The Lord our God, who art by
the Son of God, He hath giv'n to me all that I need. He hath giv'n to me all that
I need. All right, back to 2 Corinthians
4 now. 2 Corinthians 4. I intended to bring a message
from Joshua 3, but one verse of Scripture kept coming
to my mind, just out of the blue, as it were. A verse of Scripture,
and I like that when that happens. I take that as being some leadership
of the Holy Spirit. That's how God speaks to his
people, through the Scriptures, not with new voices or new things
but through scripture. But this particular scripture,
particularly verse 17, this is the title of the message,
Our Light Affliction. Let's read that verse 17 again. Our light affliction which is
but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal
weight of glory. All right, now let's go down
through the whole chapter with that verse in mind, our light
and affliction. He's going to build his case
here, leading up to that verse. All right, verse 1, he says,
Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, Whenever you see a
therefore, you need to know why it's therefore. That's a rule
my pastor has given. Chapter 3, if you've read it
before, is talking about the ministry of the gospel as compared
to the ministry of the law. And that is legalism or the gospel
of freedom and life and peace, or as Hebrews says, grace and
truth that came through. The law came through Moses. Death
and the law. The ministry of death, it's called.
The gospel is called the ministry of life and peace. So he says,
therefore, seeing we have this ministry, the ministry of the
gospel, and I don't know if you recall this or not, but this
was the very first article and the very first bulletin that,
when I first came here, I wrote an article in the very first
bulletin that we put out to you, to our congregation. And this
was the verse I used. Seeing we have this ministry. This is a we ministry. It's not
a me. It's not my ministry. It's not a one man ministry.
My name is not, you know, on this building or whatever. My
name is not important. We. This is our ministry. We're all in this thing together. And it's, as I said, the ministry
of the gospel. That's the only ministry we have.
That's what we're here for. That's what this is all about.
That's what this building is here for. That's why we are here.
It's the gospel that has brought us here. The gospel of our salvation. This ministry. Paul called it,
when he talked about the gospel, he says, my gospel. Can you say
that this is your ministry? This is your gospel? This is
the gospel? And when you unite with this
church, That's what you're saying. You're saying, this is my gospel.
This is my family. This is where I want to be found. This is whom I want to be identified
with. This is my gospel, my family. This is my ministry. It's our
ministry. It's not a one-man ministry.
We're all in this thing together. The ministry of the gospel. We
all have a place. We all have a ministry. We, being
many members, yet are one body. And every member has its particular
function in the body. And it's your responsibility
to find out what that is and do it. Even if it's just being
a little toad and being here. Faithful in a few things. My
little toad is faithful in a few things. Isn't it? Your little
toad? And it's needful, isn't it? Try
doing without one. Try doing without one. It's hard
to walk without one. Right? You don't see the little
toe much, but it's there. You just need it there. Right? You just need it there. It helps
the whole thing. And I use an illustration. Virgie
Jones, she used to always complain of not doing anything right.
I can't do nothing, she'd say, to the church. I love to imitate her. Brings
back good memory. But she used to always say, I
can't do nothing. as emerging. Eighty-some years
old and hear every service, it does me good. It does a body good to have seen
her body over there. But this is the gospel. It's
our ministry. It's the gospel of sovereign
mercy. There is no other. He said that here, as we have
received mercy. What is this ministry? It's a
ministry of sovereign mercy. It's the gospel of sovereign
mercy. There is no other gospel. Sovereign mercy. Sovereign grace. We have received it, haven't
we? This is my gospel, Barbara, a sovereign gospel of sovereign
mercy, of sovereign grace. That's my gospel, of particular
redemption, as Brother Bob preached on. That's my gospel. That's
my ministry. That's our ministry, the gospel
of God's glory. That's why we're here. That's
what the gospel is all about, to give all glory to God. As
we have received mercy, God has discriminately shown mercy to
us and passed others by. We have this ministry because
God discriminated. That God discriminated. God discriminates,
yes he does. He's discriminating God. He chooses
whom he will to reveal the gospel to. His particular people. Bound to give thanks to God,
aren't you? That I have this ministry. Therefore, he says,
seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, discriminating
sovereign mercy to this fellow who doesn't deserve it, but mercy
we faint not. The word faint there is not going
to quit. That's what the word faint means.
We quit not. We may be tempted to quit a lot
of things. All of us are. Quit our jobs. How many times have you sold
that station, Henry? In your dreams. That's it. That's it. Today we're going
to burn up. Close it up. We're going home.
Stand. Jerry, I can't take another day.
That's all. I quit. We may be tempted to quit our
jobs. A lot of things. Marriages. Don't
say you haven't. I quit. That's it. I'm not putting
up with you anymore. Right? But there's one thing
that we just absolutely cannot even think about quitting. I
wish I'd have written the scriptures down that says, I didn't think
about it. I can't think where it is. Peter,
I think, says, he gives comfort and hope and peace to those,
he said, lest you faint in your minds. He said, lest you faint
in your minds. I'm not going to worry about
where that is. But what he's saying there is,
you'd like to think about quitting. You've even thought about quitting,
maybe this congregation at times. Get mad at me? Get mad at somebody
here? Get provoked with yourself? Haven't
you? But you can't. You can't. That's what the scriptures say.
You're fainting your mind. You might think about it, but
you can't. Blessed be God, he won't let
you. What do you think? No, we're not going to quit.
Why? Because where to who shall we
go? Our Lord said, will you also
go away? Peter did it, didn't he? He said,
I quit. He did, I quit going fishing. The rest of them said,
wait, we'll go with you. The Lord called them back. To whom shall we go? Where are
we going to go? What are we going to go back
to? I might get miserable at times,
but boy, I was more miserable then. I'm going to go back to
being more miserable. Ah, who are we going to go to?
Where are we going to go? I'm not going to leave my only hope.
It's the only hope I've got. It's a good hope. He's the only
real family I've got. These only real friends are going
to stick close to me. Really. Now, the apostle here
is principally speaking of the apostles and the preaching. of
the apostles and preachers of the gospels, principally speaking
of them. That's the context here. Right. You've read this. If you're paying
attention right now, you know, that's what he's saying. He said
that we talk about the apostles and preachers of the gospel.
We have this ministry as we have received mercy. Paul said, I
made a minister of the gospel under the Gentiles. He said,
we're not going to quit. And he goes on to talk about how
they, the afflictions and all they went through for preaching
the gospel. But this applies to every believer. And I want
this to be relevant to you. It all applies to every believer.
All right? It all applies to us. All right?
Verse 2, he said, We have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty. And you know, you have discernment. You people here, you're blessed
in that they, their spiritual, Ed, it says, they, their spiritual
understand all things. For the most part. You can spot
a wolf when you see one. You can hear him. Because the
scripture says a stranger's voice they won't hear. You can hear
strange doctrine, can't you? You can tell it. Even when it's
so close, you can say, well, that just doesn't say some good
things, but there's something missing. probably particular
redemption as Brother Bob said. But you have that discernment.
You have that ear. You have that spiritual discernment
given to you through a knowledge of the truth by the Holy Spirit. And you can spot or tell these
hidden things of dishonesty. The world can't. They're fooled
by it. The evil men and seducers wax worse and worse deceiving
Lots of people follow these fools. And you ask, how could they?
Don't you? Don't you, Nancy? How could they
follow these guys? It's obvious. Don't you look
at them and listen to them and see them and their tactics and
what they're doing? You say, it's obvious they're
in this thing for money. Don't you? You say, it's obvious
they're in this thing for a name for themselves. Look at their
names everywhere. You say, can't people see this? No. No. Blessed are your eyes that
see the things you say. He's opened your eyes to see
these things. And Paul says, we have renounced,
the true preachers renounce these hidden things. I tell you, it's
a shame to speak of the things that these preachers do today,
but they're downright proud of them. All this they profess to do in
the name of Jesus. They're not proud of it, though,
aren't they, Stan? Read on. Not walking in craftiness. Boy,
they're crafty. They're subtle, aren't they?
Slick. The devil was a smooth-tongued
fellow. He deceived that perfect woman. And so are all his ministers. And simple minds, simple people,
are deceived by good words and fair speech. Crafty, crafty. Not handling the Word of God
deceitfully. And this is where they do it. You can read for yourself throughout
Jeremiah and Ezekiel, how these false prophets handle the Word
of God or mishandle it deceitfully. They deceive the people by twisting
and abusing the Word of God, by not preaching the Word of
God. Now withholding it. Sometimes they say, well, that
election, that's family doctrine. Oh, then you better be preaching
it. Hadn't you? Family needs to hear
it. They hide their own cowardice
behind things like that. Read on. But he says we've renounced
all this. Handling the word of God deceitfully
by manifestation of the truth, Paul said we used And over in
chapter 3, verse 12, we use great plainness of speech. Great plainness of speech. Because
when you want to describe and extol and honor the Most High
God, buddy, you do it in the most bold and plainness of speech,
don't you? You say, God elected a people. You don't hem, haul and beat
around the bush and try to make it palatable to men, you're out
to glorify God. And so He's the greatest plainness
of speech. Yes, our God predestines all
things. God does all things on purpose. Plainness of speech. And that's
our hope. Plain doctrine. True doctrine. Steadfast doctrine. That's our
hope. We use great plainness to speak.
Manifesting the truth. Great plainness. We tell men
who God is in plain language. They need to know the living
God. We tell men what they are in plain language. We tell men
who Christ is in plain language. And read on. Verse 2. He says,
"...commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight
of God." In other words, telling men and women by manifestation
of the truth or the Word, commending ourselves. You see that? By the
truth, commending ourselves. How does a preacher commend himself
to God's people? By the truth. He says, all right,
I've told you the truth. Now you go home and search the
Scriptures to see if what I say is so. Right? He wants them to. All right, read on. Verse 3.
But if our gospel is hid, it's hid to them that are lost, in
whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which
believe not. Now, if the gospel's hid, it's
not due to a preacher. Paul says, it's not
due to us hiding it. If men and women don't hear and
don't understand the gospel, it's not due to us hiding it.
We're trying to sneak it in on people and haven't quite snuck
it yet. I've heard preachers say, do
that. Say they're going to do that, you know. So-called grace
preachers. Well, I'll take this church and,
you know, I'll take it and in due time, I'll sneak the gospel
up on them. Why would you want to do that? They're only hope. What if they
die before they hear it? They've got to hear the gospel,
we say. What if they die before they
hear it? There's only one way to holler fire, isn't there,
when somebody's in a building that's burning. There's only
one way to sneak it in. Pardon me, excuse me, sorry to
wake you. If you have it, if you're busy,
I'll come back another time. You see what you do? Fire! And he preached the gospel in
that same way. If the gospel's hid, it's hid
to them that are lost, and whom the God of this world hath blinded
the minds of them which believe not. Now, Satan's grand design,
Satan's grand design, is to silence the gospel. I could easily get sidetracked
on this one verse. Satan's chief work is not in
the honky-tonk. It's in the pulpit. It really is. Oh, I know they're
not hearing it out there, but I'm telling you, Christ came
to save sinners. Somehow or another, the publicans and the harlots
and the drunk got to hear the gospel, didn't they? The Pharisees
never heard it. They went to church every Sunday. They heard the law. They never
heard the gospel written. As I've heard my pastor and other
men say, that's the best place to hide the gospel. It's inappropriate. And that's Satan's grand design.
He'll have a man say some good things without preaching the
gospel. He'll have a man preach the Bible
without preaching Christ. He'll have a man preach truths
without preaching the truth. You know the difference, don't
you? You're shaking your head, you know. Blessed are you. But he said
that the God of this world, he said, many believe not. Why do
men not believe? Because they just won't let Jesus
into their heart? Because they just refuse to accept
him? Well, they have refused, but Christ said, you believe
not, because why? Remember what he said to the
Pharisees? You believe not, because. You are not my sheep. As I said,
my sheep hear my voice. My sheep are going to hear the
gospel. Those that are not his sheep,
believe not. And the God of this world, see
God just turns them over. He just leaves them alone. He leaves them alone. The God
of this world, They are of their father, the devil, their God,
whom they serve." Read on, and this is what a message, what
a verse. "...and whom the God of this
world hath blinded the minds of which believe not, lest the
light of the glorious gospel of Christ," so the gospel of
the glory of Christ, the light, the revealing, the manifestation,
the enlightening gospel of Christ's glory. This
is what the gospel is all about. This is what worship's all about. This is what our salvation's
all about. Christ's glory. That's what it's all about. It's
all we sang, and it's all going to redound to His glory. We read
it in this chapter where we read. It's all going to redound to
His glory. We are created for His glory.
Christ came to glorify the Father. And the Father glorified him
and has now set him at the right hand of the majesty on high,
and everything is going to be brought together in one, even
in Christ Jesus, and to the praise of the glory of his grace. That's
what it's all about. And that's why we're here, and
that's our message, and that's what the gospel is. It's Christ. It's Christ. who is, read on,
the image of God. Hebrews says the express image
of God. The express image. That means
he's God. That's what that means. He's
God. The express image of God. All right, read on. Who should shine
on today? Verse 5, for we preach not ourselves, we preach not
our works, we preach not man's works, man's worth, man's will. We preach his works, we preach
his worth, we preach his will. Right? Not ourselves. We preach not man. We don't exalt
man and bring Christ down. We exalt Christ and bring man
down. What Paul is saying here. We
preach not ourselves. That's not the ministry, to try
to make people feel good about themselves. As a matter of fact,
it's the opposite. We preach as to make men and
women feel bad about themselves so that they might feel good
about Christ and look to Him, their only hope. The only hope
for, as old Maurice Montgomery always says, dead dog sinners. That's how he always describes
sinners. Dead dog sinners. Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth. Syrophoenician
sinners. Dead dog sinners. See, he's the
master. He's our Joshua. And all Caleb's
go in. We preach not ourselves, but
Christ Jesus the Lord. Read on. Am I going to get to
it? I hope. We preach Christ Jesus
the Lord. We preach Christ. We don't just preach Jesus, we
preach Christ. He's the sent one, Jesus. He's the Savior, the Lord. He's the Sovereign. Sent one,
Savior, Sovereign. We preach Christ who was sent
by the Father to establish a righteousness for us. Why'd they come? To show us how to live? No, to
give us life, to establish a life that God would accept on our
behalf, to establish a righteousness. And when he hung on that cross,
he said, it's done. Oh, Lord, impute this to all your people.
God says, I will, I have. He did it. He's the Christ. Jesus,
He's the Savior. Call His name Jesus. Why? He's
going to get the job done. He shall save particular redemption. His people. We're the only ones
who truly preach Jesus. We know what that name means,
and that's how we preach Him. Savior. He called His name Jesus
because that's what it means. He shall save, not might save,
not want to save, He shall save His people. He shall not fail
or be discouraged. till he had sent judgment in
here. Jesus, the Lord, Christ, Jesus,
the Lord, sovereign. Where's this Jesus now? Well,
he's walking on the banisters of heaven. He's looking over
to see who will let him in. He's knocking at your heart's
door. Look at him. The Lord. Say who we preach. seated on a throne, and he's
not getting up till this thing's done. And then it says, when
he has arisen to gather his elect together, then he's going to
wipe it out, and all things are going to renounce his glory.
So we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves
your servant for his sake, not for your sake. Really, not for
money's sake, not for our sake, but for His sake. All right,
read on. Let me run, hurry. For God, who
commended the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in
our hearts to give the light and the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The light shined in our hearts.
I want you to turn to Acts 22 quickly. Acts chapter 22. Acts 22. He said up there that
Satan blinded the minds of them which believed not, but those
that believe who have been given the gift of faith, oh my, the light has shined on
them and in them. They came under the sound of
the gospel. That's the light. You know, seeing
and hearing are directly connected. It's not like men say. He saw
the light. You've heard that, haven't you?
And oh, how they love to sing that song, don't they, Henry?
I saw the light. Listen to what happened to Paul,
and this is what happened to every believer. Verse 9, Acts
22, verse 9. He said, David were with me.
Now, he's recounting what happened to him, his salvation. David
were with me, saw the light. But they didn't hear the voice.
Huh? And you know what comes first?
Hearing. Right? According to Revelation,
John said, I heard a voice, and I turned and saw. Isn't it? Isn't that what Job said? I've
heard of thee, and I hear and hear. Now I see you. Isn't that
what the Sheba said? Well, I heard of thee, but I
haven't. Now I see you. Huh? But what really happened
was the light shone on Paul. The light shone on him. And what
happened was he heard somebody speak to him the gospel. And that's what he's saying back
in our text. God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,
when God created this universe, he said, Let there be light. And we, who were in darkness,
even as others, came in one day under the sound of the gospel,
and God said, Let there be light. We didn't see a vision. We didn't
see the light. We heard the gospel. And what
we heard in that gospel and what it did was gave us light and
the knowledge The glory of God, where? In the face of Jesus Christ. They saw a person. They saw a
person. That's the gospel. Verse 7, let's
hurry. He said, but we have this treasure,
an earthen vessel. And what a treasure it is, folks.
This pearl of great price, I tell you, it's worth losing your life
for. Because he that loses his life,
Christ said, he'll find true love. This is earthen vessels,
this treasure, this pearl of great price is in earthen vessels.
It comes through a man, that's what he's saying, a creature
of clay. That the excellency of the power
may be of God and not of us. You know what's up. I've heard
an old coal miner be touched with a coal, a live coal from
the altar of God, and set my heart on fire. I mean an old
coal miner. I mean a man that didn't get
past eighth grade. You're uncomfortable, Henry? He's on the edge of his
seat. I'm glad. But I heard an old
coal miner preach the gospel and just lifted me up to glory.
And that proved to me that this thing is not man's. This gospel
is not of man. Neither did I receive it by man.
but from God himself, from the very mouth of God. Read on. He said, we have this treasure,
an earthen vessel. Verse 8, and we're troubled. A man's a man.
He gets in trouble, and he has trouble. We're troubled on every
side. Now, this applies to all of us,
doesn't it? We are troubled on every side,
by everything. Troubled by our own That's our chief trouble. We're troubled by the world. There is an end to this. There
is an end to this trouble. We're troubled When you get in
distress or with troubles, when you think this thing's not going
to come to an end, it's going to come to an end. This, too,
shall pass. You ever read in the scriptures
where it says God brought to pass? And it came. He always says that,
doesn't he? And it came to pass. After these things, it said of
Abraham. Abraham, take your son. It came,
oh, trouble to pass. Perplexed, not distressed. Well,
he's a very present helping kind of trouble, that's why. We don't,
we're perplexed. I have a feeling Brother Bob may
have touched on this. Don't know. We are perplexed
by some things, aren't we? We ask why. We know God does all things on
purpose, and they're all for our good, but sometimes we just
ask. Is there no other way? No. Perplexed. Confused. But not
in despair. You get in despair when you find,
I just don't have an answer, and there's nothing that will
give me any peace. But we're not in despair. We
sorrow not as those who had no hope. We have hope. We shall
know. This is where we rest, and this is where we soothe our
minds and hearts with these words. We shall know. He knows. God is sovereign, and we'll be
thankful. We will be thankful. We'll see that in a minute. It's
going to rebound. Read on. Verse 9. If I ever get
to it, we'll get to it. Isn't that profound? If I ever
get to it, we'll get to it. Verse 9, persecuted. You ever
feel all alone in this world? Eh? Fish out of water, lamb among
wolves, huh? But not forsaken. You can say with David, though
my mother and my father forsake me, the Lord will take me up. He said, I'll never leave. Oh,
forsake you. Lo, I'm with you, he said. How
long? To the ends of the world. Read
on. Persecuted, but not forsaken. He's with us. Cast down. Oh, oh, oh. Cast down. Aren't we cast down at times
by sin? Doesn't sin get us down in the
dirt to where we feel like we're never going to get up again?
You think that's it? That's it? I send the sin against
the Spirit." That's it. God's about to be merciful. He's not going to show any more
mercy. And David prayed that, didn't he? David prayed, is his mercies
clean, gone? Oh, they ought to be. But David,
a little while later, said, no, they endure forever. Oh, why art thou cast down within
me? Oh my soul, hope thou in God,
he said, I will yet praise him. Dirty as you get, he put away
our shame. I will yet praise him who is
the help for the help of his countenance. Read on. And he said, We always bear about
in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also
of him might be made manifest in our body. We which live are
always delivered unto death for his sake. that the life of Christ
might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. As Paul is talking
about these apostles and their imminent death, that's what he's
talking about. They knew they were going to
die. Remember, Paul said, the Holy Spirit is witness to me
that much affliction awaits me. He said, I don't count my life
dear unto me. Remember that? I don't count
my life dear unto me. Hey, he said, he said, I have a desire
to part with the Lord. If they kill me, send me home. Like a soldier in the army, a
fella come up to you and said, you're going home. They don't
dread that. You look forward to it. Homecoming. He says, I don't count my life,
dear. I'm ready to die, he said. And so should we be. So should
we be. We bury our marks, and we could
use this in this respect. We bury in our bodies the dying
of the Lord Jesus, marks and so forth. The instrument of your
death is probably already in your body right now. Whether
it be your arteries closing up or a germ that's going to kill
you, it's there. God's purposed it. It's going to kill you. Like men, they said to me, you're
going to die for eating all those boiled eggs. But that just might
do it. That just might do it. I am going
to die. The fact is. Well, it might be
my arteries. It might be a germ. It might
be this or that or the other. And I'm telling you, God put
it there. And that's what's going to kill me. I shouldn't have
said that. You won't hear anything else I say, will you? Straighten
that man, see. All right, read on. Come on. Always, he said, that we bear
the mark. We should consider ourselves dying. Dying. We are dying. Henry, this is
just, it's going to get worse, buddy. It's going to get worse.
Got to. Got to. This thing, 70 years
is, oh, you're allowed, isn't it? If by reason of strength,
four score, 80 years, bless God. But 70's it. You're getting there. Pains, aches. That's what it's
supposed to be, isn't it? We're bearing our bodies the
marks of our Lord. All right? Verse 13, we have
in the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I
believe and therefore have I spoken. We also believe and therefore
speak. He's quoting David in the Psalms
here, and Paul says, we speak, we can't help but speak the things
we've seen and heard. We can't help them. They speak
the things we've seen and heard. And this is the true gospel preacher,
is the one who preaches the true gospel. This is a man who's seen
God's glory, or a woman or a person who's seen God's glory. That's
what they're going to talk about. Why don't men and women talk
about the gospel and the gospel only, Christ and Christ only?
They hadn't seen it! The God of this world is blind
in their eye. We are blind in our eye. We've seen the glory
of God. So what are we going to talk about? Here. Is that
all you talk about? Yes, that's all there is. Is
that all you're going to preach? Yes, that's all there is. There
are other texts. Yes, but he's in them. It's a
scarlet thread running through there. And the true preacher
of the gospel and the true believer He's not worried about the persecution.
He knows the truth. He has it. It's the only thing
that's saved. He's going to tell it. That's what Paul's saying.
Read on. Verse 14. Knowing that he which raised
up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Christ to present
us with you. Oh, my. Presented faultless before
his throne. Read on. All things are for your
sake. Thank God Paul was put in prison.
Thank God Paul suffered like he did, right? We now have these
epistles. He says, the abundant grace,
God's abundant grace, will someday, through the thanksgiving of many,
what are we going to sing about that can happen? Grace. Great. It's going to all redound
to the glory of God. It's all to the glory of God.
for your salvation's sake, this abundant grace to the thanksgiving
of God. Verse 16, we think not. For this cause, or that is, we
see the end, it's right around the corner. We're almost there. Not going to quit, John. We're
almost to the top. We're almost there. We're not
going to quit now. We do see the light. at the end
of this tunnel, and it's a glorious one. And we faint not. We're not going to quit. We faint
not. Though our hours then perish,
yet the inward man is renewed day by day. Faith is growing. We ought to be becoming more
and more convinced. The older we get, The song says
what more can he say to you that he had said. How could the gospel be preached
in him clear and you say that's it. But every time you hear it.
That's it. That's settled now. I've settled
it. It's settled. And you come crawling
back in the next service. I don't know. Right? Well, there ought to be some
growth there, renewal. That's what the gospel hearing
is all about. Four, our light affliction, our
light affliction, which is but for a moment, but for a moment,
working for us a far more exceeding and eternal wait. of glory, our light of fiction. Now, afflictions that God sends, trials
that God sends, in order really to be a trial, they usually are
a heavy one. Our children, for them really
to learn lessons, you have to teach them a hard one. Right? Chastening has to hurt. or they
didn't get, they didn't learn anything. And they have to learn
it by experience. And these trials, they're heavy
for a time. Isn't that what James said, they're
heavy? You must now, Peter, heaviness
through heaviness. They're heavy for a time. I tell
you, what Jim and Nancy were going through today, waiting
on that, that's heavy. And it probably wouldn't be a
trial you'd ever go through any harder than your children suffering. Could there be? I don't know. Heavy, heavy. But he says they're
light afflictions. Why? Compared to what's after it. Our light afflictions,
they're light compared to Now I give you three things that
make these afflictions light. They're light compared to past
mercies. How good has the Lord been to
you and how long? I talk about you getting, starting
to hurt now that you're 60. What about the other 50-some
odd years? Generally good health, right? You know, we're in generally
good health and blessed beyond description most of our lives. And then a trial comes along,
and it doesn't last that long. So it's light in compared with
past mercy, right? Past blessing. It's light in
compared, number two, with the afflictions of some people. If we would think about our trials
in light of some other people's trials. I'll give you an illustration.
I mentioned Tom Harding's son. I don't know if anybody heard
about that. You have? Now what happened to Lauren was
traumatic, wasn't it? It tore you up. Stephen tore
you up, didn't it? Oh, yeah. As it would anybody. It was tough at the time. Well,
let me tell you tough. Tom Harding's son was rollerblading. out and rolled out in the street
and Tom went running after him and hollered, Caleb, and a car
hit him and knocked him thirty feet. Tom saw it. He hit the windshield, flipped
over the car, threw him thirty feet, landed
on his back on the pavement. Tom said he just dropped. He said, dropped. Can you imagine? And went running to him. I don't
know if he's dead or alive. He is seriously injured. Both
legs broken. Compound fractures of both legs.
Has casts up to his waist. And he's going to be in bed.
He can't even sit up for 12 weeks. That's tough. But now, he's going
to get over that. He's going to get out of that.
Caleb's not dying of cancer. He's not watching that boy die
of cancer. You see, our light affliction... And you remember
Tom and Bridget and Caleb. That's going to be tough, buddy.
You're going to have to wait on him hand and foot, literally. So our light afflictions are
light in comparison with some other people's trials. And it says, they work a far
more exceeding weight of future glory. They're light in comparison
to future glory. I love Isaiah 65, verse 17. It says, the former troubles,
he said, behold, and joy and rejoicing, that which I created.
Behold, I created a new heaven and a new earth. And he said,
the former troubles shall not be remembered, nor come to mind.
Somebody's going to say, boy, we had trouble. What troubles
you? Our Lord gave the description
of a woman giving birth. Women, when you were going through
it, that's when you thought, I'm going to die, isn't it? I'm dying, isn't it? Never. You might have been in
labor a couple of hours and you thought, this is a lifetime. I remember telling my wife that.
I remember she was laying there. She went through labor for twenty-some
hours. And I remember at the last hour
I said, honey, good news, the doctor said just about one more
hour. She said, that sounded like an eternity.
She said, I can't stand another hour. Do you remember it, Teresa? I mean, really? No, you don't. It's the most
excruciating thing you ever went through in your life? gone. Why? Looked right sitting right beside
you, Deborah. Was it worth it? Oh, wasn't that
painful to birth you? What pain? What pain? That's
the way it's going to be in glory. Oh, it was tough down there,
wasn't it? Tough. You know, so short I can't
even remember. Can't even remember. Verse 18. Why, we look not, and this is
what we should do. not look at the things that are
seen. Why? Because that's walking by sight. We walk by faith, not by sight. Because he says the things that
are seen are temporal. But the things that are not seen,
that's eternal. And so we walk by faith. But
our faith is not blind faith. Why? Because God has shined in
our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of a person who sits at the right hand of
God ordering everything concerning me. I see the end. I see. I see the
end. This too shall pass. He brought
it to pass and he's going to present me with him someday and
I'm going to sit there and I'm going to say thank you, thank
you, thank you, thank you, thank you. That's all I'm going to
be able to say. It's all going to come up with you. Thank you,
thank you, thank you. He's going to say everything
was good. Oh, and he's going to show us maybe a panoramic
view maybe of our lives and show how he ordered every single event
and how it couldn't have been done any other way. And it was
absolutely the wisest and best way. And we're going to say,
I wouldn't have done it that way. But you did. And that's the way it needs to
be done. Thank God, your will will be done. It was done. All
right, stand with me. Stand with me. Our Heavenly Father, we thank
you for your word. It's our only real source of
comfort, and oh, how it comforts us when you speak through it.
And we thank you for this passage. We ask that you would not let
the fowls of the air come and remove it, nor the thorns of
cares of this world choke it out, but rather plant it in our
hearts that might bring forth fruit unto your glory and for
our good. Bring us back, we pray, to hear
another word from you. In Christ's name, amen.