's Messages

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will, and Timothy our brother: To God’s church at Corinth, with all the saints who are throughout Achaia.
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.
4 He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God.
5 For as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so our comfort overflows through Christ.
6 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is experienced in the endurance of the same sufferings that we suffer.

7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that as you share in the sufferings, so you will share in the comfort.
8 For we don’t want you to be unaware, brothers, of our affliction that took place in the province of •Asia: we were completely overwhelmed—beyond our strength—so that we even despaired of life.
9 However, we personally had a death sentence within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.
10 He has delivered us from such a terrible death, and He will deliver us; we have placed our hope in Him that He will deliver us again.
11 And you can join in helping with prayer for us, so that thanks may be given by many on our behalf for the gift that came to us through the prayers of many.

Life itself is hard. I look around the room. I see those who have lost husbands, wives, loved ones. I see people who have gone through terrible sickness. I see people who have experienced failure in their jobs, huge disappointments. I see people who have been betrayed and slandered by others. I've seen people who have tried with all their might, and yet, some would consider them failures. It's true: life is hard. And, you know, once you give yourself to the Lord, life's sufferings almost become more intense because the closer you grow to the Lord, the more you begin to feel the same sorrow that Christ felt. Also, you experience rejection often as you seek to call people to God's higher standards which are for their best. When we read the rest of this letter, we discover that this was a church with problems with a capital P.

It really does remind me of that wonderful song from The Music Man where Harold Hills says:

"Ya got trouble, Right here in River city! With a capital 'T'

And that rhymes with 'P' And that stands for Pool.

We've surely got trouble! Right here in River City!"

Why do you have troubles?

Paul had troubles. Sometimes these troubles all seem to swamp us at once. Everything piles on. And we feel the pressure driving us into the ground. Paul had troubles. And like pile drivers each pressed him down.

You’ve got to admit, if you gave the average Christian a stress test after one of these trials, his blood pressure would be through the roof. But Paul had these stacked on. Listen:

2 Cor 11: 23 Are they servants of Christ? I’m talking like a madman—I’m a better one: with far more labors, many more imprisonments, far worse beatings, near death many times.
24 Five times I received from the Jews 40 lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. I have spent a night and a day in the depths of the sea. 26 On frequent journeys, [I faced]dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own people, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the open country, dangers on the sea, and dangers among false brothers; 27 labor and hardship, many sleepless nights, hunger and thirst, often without food, cold, and lacking clothing. 28 Not to mention other things, there is the daily pressure on me: my care for all the churches.

Each one stacked on. You know, in football, its not how fast a man can run that makes a good football player, but what it takes to stop him. There have been plenty of fast runners. But there are only a few that can run and run through the pack!

Well Paul tells us he got stopped!

He despaired even of life:

2 Cor 1:8  For we don’t want you to be unaware, brothers, of our affliction that took place in the province of • Asia: we were completely overwhelmed—beyond our strength—so that we even despaired of life.
9 However, we personally had a death sentence within ourselves

Was it the riot in Ephesus?

Acts 19 tells us of the great riot which broke out in Ephesus, threatening the lives of the Christians in that city. At that time it appeared the whole Christian cause had collapsed in Ephesus and all Paul had labored on for years was falling apart. He must have gone through unusual emotional stress and physical threat during this time. He tells us that he was "utterly, unbearably crushed." Now that is the lowest ebb the human spirit can come to, the uttermost sense of despair. "Why," he said, "we felt that we had received the sentence of death." It was absolutely hopeless; he had given up; there was no way out. He could see himself losing his life at this point.

Was it the very powerful enemies and their followers he had made?

2 Tim 4: 14 Alexander the coppersmith did great harm to me. The Lord will repay him according to his works. 15 Watch out for him yourself, because he strongly opposed our words. 16 At my first defense, no one came to my assistance, but everyone deserted me. May it not be counted against them.

Friday, in Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, asks why If God were so omni[potent and powerful, God had not yet destroyed the devil. Crusoe runs away to avoid having to answer the question. Good question.

Another good Question is Why do believer’s suffer so?

I remember one minister who had a secretary who was always cheerful no matter how much she was going through. He said to her one day, "I wish I had your faith and optimism." She replied, "Well, you would if you'd read your Bible right." "What do you mean?" he asked. "I read it in Greek and in English." She said, "Well, you don't read it right, because Paul says, 'Glory in tribulation.' Now G-L-O-R-Y doesn't spell 'growl,'" she said. "When you get tribulations you growl, you complain all the time, but Scripture says glory in tribulations, welcome them as challenges, as opportunities, as occasions to discover the strengthening of God." The truly Christian reaction to troubles and pressures is to see them all as sent by a loving God who is still in control, who will limit them, as he promised, so they will not be more than you are able to bear. He has sent them deliberately to help you discover the inner strengthening that can keep your heart at peace, no matter what the pressure is. That is the first reason pressures are sent.

The Purpose For Which You Experience Suffering And Comforted

a. God Comforts us To Comfort others

4 He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God.

2 Cor 7: 6 Nevertheless God, that comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus; 6 But God, who comforts the humble, comforted us by the coming of Titus,

THIS GOD ENABLES US TO COMFORT OTHERS.

There is something about us that makes us feel that no one else can really understand the pain that we have when life is so hard. Yet, every one of us has terribly difficult situations, and out of them we can help and encourage and comfort and console one another. That's the way the family works. It is ministry. In just this one paragraph, the verbs and nouns for the word comfort, which implies suffering, occur ten times. The word for trouble is used three times and suffering is used four times. So, suffering is referred to seventeen times directly or indirectly in just four or five verses. "In the world, you will have trouble, but don't despair, I have overcome the world."

God comforts us in assuring us that even the most senseless and unjust suffering can have a purpose.

One of Elisabeth Elliot's long-time friends had cancer surgery and its aftermath was an incision that had to be scraped and cleaned daily for weeks. She wrote to Elisabeth, "It was so painful that Diana, Jim, Monica, and I prayed while she cleaned it, three times and some days four times. Monica would wipe my tears. Yes, Jesus stands right there as the pain takes the breath away, and my toes curl to keep from crying out loud. But I haven't asked, Why me Lord? It is only now that I can pray for cancer patients and know how the flesh hurts and how relief, even for a moment, is blessed" (Elisabeth Elliott, "On Asking God Why," Fleming H. Revell, 1989, p.16). Her own sufferings and the divine comfort received have made her a comforter.

Colson not long ago in which he said that he often asked himself why he had to go to prison as a result of Watergate. Legally, there was no reason why he should have been put in prison. Nevertheless, he ended up there and for a long time he struggled with this fact. Why did he have to suffer the humiliation, the shame, the disgrace and the discontent of prison? But then the answer began to come. While he was in prison he learned what prisoners go through. He saw these forgotten men and women of American society, the awful injustices they often face, the difficulty, even the impossibility of recovering themselves, and there was born in him a great sense of compassion and a desire to help. Since he has been released from prison he has devoted his whole life and ministry to going back in and helping these people. Now wonderful stories are beginning to come from prisons all over America of dramatic changes in human lives because Chuck Colson was sent to prison. That is why God sends us into difficulties at times. It is not always for our sake, but for someone else's sake. We have been brought along and matured to the point where we can take it and rejoice in it and handle it rightly. When we do, what a lesson we are giving to those who are following along behind.

b. God comforts us model perseverance

6. if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is experienced in the endurance of the same sufferings that we suffer.

i.e. A pastor friend has endured much over many years. I look at him and know I can endure what he has endured, because the same Lord who has been faithful to him will also be faithful to me.

Someone once said his favorite scripture was, "And it came to pass." It did not come to stay, it came to pass. This, too, will pass, and you will be strengthened by it, therefore, patiently endure and discover the strength that God can give.

c. God comforts us to draw us to Himself and away from ourselves

8 For we don’t want you to be unaware, brothers, of our affliction that took place in the province of  Asia: we were completely overwhelmed—beyond our strength—so that we even despaired of life. 9 However, we personally had a death sentence within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.

Just writing about this seems to prompt Paul to want to share with his readers some very personal experiences he had just recently endured himself. Apparently, across the Aegean Sea in Ephesus, Paul had been through a terrible time. We know some of the story, but we don't know a lot of it. Listen to what he continues to say in verses 8 and 9:

What is the source of your spiritual strength? Is it your strong will? Is it your effective self- discipline? Or is it the Lord Himself?

Dave Dravecky, the major league pitcher who lost his arm to cancer, told of such an experience in his book entitled, When You Can't Come Back. "Looking back," he said, "my wife, Jan, and I have learned that the wilderness is part of the landscape of faith and every bit as essential as the mountaintop. On the mountaintop, we are overwhelmed by God's presence; in the wilderness we are overwhelmed by God's absence. Both places should bring us to our knees. The one, in utter awe; the other, in utter dependence."

Just writing about this seems to prompt Paul to want to share with his readers some very personal experiences he had just recently endured himself. Apparently, across the Aegean Sea in Ephesus, Paul had been through a terrible time. We know some of the story, but we don't know a lot of it.

"We were under great pressure:"

"a number of those who had practised sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly" (Acts 19:19). They started a bonfire of evil literature and burned everything they had, notwithstanding the cost.

One believes that such triumphs over the devil and his works would exact a price from every courageous fighter for Christ. There is such a reality as a 'demonic backlash.' The Reformation is followed by the counter-reformation. The Puritan period is followed by resurgent Arianism. The 1904 revival is followed by the 1914-1918 war and 20th century declension. Our Lord himself needed to fast and pray before his encounter in the wilderness with the devil. That battle wasn't like some military exercises in which blank cartridges are used. It was war, and it was costly to Jesus. Angels needed to come and give him help. When the disciples of Jesus failed to change a boy dominated by an evil spirit the Lord told them that such deliverances would not come without praying and fasting. When Paul reminds these Ephesians of the nature of the Christian life he tells them, "It's war," and he spells out the reality of battling against principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world and spiritual wickedness in high places. There was one time when Bunyan's Pilgrim fights for his life with Apollyon. Every Christian needs to clothe himself in all the armour of God just to survive, so that when the day of evil comes he may stand and fight (Ephs. 6:10-20).

"far beyond our ability to endure:" Paul quickly reached the limit of his own physique. He was not a brawny man. His enemies said about him that his bodily presence was weak. A little fellow with the marks of scars and beatings on his head and body, and often he reached the limit of his own endurance, but then he had other reserves. When the grand-daughter of General Booth of the Salvation Army took part in her first open air meeting she went to give a report of it to the General. "How did it go?" he said to her. "All right, I think," she said, "I did my best." His soft face hardened: "Your best is not good enough for God. Through Jesus Christ you can do better than your best." How quickly we reach the point of our own ability to endure, and we know it, and we are looking unto Jesus. "Lord, I can't get through this next day without you. Every burden is too heavy without you, every temptation is too powerful, every mountain too high, every journey too long, every responsibility too great, every sickness too painful, every loss too grievous." They are all far beyond our ability to endure. But through Jesus Christ we can do all things. We can love our enemies. We can go the second mile. We can turn the other cheek. We can forgive and forgive and forgive seventy times seven. We can sand up and denounce sin, when we are fearful of the repercussions of the immoral crowd:

Ephesus was also the centre of corrupt vested interests in the commercial and business life of the city. Guilds made silver charms, mini-statues of the goddess Artemis, idols designed to order for home and garden, and souvenirs to be sold to the visitors who had sailed to the shrine from all over the Med. But then the gospel arrives in Ephesus, and it has a pervasive impact on the people of the city: "the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power" (Acts 19:20). Sales of silver shrines went down. Idol-sellers took home less money. Idol-manufacturers became unemployed, and Ephesian citizens at last were speaking out about being joyfully delivered from the worship of a lifeless statue. A meeting of workmen was summoned by angry Demetrius a silversmith of all men connected with the temple and its manufacturing industries. The meeting soon went out of control, the mob went wild and they seized two companions of Paul and would have taken him too if they could have caught him. "Soon the whole city was in an uproar," (Acts 19:29). An ugly crowd was baying for blood. There was murder in the air. Similar situations today can leave people traumatised. They dragged the men into the huge theatre which had room for 25,000 people and "they all shouted in unison for about two hours: 'Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!" (Acts 19:34).

Paul is not unique in the Bible. The Psalmist cried to his own heart, "Why are you cast down O my soul?" Elijah lay down under a juniper tree and asked God to take away his life. Jonah "wanted to die, and said, 'It would be better for me to die than to live'" (Jonah 4:8). The psalmist in Psalm 88 cries bitterly to God. The only chink of light in that entire psalm is the first phrase, "O Lord, the God who saves me." Men rarely read it publicly or announce it to be sung because it chills a congregation. With these three verses it abruptly ends, "From my youth I have been afflicted and close to death; I have suffered your terrors and am in despair. Your wrath has swept over me; your terrors have destroyed me. All day long they surround me like a flood; they have completely engulfed me. You have taken my companions and loved ones from me; the darkness is my closest friend."

Murdoch Campbell says, "Many a poor distressed soul has seen his own image in this mirror."

Listen to what he continues to say in verses 8 and 9: "We despaired even of life;"

Those familiar with clinical depression may sense in Paul's words something of almost that magnitude. Something terrible had happened to Paul—whether it was illness, or imprisonment, or the result of that riot in Ephesus where he almost was murdered—something so indescribably beyond limits of his power to deal with, it took him to the very depths. An indescribable sadness, a pressure, a weight was upon him, so that he felt that he must die. Some of you have been there. Your marriages have been so completely dead, lacking any life, or your dreams have been so totally crushed or defeated, or you've been in such trouble, or you've been so sick that you just felt that you had no hope within yourselves, as though you were under the "sentence of death," to use Paul's words. There was the great catastrophe at the Surrey Gardens Music Hall which the church had hired to find more room for the crowds who wished to hear Spurgeon. Some evil men created a disturbance causing a panic and rush for the doors in which seven people were killed. C.H.Spurgeon was inconsolable: "who can conceive the anguish of my sad spirit? I refused to be comforted; tears were my meat by day, and dreams my terror by night. I felt as I had never felt before ... My mind lay, like a wreck upon the sand, incapable of its usual motion. I was in a strange land, and a stranger in it. My Bible, once my daily food, was but a hand to lift the sluices of my woe" ("The Early Years," Banner of Truth, p.426).

Yet, Paul said, out of it he learned to rely not on himself, but on God. "But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead"

Did you know that the only way God can raise the dead is if there has been a death? If your marriage has died, or if your career has died, if your hope has died, then God can truly work. Sometimes—thank God it's not often—we have to actually hear the death sentence pronounced or lose all hope within ourselves in order at last to throw ourselves upon God to such a degree that we are able to see God work. Sometimes God can't work until we give up.

The pain you feel is not whimsical or arbitrary. It is never a matter of mere sovereignty. Scripture witness to this abounds: "the Lord does not afflict willingly," (Lamentations 3:33). Our human fathers, according to the epistle to the Hebrews, corrected us after their own pleasure, after their own whim, but God corrects his children for their profit (Hebrews 12:10).

d. God comforts us by blessing us with the hope of heaven.

10 He has delivered us from such a terrible death, and He will deliver us; we have placed our hope in Him that He will deliver us again.
"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us" (Roms. 8:18). Paul wrote that as one who had known immense suffering. Put in the balances the sufferings of today and then the glories of eternity. There is no comparison.

Eric Barker, a missionary from Great Britain, spent over 50 years in Portugal preaching the Gospel -- often under adverse conditions. During WWII, the situation became so critical that he was advised to send his wife and eight children to England for safety. His sister and her three children were also evacuated on the same ship. While his beloved relatives were forced to leave, he remained behind to carry on the work. On the Sunday following their departure, pastor Barker said to his congregation, "I've just received word that all my family have arrived safely home!" He then proceeded with the service as usual. Later, the full meaning of his words became known to his people. He had been handed a wire just before the meeting, informing him that a submarine had torpedoed the ship and everyone on board had drowned. He knew that because all were believers, they had reached a safer shore than England. Although overwhelmed with grief, he managed by the grace of God to live above the circumstances. The certain knowledge that his family was enjoying the bliss of Heaven comforted his heart.

10 He has delivered us from such a terrible death, and He will deliver us; we have placed our hope in Him that He will deliver us again.

“He has delivered us”.. from Sin and Satan and hell.

"He will deliver us," adds Paul. He is absolutely certain of it. That great deliverance was not a 'one-off.' It was simply a reflection of his covenantal relationship with all his people. They have a Sovereign Protector.

His love in times past Forbids me to think,
He'll leave me at last In trouble to sink.

Each sweet Ebenezer I have in review,

Confirms His good pleasure to see me quite through

“He will deliver us again.”

For I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day."

e. God comforts us by driving us to prayer.

11 And you can join in helping with prayer for us, so that thanks may be given by many on our behalf for the gift that came to us through [the prayers of]many.

Not a burden we bear, Not a sorrow we share,
But our toil He doth richly repay; Not a grief nor a loss,
Not a frown nor a cross But is blessed if we trust and obey.

The Arabs have a saying, "All sunshine makes a desert." The danger of prosperity is it encourages a sense of false independence. It makes us think that we are okay to handle life alone. I like what Abraham Lincoln said: "I have often been driven to my knees in prayer because I had no where else to go." Often, it's in times of misfortune that we find out who our friends are and we find out who God is and what God is able to do—just how dependable God really is.

# posted by Groseys messages @ 8:18 AM

Then the word of the Lord came to me, asking, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I replied, “I see a branch of an almond tree.” 12 The Lord said to me, “You have seen correctly, for I watch over My word to accomplish it.” 13 Again the word of the Lord came to me inquiring, “What do you see?” And I replied, “I see a boiling pot, its mouth tilted from the north to the south.” 14 Then the Lord said to me, “Disaster will be poured out from the north on all who live in the land. 15 Indeed, I am about to summon all the clans and kingdoms of the north.” This is the Lord’s declaration. They will come, and each king will set up his throne at the entrance to Jerusalem’s gates. They will attack all her surrounding walls and all the other cities of Judah. 16 “I will pronounce My judgments against them for all the evil they did when they abandoned Me to burn incense to other gods and to worship the works of their own hands.17 “Now, get ready. Stand up and tell them everything that I command you. Do not be intimidated by them or I will cause you to cower before them. 18 Today, I am the One who has made you a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls against the whole land—against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests, and the population.

2:1 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Go and announce directly to Jerusalem that this is what the Lord says: I remember the loyalty of your youth, your love as a bride— how you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. 3 Israel was holy to the Lord, the  firstfruits of His harvest. All who ate of it found themselves guilty; disaster came on them.” This is the Lord’s declaration. 4 Hear the word of the Lord, house of Jacob and all families of the house of Israel. 5 Here is what the Lord says: What fault did your fathers find in Me that they went so far from Me, followed worthless idols, and became worthless themselves?6 They stopped asking: Where is the Lord who brought us from the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and ravines, through a land of drought and darkness, a land no one travelled through and where no one lived? 7 I brought you to a fertile land to eat its fruit and bounty, but after you entered, you defiled My land; you made My inheritance detestable. 8 The priests quit asking: Where is the Lord? The experts in the law no longer knew Me, and the rulers rebelled against Me. The prophets prophesied by Baal and followed useless idols.
9 Therefore, I will bring a case against you again. This is the Lord’s declaration. I will bring a case against your children’s children.10 Cross over to Cyprus and take a look. Send someone to Kedar and consider carefully; see if there has ever been anything like this: 11 Has a nation ever exchanged its gods? (but they were not gods!) Yet My people have exchanged their Glory for useless idols.12 Be horrified at this, heavens; be shocked and utterly appalled. This is the Lord’s declaration.
13 For My people have committed a double evil: They have abandoned Me, the fountain of living water, and dug cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that cannot hold water.

These are not good days for the evangelical church as three recent books agree: 'No Place for Truth' by David Wells; 'Power Religion' by Michael Horton; and 'Ashamed of the Gospel' by John MacArthur. Though the titles speak clearly, the subtitles are even more revealing. Respectively, they are: Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology? The Selling Out of the Evangelical Church, and When the Church Becomes like the World. These three careful observers agree that evangelicalism approaches abandoning its truth-heritage.

Two evangelical theological colleges have grown large and numerous. Evangelical churches emerged from their suburban ghettos to engage selected aspects of the secular culture. One decade later, Newsweek magazine would call 1976 "the year of the evangelical." From 1968 to 1980, I was part of a mainline church. Like other churches, it was declining because it had adopted the world's ways in the four following areas:

The World's Wisdom

Liberals ceased to seek wisdom from God through the Scriptures and became deaf to the reforming voice of God in the church. Undermined by rationalism, they were no longer able to receive the Bible as God's Word to man, only as man's word about God.

The World's Theology I will define the world's theology as the view that human beings are basically good, that no one is really lost and that belief in Jesus Christ is not necessary for salvation, though it is helpful for some people. Liberal churches could not abandon biblical terminology and still pretended to be Christian. But biblical terms were given different meanings. Sin became ignorance or the oppression of certain social structures. Jesus became a pattern for creative living - an example or a revolutionary. Salvation became liberation from oppression. Faith became awareness of oppression and the willingness to do something about it. Evangelism meant working to overthrow entrenched injustice. Like the liberals, evangelicals are giving new meaning to the Bible's words, pouring secular, therapeutic content into spiritual terminology. Sin has become dysfunctional behaviour; salvation, self-esteem or wholeness; and Jesus, an example for right living. Sunday by Sunday people are told how to have happy marriages and raise nice children, but not how to get right with God.

The World's Agenda The theme of the 1964 World Council of Churches was: "the world must set the agenda." Liberals believed that the church's concerns should be the concerns of the world, even to the exclusion of the gospel. Hunger, racism, ecology, ageing - whatever issue was crucial to the world was to be of first concern to Christian people. Francis Schaeffer said that happiness is the maximum amount of personal peace and sufficient affluence to enjoy it. Forget world hunger, racism or ecology. The world's agenda is to be happy. But is not this the message of much evangelical preaching today? To be happy? To be satisfied? Though its most extreme expression is found in health, wealth and prosperity preachers, the gospel of the good life permeates evangelical preaching, failing to expose sin, and to drive men and women to the Saviour' True discipleship is hard.

The World's Methods God has given us methods to do his work: participation, persuasion and prayer. But mainline churches jettisoned these methods in favour of power, politics and money. A cartoon that appeared in The New Yorker got it exactly right. One pilgrim on the Mayflower said to another, "Religious freedom is my immediate goal, but my long range plan is to go into real estate."

The Worldly Churches What hit me like a thunderbolt several years ago is that what I had been saying about liberal churches in the 1960s and 1970s now can be said about evangelical churches too. Have evangelicals now fixed their eyes on a worldly kingdom and chosen politics and money as their weapons? About ten years ago Martin Marty, a shrewd observer of the American church, said that by the end of the century evangelicals would be "the most worldly people in America:"

Lord Macauley: “it is difficult to conceive any situation more painful than that of a great man, condemned to watch the lingering agony of an exhausted country, to tend it during the alternate fits of stupefaction and raving which precede its dissolution, and to see the symptoms of vitality disappear one by one, till nothing is left but coldness, darkness and corruption.”

Moorhead “It was Jeremiah’s lot to prophecy at a time when all things in Judah were rushing down to the final and mournful catastrophe; when political excitement was at its height; when the worst passions swayed the various parties and the most fatal counsels prevailed. It was his to stand in the way over which his nation was rushing headlong to destruction; to make an heroic effort to arrest it, and to turn it back; and to fail, … and to see his own people whom he loved… plunge over the precipice into the wide weltering ruin.”

A. What The Problem Always Is

Jeremiah 1:1

1 The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests living in Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. 2 The word of the Lord came to him in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah son of Amon, king of Judah

The same problem that confronted Jeremiah is the same problem that confronts the Christian church at this momentous time.

Three of five kings are mentioned here:

1. Josiah (640-609 B.C.) 3 It also came throughout the days of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the fifth month of the eleventh year of Zedekiah son of Josiah, king of Judah, when the people of Jerusalem went into exile.

2. Jehoahaz (son of Josiah) 3 months deposed by Egyptians

3. Jehoiakim (609-598 B.C.) (son of Josiah)

4. Jehoiachin 3 months deposed by Nebuchadnezzar and taken to Babylon 597 (son of Jehoiakim)

5. Zedekiah (597-586 B.C.) (son of Josiah)

1. Devotion – “love”

A honeymoon in the desert

• the Lord led his bride

• his bride gladly followed him

“Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem: ‘I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the desert, through a land not sown. Israel was holy to the LORD, the firstfruits of his harvest;…’” (Jeremiah 2:2-3)

2. Desertion – “forsake”

“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” (Jeremiah 2:13)

“Redemption is a romance”

What sin is

1. Forsaking the Lord “They have forsaken me, the spring of living water”

2. Relying on your own initiatives “and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

• making foreign alliances “Now why go to Egypt to drink water from the Shihor? And why go to Assyria to drink water from the River?” (verse 18)

• worshipping foreign gods “They followed worthless idols” (verse 5)

3. Dismissal

• your desertion is unjustified “This is what the LORD says: “What fault did your fathers find in me, that they strayed so far from me? They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves.” (verse 5)

• your desertion is unprecedented “Cross over to the coasts of Kittim and look, send to Kedar and observe closely; see if there has ever been anything like this: Has a nation ever changed its gods?” 10-11a

your desertion is unbelievable “Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all)”

• exchanging Reality for fakes “But my people have exchanged their Glory for worthless idols.” (verse11)

Never so religious.

Never so lost.

Deut 28:46 These curses will be a sign and a wonder against you and your descendants forever. 47 Because you didn’t serve the Lord your God with joy and a cheerful heart, even though [you had]an abundance of everything, 48 you will serve your enemies the Lord will send against you, in famine, thirst, nakedness, and a lack of everything. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.

B. What The Results Will Be

THE VISION OF THE SEETHING POT FORESHADOWS APPROACHING DOOM. God is about to “hold his session” upon Jerusalem and the cities of Judah. They who are most favored by God must expect the severest judgment if they prove unfaithful to him.

THE VISION OF THE SEETHING POT ILLUSTRATES THE CHARACTER OF THE APPROACHING DOOM.

It is gradually prepared. The vessel is slowly heated to the boiling point. The guilt of sin accumulates and the evil consequences gather in force until they burst upon the victim with the energy of long pent-up wrath.

It breaks forth suddenly. Suddenly the vessel boils over. Judgment may be delayed and gradual in the preparation, and yet suddenly surprise us when at length it falls upon us.

It is violent and overwhelming, as the seething pot suggests fury, tumult, and, in its boiling over, a rushing forth of its scalding contents. Notice: The pot was turned towards the south and heated by fires in the north. That was the problem, where the people of God turned for help became the cause of their destruction.

If you turn to anything but the Lord, whether it be rock music in church, whether it be charismatic practises whether it be intellectual liberalism, where ever you turn if it is not the Lord will destroy the nature of the church.

C. What Jesus offers

“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:13-14)

“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. (John 7:37-39)

“The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.” (Revelation 22:17)

D. How You Must Bottle Up To The Task

Deut 30: 4 Even if your exiles are at the ends of the earth, He will gather you and bring you back from there.
5 The Lord your God will bring you into the land your fathers possessed, and you will take Deut 30:19 I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, circumcise your heart and the hearts of your descendants, and you will love Him with all your heart and all your soul, so that you will live.

Deut 30:19 I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, 20 love the Lord your God, obey Him, and remain faithful to Him. For He is your life,

Be resolute. “But you, gird up your loins; stand up and tell them everything that command you. Do not break down before them, or I will break you before them.” (v. 17)

• “Brace yourself.” The Hebrew is literally “Gird your loins.” We have all seen the flowing Arab robes, which are not exactly ideal for running or fighting, so girding your loins meant putting on a belt and hitching them up so that you were trim and ready for action.

• “Stand up.” What Jeremiah face was no time for armchair quarterbacks or couch potatoes.

• “Speak out.” However hard the audience and whatever the cost, Jeremiah had to speak out, and whatever God said, he had to say to the people.

• “Don’t lose your nerve.” Here is the hardest of all. One translator puts it, “Don’t lose your nerve in front of them, or I will shatter your nerve right before them.” There is no question this is tough stuff – Jeremiah’s equivalent of Churchill’s promise of “blood, tears, and sweat.” Or more accurately, this is Jeremiah’s equivalent of the challenge of Jesus: “If any man will follow me, let me take up his cross and follow me,” or Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s

“When Jesus calls a man, he bids him come and die.” Jeremiah had one of the costliest calls in all human history, and his charge is a bracing challenge to be resolute. In other words, fear God and we have no one and nothing else to fear. But if we fear man -- or majority opinion, fashion, or the demands of power -- and we will have God to fear too.

Be realistic. “I for my part have made you a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall, against the whole land.” (v. 18) Those three images are strong and inspiring. Jeremiah is to be as impregnable as a fortress, as impervious as an iron pillar, and as immovable as a bronze wall. They are highly positive, but only because he is being warned. Jeremiah has to be like that because of what is coming against him – and it came. “The whole land” would oppose him, the Lord says. He was to be like “Athanasius contra mundum” (against the world), to whom we owe a debt of gratitude for standing for orthodoxy and the truth of the Trinity against the Arians. Jeremiah was warned that he would find himself ranged against “the whole land,” and it is described as “the princes,” which included not just the royal family, but the state officials; “the priests,” which meant the entire religious establishment; and “the people,” which included Jeremiah’s fellow-villagers who plotted to take his life. Thus Jeremiah found himself a loner and a social outcast, a political reject, and one considered a traitor, a subversive, and a fifth columnist. Jeremiah’s pain was so great that as we shall see next week, he almost curses his own calling.

Be reassured. “They will make fight against you; but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you.” (v. 19) Fortunately for Jeremiah, and for us, the charge ends with a strong reassurance. He is not promised victory, but he is assured that he will be able to hang on and endure to the end. This reassurance comes for the second time in the passage, “For I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you.” (v. 19)

The early 17^th century German poet, Paul Gerhardt, basing his verse on this guarantee, wrote:

“IS GOD FOR ME? I fear not, though all against me rise;

I call on Christ my Savior, the host of evil flies.

My friend the Lord Almighty, and He who loves me, God!

What enemy shall harm me, though coming as a flood?

I know it, I believe it, I say it fearlessly,

That God, the Highest, Mightiest, forever loveth me;

At all times, in all places, He standeth at my side,

He rules the battle fury, the tempest and the tide.

“A Rock that stands forever is Christ my righteousness,

And there I stand unfearing in everlasting bliss;

No earthly thing is needful to this my life from Heaven,

And naught of love is worthy, save that which Christ hath given.

Christ, all my praise and glory, my Light most sweet and fair,

The ship wherein He saileth is scathless everywhere!

In Him I dare be joyful, a hero in the war,

The judgment of the sinner affrighteth me no more!

“There is no condemnation, there is no Hell for me,

The torment and the fire mine eyes shall never see;

For me there is no sentence, for me death has no stings,

Because the Lord who saved me shall shield me with His wings.

Above my soul’s dark waters His Spirit hovers still,

He guards me from all sorrow, from terror and from ill;

In me He works and blesses the life-seed He hath sown,

From Him I learn the Abba, that prayer of faith alone.

“And if in lonely places, a fearful child, I shrink,

He prays the prayers within me I cannot ask or think;

In deep unspoken language, known only to that Love

Who fathoms the heart’s mystery from the Throne of Light above.

His Spirit to my spirit sweet words of comfort saith,

How God the weak one strengthens who leans on Him in faith;

How He hath built a City, of love, and light and song.

Where the eye at last beholdeth what the heart had loved so long,

“And there is mine inheritance, my kingly palace-home;

The leaf may fall and perish, not less the spring will come;

As wind and rain of winter, our earthly sighs and tears.

Till golden summer dawneth of the endless Year of years.

The world may pass and perish, Thou, God, wilt not remove –

No hatred of all devils can part me from Thy love;

No hungering nor thirsting, no poverty nor care,

No wrath of mighty princes can reach my shelter there.

“No Angel, and no Heaven, no throne, nor power, nor might,

No love, no tribulation, no danger, fear, nor fight,

No height, no depth, no creature that has been or can be.

Can drive me from Thy bosom, can sever me from Thee.

My heart in joy unleapeth, grief cannot linger there –

While singing high in glory amidst the sunshine fair!

The source of all my singing is high in Heaven above;

The Sun that shines upon me is Jesus and His love!”

# posted by Groseys messages @ 3:10 PM

1 The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests living in Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin.
2 The word of the Lord came to him in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah son of Amon, king of Judah.
3 It also came throughout the days of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the fifth month of the eleventh year of Zedekiah son of Josiah, king of Judah, when the people of Jerusalem went into exile.

4 The word of the Lord came to me:
5 I chose you before I formed you in the womb;I set you apart before you were born. I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
6 But I protested, “Oh no, Lord God! Look, I don’t know how to speak since I am [only]a youth.”
7 Then the Lord said to me: Do not say: I am [only]a youth, for you will go to everyone I send you to and speak whatever I tell you.
8 Do not be afraid of anyone, for I will be with you to deliver you. [This is]the Lord’s declaration.
9 Then the Lord reached out His hand, touched my mouth, and told me: Look, I have filled your mouth with My words.
10 See, today I have set you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and demolish, to build and plant.

One of the most haunting figures in human history is that of the unheeded messenger -- the person who warns his nation or his generation about a crisis coming, but they do not listen. In pagan times, there was the prophetess Cassandra who unsuccessfully warned the Trojans about the wooden horse. In the last century, there was Winston Churchill whose warnings about the Nazis went unheeded in his “wilderness years.” Or again, there was Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who for a time was listened to by the world, but then sent out to the wilderness after he talked too bluntly to the West in his address at Harvard. But there is no question that the two greatest unheeded messengers of all are in the Scriptures. One is John the Baptist, who gave us the phrase “a voice crying in the wilderness;” and the other is the greatest of them all, Jeremiah, “the weeping prophet” whose name lives on in our term for such a lament, the “jeremiad.”

1. Calling means a Divine conception  (vv. 4-6)

First, God knows Jeremiah intimately and fully as a person before he was conceived. “Before you were formed in the womb, I knew you intimately.” (v. 5) We often talk metaphorically about people being “a twinkle in their parents’ eyes,” but hardly anyone seriously goes back in their self-understanding to a time before their own conception. Yet the Lord tells Jeremiah that before he was formed in the womb, before he was conceived, he knew him intimately. The Hebrew word know is a rich in meaning, and speaks of knowledge that is both intimate and extensive. It is used of God’s special relationship to Israel – “You alone have I known of all the nations of the earth.”

(Amos) It was used of vassals and their overlords, and most famously of husbands and wives in sexual intercourse – Adam “knew Eve,” Genesis says. And in that same intimate and deep way, God says to Jeremiah that he knew him before he was formed in the womb.

God had assigned a specific task for Jeremiah while was still in the womb. “Before you were born, I consecrated you.” (v. 5)

2. Calling means a Divine comfort  (vv. 6-8 )

Hearing such a call, Jeremiah was naturally overwhelmed, and who would not have been? His immediate response is to backpedal fast. “Ah, Lord God!” he says. “Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” (v. 6)

The year was 627 B.C., which was as momentous in Jeremiah’s day in the same way that the year 1989 was for us (the year the Soviet Union fell). 627 B.C. was one of those years when the tectonic plates of history shifted. In 627 B.C. Ashurburnipal, the last great king of Assyria died, and with astonishing speed the vast and seemingly massive Assyrian empire began to unravel. On the one hand, the race was suddenly on to see which power would succeed Assyria (the old superpower, Egypt or the new one, Babylon?)

At the same time in Judea Josiah was King. His great-grandfather was Hezekiah, the last good king before him. His grandfather had been Manasseh, a wicked king on every front, who had brought in all sorts of foreign gods, each with their evil practices, such as the worship of Molech and offering children as sacrifices. His father Amon, Manasseh’s son, was weaker but much the same. Josiah wanted wants to go back to his great-grandfather, and therefore initiated determined reforms, helped by the discovery of a copy of the book of the law in the temple.

But those reforms seem to have only been skin deep.  The heart of the people had not yet turned back from idolatry. And Jeremiah was called to attack those half baked religionists of his day.

Your audience is whomever I send you to -- “You shall go to all to whom I shall send you.” (v. 7)

Your authority lies in saying to them whatever I say to you -- “You shall speak whatever I command you.” (v. 7)

Your assurance is that my presence and power will always be with you wherever you are and whatever you face -- “Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.” (v. 8) In other words, his assurance is simply that God’s presence will always be with him, and God’s purpose and power is there to rescue him.

3. Calling means a Divine  commission (vv. 9-10 )

The early 17^th century German poet, Paul Gerhardt, basing his verse on this guarantee, wrote:

“IS GOD FOR ME? I fear not, though all against me rise;

I call on Christ my Savior, the host of evil flies.

My friend the Lord Almighty, and He who loves me, God!

What enemy shall harm me, though coming as a flood?

I know it, I believe it, I say it fearlessly,

That God, the Highest, Mightiest, forever loveth me;

At all times, in all places, He standeth at my side,

He rules the battle fury, the tempest and the tide.

“A Rock that stands forever is Christ my righteousness,

And there I stand unfearing in everlasting bliss;

No earthly thing is needful to this my life from Heaven,

And naught of love is worthy, save that which Christ hath given.

Christ, all my praise and glory, my Light most sweet and fair,

Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

1. The Plans of God For Your Life Are Factual.

2. The Plans of God For Your Life Are Findable.

God has a plan for your life and if you are going to find it its by Divine initiation.

1 Cor 2: 9 But as it is written: What no eye has seen and no ear has heard, and what has never come into a man’s heart, is what God has prepared for those who love Him.

By Personal investigation

2 Tim 3:16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

3. The Plan of God For Your Life is Followable.

In spite of Internal arguments

In spite of external arguments “don’t be afraid of them.” There is always a them in the crowd, who see the negative more than the positive: “How long have you been sick?” “ In three weeks time it will be a month!”

He is with you in this. It the great co-mission. Take my yoke! Matt 11:28

Its My burden, just cooperate with me.

Some of you will choose a yoke that does not fit you, chafing you.

It doesn’t mean its not hard work, it just fits

4. The Plans of God For Your Life Are Fulfilling.

These are fulfilling because of Providential Enablement

The film Chariots of Fire: follows the life of Eric Liddle, a man who after winning the foot races in the Olympics went to China as a missionary and was later martyred there. Wondering at this godly man’s convictions, his siter asked him about doing such worldly stuff as being an Olympic hero. He responded, “When I run, I feel the smile of God upon me. I feel His Pleasure when I run.”

# posted by Groseys messages @ 9:26 AM

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will, and Timothy our brother: To God’s church at Corinth, with all the saints who are throughout Achaia.
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.
4 He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God.
5 For as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so our comfort overflows through Christ.
6 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is experienced in the endurance of the same sufferings that we suffer.

7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that as you share in the sufferings, so you will share in the comfort.
8 For we don’t want you to be unaware, brothers, of our affliction that took place in the province of •Asia: we were completely overwhelmed—beyond our strength—so that we even despaired of life.
9 However, we personally had a death sentence within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.
10 He has delivered us from such a terrible death, and He will deliver us; we have placed our hope in Him that He will deliver us again.
11 And you can join in helping with prayer for us, so that thanks may be given by many on our behalf for the gift that came to us through the prayers of many.

There is an old story about a New England church that was suffering though time of dissension and backbiting. The people were constantly involved in petty feuds. One day, the people came together and consulted a former pastor as to how they could resolve their differences. The pastor agreed to think on the matter and send them a letter soon detailing his judgment.

A few days later, the pastor sat down and wrote his letter to the people, full of advice on how to make peace in their church. At the same time he wrote a letter to a farmer friend of his with advice about farming and especially about the trouble he was having with one of his bulls. Then the pastor called up two messengers, gave them the two letters, and sent them on their way.

You can guess what happened. The pastor accidentally mixed up the letters. The message for the church got sent to the farmer friend. The message for the farmer friend got sent to the feuding church.

An elder stood and read this letter to the congregation: "You had better see that your fences are put up well in the first place. Plow your ground deep; and sort your seed; be careful not to sow foul seed; and take care of that great, ugly bull. I think you had better poke him. The rest I will tell you when I come."

The church folks sat in silence for a long time, contemplating the pastor's strange message. Finally, one man stood and attempted to interpret it. The putting up of fences must refer to the rules of discipline in the church. The people had neglected these rules of discipline for too long. And plowing up the ground must be another way of saying the people need to open their hearts, to allow the good seed of brotherly love to be sown. The warning against foul seed was obvious: the members had an obligation to sort the truth from the untruth, and not believe every morsel of gossip they heard. And the great, ugly bull could only symbolize the devil, who had come into their midst and stirred up so much strife among them. The people realized this was the most wonderful letter they had ever heard.

The people were so moved by the pastor's advice that they began confessing their sins and offering forgiveness to one another. They opened up their hearts to one another and prayed for each other. And peace reigned in the once-feuding church. The story doesn't relate what the farmer thought when he got his letter.

The situation was something like that when the Apostle Paul wrote his letter to Corinth. In the letter of 1 Corinthians, we find Paul writing a letter to a divided church. When we read the rest of this letter, we discover that this was a church with problems with a capital P.

It really does remind me of that wonderful song from The Music Man where Harold Hills says:

"Ya got trouble, Right here in River city! With a capital 'T'

And that rhymes with 'P' And that stands for Pool.

We've surely got trouble! Right here in River City!"

It was something like that when Paul wrote to the Corinthians because they had a member living in incest, they had people speaking in tongues, they had people getting drunk at the Lord's Supper, they had people who did not believe in the resurrection, they had terrible divisions in the church, they had people who were proud of their spirituality and thought their gift was better than anybody else's. This was a church with trouble with a capital T and problems with a capital P.

When he returned to Ephesus, word reached him of a major collapse among the believers in Corinth. We can only imagine how much it must have hurt him to hear that his dear friends and partners in the gospel were now abandoning their calling, their convictions and even compromising their character.

1. Division within the Church

We already described the divisions in the church in our preliminary studies of events in Corinth, but those divisions pitted believer against believer, people Paul knew and loved fighting against each other. Division is always painful, but especially so when it occurs between people you care about deeply.

2. Degradation among the People

Beyond the divisions, he heard about blatant, unchecked, ungodly and immoral practices right there among believers in the church family, degrading practices being condoned among those made holy by the blood of Jesus Christ!

The amount of damage done by such behavior had to excite the indignation of Paul who knew how destructive the free reign of sin can be in the life of a community of faith.

3. Distrust of the Apostle

But as much as those things were grieving his heart and weighing him down, yet another burden was born by Paul…the hard-hearted challenges of his authenticity as an apostle. Word reached Paul that there were some who had come to Corinth and tried to convince the church that Paul was a fake, a fraud, a false apostle—and people were buying it and instead of defending him were joining in the accusations.

Five days a week the postman calls at our house between 1 and 2 o'clock and pushes through the letterbox a handful of mail. I pick them up and check the envelopes. Some of the letters are unsolicited, and most of them are unexciting. I check to make sure that each one is actually for us. In the mail the rare hand-written envelopes are the most enthralling. Do I recognise the writing? Where does the letter come from? Who has been writing to me, and why?

Those are the sort of questions one might ask in reading a New Testament epistle. Who wrote this letter? Why and when did he write it? To whom is it addressed, and what does it say? Do I have a right to read it? If so, is it just for antiquarian interest, or am I somehow involved in its encouragements and warnings? These questions are answered in the opening verses of this letter. The writer is the apostle Paul, and the readers are members of a European city congregation plus many others. Every Christian in the area is being invited to read this letter too. "To the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia" (v.1). In other words this is an open-ended invitation to every Christian to heed this epistle. It contains such matters as principles of conduct, teachings about who God is and how people can become disciples of Jesus Christ. It presents to every Christian the possibility of learning much that is helpful - almost 2,000 years after it was written.

It brings to us some of the clearest parts of the Bible on such themes as handling difficulties and trials, and on how Christians should use their money and possessions in the service of God. It also tells us how to exercise a vibrant and God-honouring ministry.

This letter has been a source of comfort, strength and guidance for my life in many deep and important ways. It ahs helped me grapple some of the most difficult issues of my life. I am sure you will find strength and comfort from the study of this letter.

Can I say, this letter is the epistle I have MOST desired to preach through for you.

It has taken us 11 years to get here. And I will count this year the most important year of our ministry amongst you as we study this epistle together.

This letter more than any other reveals to us the heart of its writer, Paul the Christian. You will get an insight into this apostle’s heart and how it ticks and how it feels. You will be confronted with His passion, and his heart.

This epistle is about your experience.

John 16:33 "In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

An average view of the Christian life is that knowing Christ means deliverance from trouble. Wrong! It means deliverance in trouble, which is very different.

You will never get out of trouble.

Job 14:1 "Man that is born of woman is of few days, and full of trouble." We go from one tragedy to another. Life is not fair, but God is. Winston Churchill said "Success in life is often nothing more than going from one failure to the next with undiminished enthusiasm." Trouble is a basic need for spiritual growth.

1. Go To the Person Who Brings You Comfort

Psalms 130:5 I wait for the LORD, my soul does wait, And in His word do I hope.

Psalms 118:5-6   From my distress I called upon the LORD; The LORD answered me and set me in a large place. ⁶ The LORD is for me; I will not fear; What can man do to me?

GOD IS THE GOD OF ALL COMFORT.

The first great fact that Paul draws to our attention is the nature of the living God.

He is "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." We can never move an inch in the Bible without meeting its teaching on the Triune God. No comfort for huimanity is found outside of Christ. If you would have comfort in your trials, the only way that comfort can come to you is through the Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul knew this as his own personal experience: Paul explains for us the transformation of this man who once was a vehement adversary of Jesus Christ who became his most resolute servant and herald. Only a miracle of divine mercy and regeneration could do this! This epistle touches the heart of what it means to be born again, because it touches the heart of Paul’s experience of the living God. As Dr Machen once wrote of the change wrought on the Damascus road, "All of Paul's life crumbled away beneath him. In miserable blindness he groped his way into Damascus, a poor, wretched, broken-spirited man! All his zeal had been nothing but rebellion against the King of Israel. Yet Jesus had appeared to him, not to put him to shame, but to save him. The poor, bewildered, broken-spirited rabbi became the most influential man in the history of the world!" (J.Gresham Machen, "The New Testament. An Introduction to its Literature and History", Banner of Truth, p.82).

Paul came to know Jesus Christ. And if you would know God’s comfort you must know Jesus Christ as your Saviour and Lord. There is no comfort for you apart from Christ. You must close with Christ. When you do close woth Christ, then God becomes your Father. Is Jesus Christ your Lord? Then, and only then, the one God there is also becomes your Father.

And couldst Thou be delighted with sinners such as we
Who when we saw Thee, slighted and nailed Thee to a tree?
Unfathomable wonder, and mystery divine!
The voice that speaks in thunder says, "Sinner, I am thine."

5 For as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so our comfort overflows through Christ.
Then He will delight in giving you the comforts that are promised in this passage. But if you are outside of Christ, then you will never know His comforts. Oh you may say a few nice things about Jesus, but that is not surrendering your whole life to Him, turning from all your sins and letting Him be your Saviour and Lord. I know some who want to have a foot in both camps. Sundays they’ll be for Jesus, but other days they’ll be for the pub, or the desires for money and pride and prestige, or their mates.

You will have comfort when you get the first step right, surrender to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour.

How many times have I had to consult with people who say “Christianity doesn’t work” It doesn’t work for them because they have never truly become Christians! Surrender to Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord and you’ll know God as your Father, and you’ll experience His comfort.

He is "the Father of compassion:"

To the Jewish people, the phrase father of means "originator of." So Satan is the father of lies (John 8:44) because lies originated with him. God is the Father of compassion because all compassion originates with Him. God in His grace gives us what we do not deserve, and in His mercy He does not give us what we do deserve.

Go to God your Father for compassion. He knows and cares for you deeply.

Psalm 103:11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His faithful love toward those who fear Him. 12 As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. 13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.

Lamentations 3: 22 It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. 23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. 24 The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.

Psalms 56:8 Thou hast taken account of my wanderings; Put my tears in Thy bottle; Are they not in Thy book? But on other occasions, He actually intervenes before the tears come and rescues us just before the grief overcomes us.

Psalms 116:8 For Thou hast rescued my soul from death, My eyes from tears, My feet from stumbling.

He is "the God of all comfort."

He puts strength into our hearts so we can face our trials and triumph over them. Our English word `comfort' comes from two Latin words meaning "with strength." The Greek word means "to come alongside and help." It is the same word used for the Holy Spirit ("the Comforter") in John 14-16. God encourages us by His Word and through His Spirit, and usually does so through other believers who give us the encouragement we need (2 Cor. 2:7-8; 7:6-7). When you find yourself discouraged because of difficult circumstances, look to the Lord and realize all that God is to you. "I will lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from?" asks the psalmist. "My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth" (Psalm 121:1-2). So when suffering comes, and it will, remember what God is to you.

There is no possible trouble for which he is not able to provide the most perfectly suited comfort. Different trials need different comforts.

God assures us that our suffering is not unexpected.

"We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22). The Christian nurse, Florence Nightingale, said it all so starkly when she wrote in her diary in May 1851, "My life is more difficult than almost any other kind. My life is more suffering than almost any other kind. Is it not God?"

Come ye disconsolate where’ever ye languish;

Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel.

Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish;

Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal

Psalms 77:1-2   My voice rises to God, and I will cry aloud; My voice rises to God, and He will hear me. ² In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; In the night my hand was stretched out without weariness; My soul refused to be comforted.

Matthew Henry (1662-1714), from his commentary on Psalm 77 – “Days of trouble must be days of prayer; in days of inward trouble, especially when God seems to have withdrawn from us, we must seek him, and seek till we find him. In the day of his trouble, (the psalmist) did not seek for diversions of business or recreation, to shake off his trouble that way, but he sought God, and his favor and grace. Those that are under trouble of mind, must not think to drink it away, or laugh it away, but pray it away.”

Matt 11:28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Warren Wiersbe says, "The important thing is to fix your attention on God and not on yourself. Remember what God is to you ---'the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort' (2 Corinthians 1:3). Remember what God does for you---that He is able to handle your trials and make them work out for your good and His glory. Finally, remember what God does through you---and let Him use you to be an encouragement to others."

2. Gather The Purpose For Which You Are Comforted

a. God Comforts us To Comfort others

4 He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God.

2 Cor 7: 6 Nevertheless God, that comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus; 6 But God, who comforts the humble, comforted us by the coming of Titus,

THIS GOD ENABLES US TO COMFORT OTHERS.

God comforts us in assuring us that even the most senseless and unjust suffering can have a purpose.

One of Elisabeth Elliot's long-time friends had cancer surgery and its aftermath was an incision that had to be scraped and cleaned daily for weeks. She wrote to Elisabeth, "It was so painful that Diana, Jim, Monica, and I prayed while she cleaned it, three times and some days four times. Monica would wipe my tears. Yes, Jesus stands right there as the pain takes the breath away, and my toes curl to keep from crying out loud. But I haven't asked, Why me Lord? It is only now that I can pray for cancer patients and know how the flesh hurts and how relief, even for a moment, is blessed" (Elisabeth Elliott, "On Asking God Why," Fleming H. Revell, 1989, p.16). Her own sufferings and the divine comfort received have made her a comforter.

b. God comforts us model perseverance

6. if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is experienced in the endurance of the same sufferings that we suffer.

i.e. A pastor friend has endured much over many eyars. I look at him and know I can endure what he has endured, because the same Lord who has been faithful to him will also be faithful to me.

c. God comforts us to draw us to Himself and away from ourselves

8 For we don’t want you to be unaware, brothers, of our affliction that took place in the province of  Asia: we were completely overwhelmed—beyond our strength—so that we even despaired of life. 9 However, we personally had a death sentence within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.

What is the source of your spiritual strength? Is it your strong will? Is it your effective self- discipline? Or is it the Lord Himself?

Dave Dravecky, the major league pitcher who lost his arm to cancer, told of such an experience in his book entitled, When You Can't Come Back. "Looking back," he said, "my wife, Jan, and I have learned that the wilderness is part of the landscape of faith and every bit as essential as the mountaintop. On the mountaintop, we are overwhelmed by God's presence; in the wilderness we are overwhelmed by God's absence. Both places should bring us to our knees. The one, in utter awe; the other, in utter dependence."

d. God comforts us by blessing us with the hope of heaven.

10 He has delivered us from such a terrible death, and He will deliver us; we have placed our hope in Him that He will deliver us again.
"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us" (Roms. 8:18). Paul wrote that as one who had known immense suffering. Put in the balances the sufferings of today and then the glories of eternity. There is no comparison.

Eric Barker, a missionary from Great Britain, spent over 50 years in Portugal preaching the Gospel -- often under adverse conditions. During WWII, the situation became so critical that he was advised to send his wife and eight children to England for safety. His sister and her three children were also evacuated on the same ship. While his beloved relatives were forced to leave, he remained behind to carry on the work. On the Sunday following their departure, pastor Barker said to his congregation, "I've just received word that all my family have arrived safely home!" He then proceeded with the service as usual. Later, the full meaning of his words became known to his people. He had been handed a wire just before the meeting, informing him that a submarine had torpedoed the ship and everyone on board had drowned. He knew that because all were believers, they had reached a safer shore than England. Although overwhelmed with grief, he managed by the grace of God to live above the circumstances. The certain knowledge that his family was enjoying the bliss of Heaven comforted his heart.

e. God comforts us by driving us to prayer.

11 And you can join in helping with prayer for us, so that thanks may be given by many on our behalf for the gift that came to us through [the prayers of]many.

Not a burden we bear, Not a sorrow we share,
But our toil He doth richly repay; Not a grief nor a loss,
Not a frown nor a cross But is blessed if we trust and obey.

The Arabs have a saying, "All sunshine makes a desert." The danger of prosperity is it encourages a sense of false independence. It makes us think that we are okay to handle life alone. I like what Abraham Lincoln said: "I have often been driven to my knees in prayer because I had no where else to go." Often, it's in times of misfortune that we find out who our friends are and we find out who God is and what God is able to do—just how dependable God really is.

# posted by Groseys messages @ 9:16 AM

SEARCH FOR SIGNIFICANCE CONFERENCE

Thursday February 14th  at 2 pm and  then again at

7 pm at the Newcastle  Baptist Tabernacle 

Don't miss this tremendous opportunity to hear acclaimed speaker Ann Cretin from the Southern Baptist Convention's Lifeway organisation.

Ann, with her husband Steve has been a missionary for many years throughout Asia, serving the Lord through conference work.

Ann will be introducing us to The Search For Significance.

Have you ever struggled with feelings of inferiority?

Do you find that guilt sours your relationships and governs your life?

Do you struggle with who you are and why you are here?

You need to hear Ann.

Some resources will be available for purchase, but this FREE conference will be an unmissable experience for your wife.

The second session at 7:00 pm will repeat the teaching of the afternoon, so that you can encourage friends or family members to benefit from this wonderful opportunity to hear and meet Ann Cretin.

Again, this seminar is FREE! Elsewhere you would have to pay hundreds of dollars to hear a speaker like Ann, but, as an introduction to Lifeway Christian education materials, these seminars are free.

# posted by Groseys messages @ 9:35 AM