How To React To Suffering Religion Essays

How To React To Suffering Religion Essays How To React To Suffering Religion Essay How To React To Suffering Religion Essay Essay Topic: The Haunting Of Hill House Hello and welcome to Word Alive, produced by Good News Broadcasting. I m Brenda Critchley, and it s my joy to present you to a survey of God s Word and happen out what His programs and His promises are for us. And today Dr. Derek Stringer is back with us to go on the series of surveies he s been making on The How To Of Christianity. And can you believe of any thing more relevant to us than today s capable How To React To Suffering. I ll be back from clip to clip but over to you Derek. Darmstadtium Brenda, thank you. Elie Weisel was a subsister of a Nazi concentration cantonment as a kid and Nobel Laureate. His eyes deep set and haunting, were adequate to state you he had seen horrors and experienced injuries that defied human articulation. They could merely be known by being felt, and you felt them by looking in his eyes. He asked a pupil one twenty-four hours when he was holding an single meeting with him: How make you get by with God? Why life? Why decease? Why agony? For him, it was nt a inquiry of whether God existed. It was the really fact that God did be, and at the same clip had allowed the World War Two atrociousnesss to happen, that made him anguish. The pupil did nt cognize what to state. Every word he could believe of sounded trite and onionskin because he knew he did nt hold that same expression to his eyes. This experience began to force him to the threshold of his ain apprehension of hurting and to gain that human agony is utmost, non merely because we suffer but because merely the human being expressions for significance in the agony. Animals do nt. It s the yearning for significance in the thick of inexplicable, mindless hurting that makes us inquire why? What s the intent? Why does God let it? And that, in some ways unanswerable inquiry, increases the agony we experience. Is there such a thing as Christian agony? GNB Many Christians think those two words, Christian and agony should nt be joined. Darmstadtium For many people, the label Christian enduring sounds out-of-place. They insist a Christian should neer hold to digest hurting and agony. But the Bible speaks obviously about the world of enduring in the life of a Christian. GNB Peter was composing to Christians who were enduring awful persecution. Darmstadtium Yes, while Nero was Emperor in Rome, there was a great fire which destroyed two-thirds of the metropolis. Historians suggest Lucius domitius ahenobarbus allowed the fire and so fiddled about while the metropolis burned. Regardless of how it started, Nero blamed Christians for the fire. As a consequence, the persecution against trusters was intense during this clip. He wrote his missive to promote enduring Saints. Peter addressed the subject of enduring 15 times in merely five chapters. Today, we are traveling to analyze the subject of enduring as we study the message found in 1 Peter 1:6 to 9. GNB The Bible says: In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a small while you may hold had to endure heartache in all sorts of tests. These have come so that your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may be proved echt and may ensue in congratulations, glorification and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have non seen him, you love him ; and even though you do non see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an unexpressible and glorious joy, for you are having the end of your religion, the redemption of your psyches. Darmstadtium Peter warns us that even though we are followings of Jesus, we will see tests. The word test is another word for problem or trial. A test is a painful experience that, given the pick, we would ever avoid if possible. But since we are traveling to face tests, we should larn every bit much as we can about what tests are and how we should respond to enduring. Let s analyze four of import rules about the tests and trials that we face. First: TRIALS COME IN A VARIETY OF FORMS GNB Peter writes in verse 6: For a small while you may hold had to endure heartache in all sorts of tests. Darmstadtium It s of import to understand that a test is non the same thing as a enticement. In the first chapter of James epistle he writes about both tests and enticements. He makes a differentiation between them. Here are some differences: A enticement is devised by Satan to do you sin ; a test is allowed by God to allow you reflect ; a enticement is designed to drive you off from God ; but a test is designed to pull you closer to God ; a enticement will weaken you ; a test will beef up you. A enticement is neer intolerable ( the Bible says you ll neer be tempted beyond what you are able ) ; whereas a test is frequently beyond our ability to digest on our ain. A enticement must be resisted, but a test must be embraced but unhappily we frequently resist God s tests and embracing enticements! GNB Peter writes we will endure all sorts of tests. Darmstadtium That s a phrase that means varicolored colors. It s like a stained glass window comprised of 100s of different colored pieces of glass. An stray test is like one piece of glass-it may be confounding. But when you take all the tests you ll confront together, you can see God is making something beautiful and valuable of your life. You may confront a fiscal test when you do nt hold adequate money or sometimes a harder test is when you have more money than you truly necessitate to populate! What you do with it is a test. You may confront a physical test, when the physician tells you that you have some sort of unwellness and your life is instantly changed. Some of you are confronting matrimony tests, or vocational trials-as many coloring material fluctuations as you can happen in the universe-that s the sort of assortment you may anticipate in tests and trials. GNB Cipher is immune to problem. Darmstadtium No There was a adult male in the Old Testament who knew a small about enduring ; his name was Job. Satan accused Job of being spoiled rotten. He was a Devout adult male because he had so many approvals. Satan contended before God that if Job lost his approvals he would besides lose his religion. So God allowed tests and trials to come into Job s life. In a short period of clip Job lost his wealth, his household, and his wellness. In the center of all of his hardship, GNB And Job made this observation: Man is born to problem every bit certainly as flickers fly upward. Darmstadtium It is the nature of fire to throw flickers upward. And as Job observed, it is portion of our nature to see hurting and agony. We know Job s agony was a test-and he passed the trial. His married woman and friends told him to cuss God and dice. GNB Alternatively Job came to a topographic point where he said, I know that my Jesus lives! And I shall see Him someday! Darmstadtium When you re being tested it s of import to retrieve God put a bound to what Satan could make in proving Job. In the same manner, our tests may come from Satan, but they are filtered by God. When you make java you may set a paper filter in the java shaper. You do nt desire to hold the java evidences in your cup. It s good to cognize that all of your tests have to go through through the filter of God s grace, and the filter of His clemency, and the filter of His omnipotence. What painful experience are you confronting right now? Would it do a difference if you knew it was a trial? How would you react if you were traveling through the same trial Job faced? I saw a amusing sketch late. A little kid was standing at her instructor s desk and the caption read, I do nt desire to frighten you, but my dada says if I do nt acquire better classs SOMEBODY is traveling to be in problem! For a Christian, agony is like that Emergency Broadcasting System proclamation you hear on the telecasting and wireless when you re in the USA. They break in and state, This is a trial, this is merely a trial. When you face tests and trials, merely state to yourself: THIS IS A TEST-THIS IS ONLY A Trial! SECONDLY. TRIALS REVEAL THE PURITY OF YOUR FAITH. GNB Peter writes in verse 7: These have come so that your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may be proved echt. Darmstadtium Gold is a absorbing trade good ; it has been valuable for centuries. I like the amusing narrative of the adult male who made a trade with God. He said, God, I know you say that I ca nt take it with me when I go to heaven, but, please, will you allow me take merely one bag with me to heaven? The Lord said, Certain. So, before the adult male died, he cashed in all his investings and bought pure gold bars to take to heaven he wanted to be the richest adult male in Eden. The twenty-four hours came when he died, as all must make, and he arrived at the Pearly Gates toting his bag. The angels on responsibility said, It s unusual for person to convey a bag into Eden, but we understand you made a trade with the Boss. But we ll hold to look into the contents of your bag. The adult male handed it over, and one of the angels opened it. The other angel said, What is it? The first angel scratched his caput and said, You wo nt believe it, but he merely brought a bag full of paving. Gold is rare and valuable on Earth, but John writes that in Eden, there are streets of gold! The ground gold is valuable on Earth is because it is rare. Peter writes that there is something we possess that is of greater value than gold-our religion. Like gold, our religion is refined by the fire of agony. Gold is frequently embedded in stone, and must be refined. It is placed in a crucible and heated to a high temperature. As the gold thaws, it can be extracted from the other elements. Even today, there are different degrees of pureness of gold used in jewelry. Gold can be combined with other metals to organize an metal that is nt pure gold. 14 carat gold is non pure, like 24 carats gold. To bring forth pure gold, the metal has to be refined by fire. Some costume jewelry is made of steel covered with gilded pigment. Costume jewelry for illustration. A ring looks great-but the metal is merely painted gold and the diamond is really three-dimensional Zr! Over the old ages, the gold pigment wears off until the existent nature of the metal is revealed. If this ring was put into a refiner s fire, it would be proved an imitation. God frequently refines our religion for two grounds: One: To turn out our religion is echt ; and Two: To sublimate our religion. It is merely in the fire of enduring that you discover whether your religion is echt, or if it s a inexpensive imitation. When it is summertime and the life in easy, and the fish are leaping, and the cotton is high, it s easy to state you have faith. But it is during the tough times your religion is proved. GNB The Bible compares our religion to gold and Ag, and God is the refiner. Darmstadtium He sometimes turns up the heat so our religion can be purified. Like gold or Ag, our religion frequently contains drosss. It is through the fire of enduring our religion is simplified and purified. GNB In Isaiah 48:10 we read: God says, See I have refined you, though non as Ag ; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. Darmstadtium Is your religion the existent thing-in the furnace of affliction, your religion is tested and proved. Cipher likes to travel through fire of affliction, but if your religion is existent, it merely makes your religion more valuable. I read the words of a university lector. He shared his narrative. He started holding pharynx jobs and the trials revealed he had malignant neoplastic disease in his lymph secretory organs and pharynx. That s a chilling diagnosing for anyone. After surgery he started a procedure of having 42 radiation interventions. It was a atrocious, painful procedure. He was strapped down to a metal tabular array for 30 proceedingss while the radiation was directed to different parts of his pharynx. He was literally traveling through the fire because the radiation was firing off the affected tissue. It was non a pleasant experience. He lost 40 lbs, and his hair came out in bunchs. His pharynx hurt so severely he could nt get down H2O without taking hurting medicine. But he said at that clip, he was faced with a this inquiry, Is what I say I believe about God existent or is it merely something that sounds good when everything is traveling good? He said it was religious intestine cheque. When he was at the lowest point, he truly considered that he might decease, yet when he looked decease in the oculus, he discovered he was nt afraid to decease. During his interventions, the vocal that meant the most to him was I Can Merely Imagine by Mercy Me. He would hold it played during his interventions, and he came to understand his worst instance scenario was run intoing Jesus face to face-and that was nt a chilling thing. His last two cheque ups have revealed no reoccurrence of the malignant neoplastic disease, and as he looks back on that experience he would nt wish it on anyone. Yet, he said that he made a valuable find: His religion is existent, like pure gold. In add-on, he discovered his religion was purified, and became stronger through that ordeal. Are you confronting a hot furnace of affliction right now? God is nt the writer of agony, but He can utilize it. Cancer, illness and disease are the effects of life in a fallen, corrupted universe. But when you find yourself in the fire of affliction, retrieve God is proving you. Your religion may still hold some drosss so God may turn up the heat to acquire rid of those drosss. So if you re enduring right now, retrieve that although the fire is non pleasant, it is turn outing and sublimating your religion. Do nt worry-you wo nt be consumed by the fire-God loves you and He is still in control. GNB Remember: God may non light the fire of affliction, but He controls the thermoregulator! Darmstadtium You may inquire when He s traveling to turn down the heat. It s when the refinement procedure is finished. A silversmith looks into the crucible and tickers as the purified Ag floats to the top. The manner he knows the Ag is purified is when he can see a perfect contemplation of his face in the molten Ag. As the refiner, God is looking at you, and when He sees the contemplation of the character of Jesus in your life, that episode of refinement is normally completed. GNB You are listening to Word Alive with Derek Stringer and I m Brenda Critchley. Today s message is How To React To Suffering and it s portion of the current series by Derek The How To Of Christianity. You do nt necessitate to lose out on the whole series because we re entering each of these messages. It will do a good gift every bit good. I ll give you our contact inside informations at the terminal of the programme. Let s acquire back to our bible survey with Dr Stringer. Darmstadtium And Let s expression at a Third thing about trails: THEY FORCE YOU TO FOCUS ON JESUS. Tests are hard, and the lone manner to digest them is to look to Jesus, the writer and closer of our religion. Peter makes it clear that we ca nt see Him with our eyes of flesh, but we still believe in Him. He wrote in poetries seven and eight: when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have non seen him, you love him ; and even though you do non see him now, you believe in him. It would be easy to believe if you could see Jesus in the flesh standing in forepart of you when you were enduring. But Peter is stating us that we must develop eyes of religion. God has a manner of acquiring our attending when we re enduring. After coming through a clip of caring for his married woman as she died of malignant neoplastic disease, C. S. Lewis wrote these words: GNB God susurrations to us in our pleasances but He shouts to us in our hurting. Agony is God s megaphone to wake up a dormant universe. Darmstadtium That s why we need to encompass the tests we experience instead than running from them. On the first Easter Sunday eventide, Jesus appeared to the adherents in the upper room. Thomas was nt at that place. Later, the adherents told Thomas Jesus was alive, and he did nt believe them. He said, Unless I can see Him with my eyes and set my fingers in the nail prints and lesion in His side I wo nt believe! That s why we call him doubting Thomas. A hebdomad subsequently Jesus appeared once more and Thomas was present. Jesus approached Thomas and said, Here I am. Go in front, set your fingers in my nail prints, and set your manus in this lesion in my side. Thomas merely said, My Lord, and my Supreme being! Then Jesus made a profound statement about Thomas and about us. He said, Because you have seen me you believed? Blessed are those who have non seen me and yet believed! That s what Peter is writing-we have nt seen Jesus with our eyes of flesh, yet we look at him with our eyes of religion. There s a great narrative in the Old Testament about maintaining your eyes on God, even when you ca nt see Him. In 2 Histories 20, Jehoshaphat is king of Judah, and they were surrounded by a immense ground forces. GNB The Bible says Jehoshaphat was scared, yet he prayed a powerful supplication of religion found in 2 Histories 20: King Jehoshaphat prayed: O, God, we have no power to confront this huge ground forces that is assailing us. We do non cognize what to make, but our eyes are upon You. Darmstadtium Then Jehoshaphat devised an unusual conflict program. He put the choir on the front line and they marched into conflict singing vocals of congratulations to God. And the Bible says the LORD set ambuscades against their enemies and they started contending among themselves until they killed each other. What a powerful lesson! When you face an enemy that is overpowering, do nt concentrate on the enemy, set your eyes on God. Then approach that hard state of affairs with congratulations on your lips, and you will ever see triumph. When you are enduring, do nt concentrate on your job or on your hurting, focal point on God, and when you focus on God, you ll desire to praise Him. GNB Old ages ago there was a popular congratulations vocal. It goes, It s astonishing what praising will make. Hallelujah. Hallelujah! It s astonishing what praising will make! Hallelujah! I do nt worry when things go incorrect. Jesus fills my bosom with a vocal. It s astonishing what praising will make. Hallelujah! Darmstadtium Remember, this is the large fisherman, Peter, composing this missive. He knew what it was to maintain his eyes on Jesus, and he knew what happened when you took your eyes off Jesus. One dark Jesus came walking on the H2O to fall in the adherents. Peter asked Jesus if he could walk on the H2O, and Jesus said, Come on! Peter stepped out on religion and started walking on the H2O. He was nt truly walking on H2O ; he was walking on the Word of Jesus. But the Bible says Peter took his eyes off Jesus and started looking at the air current and the moving ridges. When he did, he began to drop. When you look at your troubles and jobs, you are in problem. But if you focus on Jesus, you can walk to triumph! Here s a 4th point: Test CAN PRODUCE INEXPRESSIBLE JOY. GNB In poetry six Peter writes, In this you greatly rejoice, and once more in poetries eight and nine: You are filled with an unexpressible and glorious joy, for you are having the end of your religion, the redemption of your psyches. Darmstadtium He repeats that warning that we should joy when we face tests and agony. Remember, joying is non a feeling-it s a pick! That s one of the things that makes us different from those who do nt cognize Jesus: We should show joy, even when we are enduring. When you are traveling through the furnace of affliction, you are forced to depend on God. One ground God allows you to endure is so you will catch clasp of His power with both custodies. GNB There s a beautiful vocal entitled Treasures that says: One by one He took them from me, All the things I valued most Until I was empty handed, Every glittering plaything was lost. And I walked Earth s main road grieving In my shreds and poorness Till I heard His voice inviting, Raise your empty custodies to Me. So I held my custodies toward Heaven, And He filled them with a shop Of His ain transcendent wealths Till they could incorporate no more. And at that I comprehended, With my stupid head and dull That God could non pour His wealths Into custodies already full. Darmstadtium It may be that you re enduring right now because God is seeking to learn you that He is all you need. The promise of God is that we will endure, but it s merely for a small piece. Even if you suffer for 80 old ages, that s merely a blip on the timeline of infinity. There are plentifulness of experiences that cause us hurting, and our eyes frequently fill up with cryings, but God promises in infinity He will pass over all the cryings from our eyes. GNB He gives us a great promise in Psalm 30:5: Weeping may stay for a dark, but joying comes in the forenoon. Darmstadtium You may be enduring in the dark dark of depression and disheartenment, but you can cognize that the forenoon is coming. That forenoon is coming, but we do nt hold to wait until the forenoon to joy. We can joy NOW! GNB Derek will be back in merely a minute to round off today s Word Alive all about How To React To Suffering. Cadmium s and transcripts are available for this and other messages. We send the Cadmium s merely for the managing charge, transcripts are free to an electronic mail reference. Simply name us on our FREE PHONE figure for the UK leave a message if you are naming outside office hours 08,000 92 78 92. Here once more is Derek Stringer. Darmstadtium Let me give you an acrostic for SUFFER: S.U.F.F.E.R. Measure Up For Faith s Eternal Reward. When you suffer, understand that it s a trial, this is merely a trial. Understand that your religion is more valuable than gold and you are traveling through a refinement procedure. Focus your eyes on Jesus, even though you do nt see Him, trust Him. And so you ll be able to joy. The greatest contradiction in this universe is a joyless Christian. Once when Martin Luther was traveling through a period of depression, his married woman, Katie came into his survey have oning all black, with her face covered with a black head covering. Martin Luther asked her, Who died? She said, God died. Luther responded, Silly adult female, God has nt died. She said, Oh, I thought by the manner you were moving that God had died. She wanted to remind him that Jesus is alive and God is in control. It worked, and Martin Luther left his bad temper and began to joy once more. Let me inquire you, Has God died? Is Jesus alive? Then allow s demo the universe we can joy, even when we are enduring. I know I have nt answered all the inquiries you have about enduring. There are many more inquiries we could inquire, and many ca nt be answered in this life. When I visited Auschvitch I saw excessively many exposures of work forces, adult females and kids gazing back at me. I besides know that in worst desperation, in the hazards of concentration cantonments, and prisons, and labour cantonments, in the deepnesss of mental convulsion, and the throws of serious unwellness, people have found Jesus there God s presence is alive even in the darkest snake pit. I ran across a small supplication that allied military personnels emancipating the Ravensbruck concentration cantonment found written on a piece of wrapping paper. It had been composed by a captive, who died there before deliverance came. It read: O Lord, Jesus, Remember non merely the work forces and adult females of good will, But besides those of ailment will. But do non merely retrieve the agony they have inflicted on us, Remember the fruits we bore thanks to this agony, Our chumminess, our trueness, our humbleness, The bravery, the generousness, The illustriousness of bosom which has grown out of all this. And when they come to opinion, Let all the fruits that we have borne Be their forgiveness. Amons, Amen, Amen. GNB Such proof such unconquerable cogent evidence is nt it that there is no deepness of hurting to which we can travel where God s love is non deeper still. Darmstadtium It genuinely is You do nt hold to allow immoralities hold the last word in your life. You can, by the grace of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit choose to love once more. GNB Here are the contact inside informations that you ll necessitate to acquire in touch with us The FREE PHONE figure for the UK is 08,000 92 78 92. For your electronic mail use our web site www.gnba.net That s gnba.net Word Alive is a Good News Broadcasting Association production with Dr Derek Stringer our Bible Teacher and I m Brenda thanks to Phil Critchley our Producer. I hope that you ll be able to fall in us once more following clip as we continue this series The How To Of Christianity. Good pass and God bless you.