As we've seen in our study of
Israel in Egypt, they came down there and enjoyed about 30 years
of rest. They enjoyed about 30 years when
that first Pharaoh was still alive who knew Joseph. And there
they camped and the Lord gave them rest. And He gave them some peace and
gave them some prosperity. And then, for several generations,
I think what the Lord said back in Genesis chapter 15 to Abraham,
there was four generations. For 400 years, 400 years, they
suffered bondage and bitter anguish under this evil king. They came
there by the gracious invitation and loving arrangement of their
brother Joseph, whom they had sold into slavery. That's how
they got down there. But another king arose that the
scripture said, who knew not Joseph. And when it said he knew
not Joseph, what he's talking about there is he had no regard
for him. He didn't recognize him as a
great person. He didn't recognize him as one
of the ruling authorities of Egypt. And he saw he didn't own
up any indebtedness to him, although all the power of his throne and
majesty of his kingdom was there by the hand of Joseph. He would
have had nothing. Egypt would have shriveled up
and died had it not been for Joseph. And then what had been a happy
shelter to the children of Israel become a bitter place of suffering
and bondage. And this is the story. It's the
story of every sinner saved by grace. It's right here. It's
the story. It's such a clear picture there.
He enjoys a time of happy shelter in this life. He lives each day
with no fear. He lives each day in perfect
freedom. He lives each day of his life,
and it's a happy time to him. until the Lord acquaints him
with the God of this world. And it's nothing from there to
the land of milk and honey. It's nothing between there and
the end except anguish and bitterness and bondage. And before we move on in our
study in Exodus, I thought it might be worthwhile. I saw these
two verses here at the end of this chapter when Moses comes
back to God and he said, What's going on? I thought I was going to preach,
and he was going to listen and bow down, and the people was
going to leave. And he said, things are worse
now than they was when I come. What's going on? What's going
on? Well, I thought it might be worthwhile
to ask this question, what is this suffering in Egypt all about? What's going on down here? And this thought crossed my mind
many times when I've read the scriptures, why not just avoid
Egypt altogether? Why don't God just lead them
around Egypt? Why did he lead them? It's very
obvious God led them to Egypt. There's so many providential
things that just clears a bale. Way back in Genesis 15 is the
clearest of the bunch. God tells Abraham the whole story.
Why not just avoid Egypt altogether? Why would God cause them to be
in this land of idolatry and darkness and suffer at the hands
of this man, such an evil king as this Pharaoh was? I've told
you and showed you often in the scriptures that all these things
clearly picture the person and work of Christ, and they make
up a large portion of that foundation upon which our faith is built
and upon which we're established. And I think that's why so many
have made just absolute mockery out of faith today, is that they've
just written off the whole of the Old Testament. And if you
write off the whole of the Old Testament, then where is the
foundation of Christ's coming? How can you understand what took
place when Christ's come, or for that matter, who the Christ
was who should come? We know very little about Christ
apart from the Old Testament. But it's through that Old Testament
that we recognize Jesus to be the Christ. And then we're taught
of what these things teach. And over in Hebrews 3, verse
5, it says this. Now, he said, consider the apostle.
That's what this chapter is talking about. The apostle, he said,
and high priest of our profession. And then he gets down here to
verse 5, and he said, He's talking about Moses and Christ, Moses
and Christ. And in talking about this, he's
telling us about the high priest, the apostle and high priest of
our profession. So now listen to what he said.
And Moses barely was faithful in all his house as a servant
for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after.
In other words, all of these things that Moses does and encounters,
the whole of Moses' life with Israel, all of these things,
and his faithfulness to that, they happen to him for a testimony
of those things that was going to be spoken afterward. That is, they are to be understood
by the actual person and work of Christ as they are preached
in the gospel of God's sovereign grace. Now with this thing in
mind, let's look at Israel down here in Egypt and see if we can
learn something about our own suffering. See if we can learn
something about our own predicament in this world. And I don't like
to go outside my own experience. I like to read the old writers.
And I'll be honest with you, everything I read by all of them
across the board, Matthew, Henry, Matthew Poole, John Gill, I read
these men. Everything I read on the subject
was just great. It was great. And it's all profitable. You can go into any one and read
about these things, read about these subjects. It's all profitable
to you. However, there's quite a few
of them that get outside my experience. So tonight, I'm just going to
limit what I got to say with my own experience. And I've got
six things here. Six things I'd like to say, six
reasons why Israel was made to appear in Egypt and suffer at
the hands of this evil king. Here's the first thing. And I
believe this is first and foremost as far as the reasons are concerned.
It's to show us the salvation of God's elect. This is like looking into a mirror. It's just, you stand there in
the art gallery. We went up to Washington, D.C.
here a few years ago, and I went into that big art gallery. And
it's, you know, it's one thing to sit down here and open a book
and see pictures of these old Dutch masters and all this. It's
another thing when you're standing two feet away from them, and
it's right there on the wall, and it's six feet long and three
feet tall, and you can see the brush marks. And I mean, that
artwork in there is just, it's something to see. It's something
to see. And when we look at the Old Testament
pictures, this is the finger of the master. This is the Holy
Spirit of God inspiring these men with each stroke of the pen.
And they're picturing this thing of Christ and his church and
all these things accomplished in there as beautifully as they
can be pictured and represented to men. And so it's my hope that
when we look at these that you'll see that. And this is what I
believe He's showing. I believe He's showing here.
I believe He's showing us the salvation of God's elect. Israel
was led into Egypt by one man. And they're going to be led out
by one man. They got in their mess because
of one man. They're going to get out of their
mess because of one man. That's representation. That's
how God saves sinners, isn't it? That's how God saves sinners. They got there by Jacob. That's
what it says over in Exodus 1. They lived down there by Jacob.
Why didn't God call him Israel? He changed his name. Why'd He
call him Jacob? Because Jacob's that natural
name. That's that natural name. Jacob
has to do with the, it means the planter, the finagler, the
schemer, always plotting. People of God came into this
world of suffering and bondage by one man, Adam. And we bear
his nature. We might be here by the purpose
of God, but we bear that nature and character and mind of the
finagler. It says, by one man, sin entered
into the world, and death by sin. And so death passed. It
passed. Darkness passed. Bondage passed. Ignorance passed. It all passed. It passed upon me. All of these
things are included in that word death. Suffering, sickness, you
name it. You name it. All come in that
spiritual death. By the offense of one, he says
in that chapter 5, all the way through Romans chapter 5, God
represents this thing of salvation in two people. He doesn't even
mention anybody else. He talks about Adam and Christ.
Adam and Christ. Adam and Christ. All the way
through there. All the way through there. And so it is with Egypt
and Israel. By one man's offense, death reigned. By one man's disobedience, many
were made sinners. Why? Why? Why would God permit such a thing?
Because He purposed to save a people for the glory of His name. That's
why. That's why. You sit back and
you look at all these things that are going on today and you
say, why? Why is that? I tell you why. I can't explain
all the little parts and pieces to it. I told the folks here
several months ago, you take one of these big 1,200-piece
puzzles and dump it out here on the ground and pick up one
piece. It's hard. I can't tell you what the picture
is holding that one piece. I got to pick up the box and
show you the picture. And that's the way it is. Each
little individual thing that's going on, I can't make much out
of it, but this much I know. Everything that's going on is
going on to that end. He's going to save a people for
the glory of His name. That's why Adam was permitted
to fall. That's why Satan was permitted
to enter that garden. All of these things. Why would
God permit such a thing? He purposed to save a people
for the glory of His name and to redeem them from all their
iniquities by another righteous representative and through Him
to give them everlasting life. Through Him, no possibility of
another fall. No possibility of our losing
our standing before God or our adoption as sons. In Him, these
things are fixed and sure. John said in the book of Revelation,
they all looked and they said, who are this big white throng
multitude that's standing here in front of the throne? Who is
that? He said, these are they that come up out of great tribulation,
suffering, great trouble, and washed their robes and made them
white in the blood of the Lamb. If I understand Romans chapter
9, verses 20 through 24, it's telling us that God endures these
vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, that He might make known the
riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy which He hath aforeprepared
unto glory. This world is here, and the evil
permitted in it for no other reason than the salvation of
God's elect by the hand of His Deliverer, and that's exactly
what's taking place. And when it's all wound up, when
everything's wound up, and all men, great and small, stand before
God, that's what's going to be brought out. That's what every
man's going to know in that day. This world's here. And all the
things that are in it permit it for no other reason than this. In Psalm 76, verse 10, it said,
surely the wrath of man The wrath of man shall praise the Lord.
And the remainder of that wrath he's going to restrain, isn't
he? He's going to restrain it. I'll never forget Brother Mahan
saying one time that he even restrained the Jews and the Romans
when they crucified Christ. Otherwise, they'd have put him
in a pot and boiled him and ate him. Even that wrath was restrained. He tells us in Romans chapter
8 that creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but
by reason of him who subjected the same in hope. And that all
creation, he's getting ready to tell Paul something here,
or Paul's getting ready to tell us something by the Spirit of
God about suffering. And he said, this whole creation
suffers. Well, how did it get there? By
reason of him who subjected the same in hope. And now we groan
and travail together, those of us who have the firstfruits of
the Spirit of God waiting for that adoption, the redemption
of our body. And so I find out that there's
an Egypt permitted and an evil king to rule to manifest the
glory of God in Christ. That's what's going on. All right? Why would God permit His people
to suffer these indignities in this place? Why would He do that?
I believe He does that to teach us something of the exceeding
sinfulness of sin and God's willingness to punish sin. I'll tell you
what you'll learn down in Egypt is judgment. If you want to know
something about judgment, go down to Egypt. Go down to Egypt. Read something about the horrors
of God down in Egypt. Read something about the plagues
that fell on them. Read something about a darkness
that could even be felt. I don't even know what that is.
Do you? That's hard for me to even identify. A darkness that
could even be felt. The horror of that destroyer
coming through that land. He teaches us something there
about the exceeding sinfulness of sin. These people had never
done anything except contribute to the land. That's all they'd
ever done. They were a contribution to it. They were the reason it
prospered, all of these things. And yet, all the powers of Egypt
were down on them, all the powers of Egypt causing them to suffer,
causing them to suffer. Every man, woman, and child in
Egypt is righteously judged and punished, every last one, including
Israel. Israel's sins were laid upon
the chosen lamb and required at its hand. And Egypt's sins
were demanded of their own. Now, Pharaoh had opportunity
in Egypt. That's another thing. I know,
and I get so sick of hearing it from hard shells, talking
about, oh, these things, now these things don't have anything
to do. Oh, yes, they do, or they wouldn't be in this book. It
wouldn't be in this book. And I'm telling you this, man's
responsible to God. And if I could read anything,
I'd read that. In this time in Egypt, Pharaoh
giving opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to repent. And Pharaoh wouldn't do it. He
wouldn't do it. He hardened his heart. And each
time he hardened his heart, it said, and God hardened his heart.
And that's what happens when a man hardens his heart. God
gives him over to it. He gives him over to himself.
He gives him over to a reprobate mind. You can't come into the
presence of God and hear his word and go away unchanged. It's
life under life, death under death. One way or the other,
you're being changed. One way or the other, God's hand's
on you. It's either raising from you
or it's reaching toward you. Life unto life or death unto
death. It's under the curse of sin,
seeing our sins justly punished in Christ that God's eternal
purpose of grace is learned in the hearts of all believing sinners. And then thirdly, the Lord allowed
Israel to appear in Egypt to fully manifest the wickedness
of men. Now that's very similar, but
not quite the same thing that I just told you. Way back yonder
there in Genesis chapter 15, you remember the story there.
Abraham had laid out the sacrifices that God told him. And he cut
them up into pieces and laid them all out there. And the fire
of God came down, and the lamp of God moved through that sacrifice.
And as that lamp of God, that light of God, revealed that sacrifice,
that's what's being pictured there, revealing to Abraham what's
going to happen. Then he began to tell him about
his children. They're going to go down here
in this strange land and they're going to dwell down there for
400 years and be evil and treated. Going to be evil and treated. Acts chapter 17 verse 31, it
says, God has appointed a day in which He will judge this world
in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained. And there
was one man ordained of God, and through him judgment was
manifest on Egypt. It was manifest just in His appearance. It was manifested in what He
said, and it was manifested in His life, manifested in God's
actions on His account. And it was manifested first in
the land itself and then in the sea. And what I saw here was
the first was but just a prelude to the second. The judgments
and curse of God that fell on Egypt in the land was just a
prelude to what was about to happen to them in the sea. The
first was not permanent. The first was exposing those
sins, exposing that rebellion of heart, exposing that attitude
of rebellion toward God. The first wasn't exposed. The
second was permanent. The second was permanent. I told you last Sunday that spirit
of Antichrist is manifested in the lives of men and women who
live out their days in total disregard for the day of God.
There's a day coming, a day of God, this day of Christ, the
second coming of Christ, when He's going to come. And it said,
and the dead in Christ are going to rise first. And us which are
alive and remain will be caught up with Him in the air. But all
men are going to be raised from the dead on that day. All the
small and the great are going to stand before that throne.
And books are going to be opened. And the judgment's going to be
held. And what am I saying about this day? Why even bring it up
in this story about Egypt? Because there was a day coming.
And Pharaoh was warned of the day. But he had no regard for
it. He had nothing but disregard
to it. He called it evil sayings, evil speaking. And I tell you,
men and women, they They live like that day don't exist. It
could happen right now, just like that. It could happen. We'd
be standing before God. Standing before God. Paul said,
knowing something of the terror of the Lord, I persuade men.
I tell you, the glory associated with that day, the absolute terror
and horror of an unbelieving world standing before a holy
God, Just what little bit I know about it just makes the hair
stand up on the back of my neck. And men live in total disregard
to it. Everything in time and eternity
is purposed to be climaxed in that day. And yet, men and women
live out their days as though that great day will never come. God's hand separating the sheep
from the goats. Men just say, well, like they
did over there in 2 Peter, all things continue as they were.
They're just going on the way they used to. There's been no
change. Been no change. All the preaching,
all the warning, all the church building, and all the missionaries,
and all the preaching, and all these things, it's just the same.
Ain't nothing happened. Nothing happened. That day was
coming and Moses just kept telling him, kept telling him. He didn't
want to hear it. He didn't want to hear it. It says that two books was opened,
the book of works and the book of life. And all flesh was judged
out of those two books. Out of those two books. Those
whose names were written in the Lamb's book of life Their works
were recorded in that book of works, but their works were the
works of Christ, imputed to them by faith, and their works were
honorable. Well done, he said, thy good
and faithful servant. He couldn't say that to sinners,
could he? Huh? Only if that righteousness was
imputed to them and that representative work accomplished in Christ. But this world, that's all they
ever wanted. They wanted to be judged by their
works. That's what they wanted. Talk to them. They'll tell you.
I can tell you the day and the hour. I can tell you the time
I made my decision. I can tell you the time I turned
over the new leaf. I can tell you the time I committed
myself to Christ. And they'll go on and on and
on, telling you what they did. Why they do that? Because they
won't be judged by their works. In this day, they're going to
have what they want. They're going to have what they want.
Those books are going to be open in every thought and every motive,
every intent of heart, the whole man, his mind, emotions, his
will, his affections, everything about him, naked and open before
the eyes of Him with whom he has to do. I want no part of
that. I don't want any part of that. It says here, and it's plain
enough for me, it said, every man whose name was not found
written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. That's
the second death. God the Holy Spirit says over
in Proverbs chapter 1 verse 24, I'd like sometime I don't even
know if y'all have hard shells down here, but we've got them
up in Kentucky. I tell you, they just believe
no matter what, you know, I'm elect. OK? OK. You hang on to that. You go ahead.
You hang on to that. You go out and meet God hanging
on with that mess. God the Holy Spirit says in Proverbs
chapter 1, verse 24, because I called and you refused. Woo. I called, he said, and you refused. I stretched out my hand. You
reckon God would stretch out his hand to Pharaoh? Said he
did. I stretched out my hand, he said. No man regarded. You said it not on my counsel
and would none of my reproof. He said, I'll laugh at your calamity
and I'll mock when your fear comes. When your fear cometh
as a desolation and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind, when distress
and anguish cometh upon you, then shall they call upon me.
But he said, I won't answer. You'll seek me then. You'll seek
me early. But you won't find me. Because
you hated knowledge, would not choose the fear of the Lord.
Therefore, he said, shall they eat of the fruit of their own
way, and be filled with their own devices. The Lord ministered in his day,
as Moses did. He preached to the people, and
he was hounded by this religious world. That's why Paul called
them dogs. They nipped at your heels. Everywhere
you went, there's one of them there nipping, nipping, nipping.
Everything you say, you've got to nip, bark, growl. Everything you say. Suddenly,
the Lord turned to them. I mean, just in a heartbeat,
He turned and He looked them right in the face. And listen
to what He says, Fill ye up the measure of your fathers. Fill
it up, He said. Fill it up. You serpents, you
generation of vipers, how shall you escape the damnation of hell? And that's what's going on down
here in Egypt. He told Abraham, he said, the fullness of the
Amorites is not yet full. And in the fourth generation,
when the cup's full, then he said by a strong hand, he said,
I'm going to bring them out. Their cup's not full yet. They're
still filling it up. And then fourthly, God left Israel
and Egypt to suffer in order to multiply His kingdom. I read
in the Scripture, it's through Zion's travail that sons and
daughters are born. Isn't that what it says? It's in the presence and power
of Pharaoh and in spite of his best efforts that God produced
a nation of millions. It said the more he afflicted
them, the more God multiplied them. But they suffered, but they multiplied. They multiplied. The church is left in this world
to suffer all kinds of indignities for one reason. God prepared
a great multitude to enter in and enjoy that inheritance that
He promised them in Christ before the foundation of the world.
And so He preserves them in the middle of this suffering. It
says, Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not to seeds as of many,
but as of thy seed, which is Christ. In Exodus 4.22, God told
Moses to tell Pharaoh, he said, Israel is my son. He's my firstborn. And he's going to multiply, multiply
him. God has a people, and to show
his power and grace, he multiplies his people. in spite of all the
suffering that Egypt can bring to bear. I mean that man did
everything in his power to destroy those people. And they grew right
in his presence. All right. Fifthly, God left
Israel and Egypt to suffer and to manifest in order to manifest
His goodness and grace in this thing of salvation. Salvation
is altogether of grace. God is going to come down where
the suffering is and deliver you out of it. I know that the history of the
church is suffering, but the history of the church is a gracious
suffering. It's a gracious suffering. And I tell you this, the fact
of it is we justly deserve everything God gives us, don't we? I like to whine about it for
a little while, but when I'm done whining and thinking on
it, I deserved it. I deserved it, don't you? Actually,
I deserve a lot worse. A lot worse. God overrules our suffering with
a purpose of grace so that even our suffering is an act of goodness
and grace on his part. Moses said, show me your glory. Show me your glory. You know
what God told him? He said, stand right here. He
said, I cause all my goodness to pass before you. That's all
you can find. When God reveals His glory to
you in Christ, that's all you can find. Even in your suffering,
you find goodness. Paul said, and we know, ain't
that what he said? We know that all things work
together for good to them who love God, to them who are the
called according to His purpose. What's in that all thing? All
that. You mean suffering? I mean suffering.
I mean trial. Sure it is. Goodness, goodness,
goodness. That's the glory of God's sovereign
grace enlightening sinners to see the goodness of God in the
suffering Savior. David said, I'd fainted unless
I'd believed to see the goodness of God in the land of the living. As I read the suffering of believers
over there in Hebrews chapter 11, I was going through there
to find something to show my wife here the other day about
how they lived in dens and caves of the earth and all these things.
Went about in sheep skins and goat skins of people of whom
this world wasn't even worthy, is what the Scripture said. But
in order to get to that passage, I came down here and I read this
and it just made me cringe. I remember years ago I started
to read Fox's Book of Martyrs and I had put it up. It made
me sick. Just absolutely made me sick. But it says here they
were tortured, endured trials of cruel mocking, scourgings,
bonds, imprisonment, stone, sawn asunder. You know what that is?
That's a wooden saw. They made a wooden saw. and take
a man and lay him out and take a wooden crosscut saw and cut
him in half real slow with a wood saw. Tempted, slain with the
sword. But I tell you, if you take the
time to read their history, you find grace upon grace, mercy
upon mercy. Now there's three things that
distinguish a gracious suffering from a judgmental suffering.
You might want to hang on to this. First, that gracious suffering
moves God's people to prayer. In Psalm 107, he's talking about
Israel back in Egypt, and as David is. And he's looking back
to the fathers who were before him. And he's going back, and
he's going over these things. And it says in verse 12, he brought
down their heart with labor, and they fell down, and there
was none to help. Then, he said, they cried unto
the Lord. That's a gracious suffering.
If God will send you something to cause you to cry out to Him,
that's a gracious suffering. I don't care what it is. I've
told you often, old John Howsam, the Lord gave him MS. And there
he sat up there. Big career, he was an aircraft
engineer, made all kind of money, had a good life, good wife, daughter,
big home and everything, and it just brought down to nothing.
sitting there wondering, why? Why all these things happened
to me? And he turned that TV on one morning and Henry Mayhem
was on there preaching. He heard the gospel. He came
there and later on he moved there. Lived there until he died. And
I've heard him say it so many times. He'd come in that little
car of his and park there and after church you'd talk to him
and he said, oh, he said, I just thank God he's given me MS. He's so thankful. He cried. He wouldn't have cried out. He
went right on to the tomb. And the second thing is, a gracious
suffering makes us willing to hear. You can't talk to a man
who don't know suffering, who don't know something about sin,
something about the curse of God. You can't even talk to him.
You try to talk to him and he just... He don't know anything
at all about this book. He don't know anything at all
about Christ. He don't know anything at all about sin or righteousness
or judgment. And he can't shut up long enough
to listen. But you send him some suffering
and bring him down and slay him in his heart and then listen
to it. Now watch it. He's waiting on a word from the
Lord. In this same Psalm, Psalm 107,
He said, they cried to God in their trouble, and He saved them
out of their distresses. Now listen to this. They cried
unto the Lord in their trouble, and He saved them out of their
distresses. He said His Word and healed them
and delivered them out of their destructions. And then thirdly,
a gracious suffering makes us thankful for mercy. Yeah, you
be thankful for it. He sure will. He says, he maketh
the storm calm so that the waves thereof are still. Then they're
glad. The old sailor in that little
sailboat about sixty foot long and them big hundred foot waves
crashing down that wind, boy, God brings the waves down. Takes
him into his desired haven. He's glad. He's glad. They're glad and they be quiet.
All right, here's the last thing. The sixth reason why God permits
His people to suffer is to get them ready to leave Egypt. It's
the suffering sinner who longs for the land of milk and honey.
Oh, he longs for it. He longs for it. Even so, God
allows us to suffer in this world to prepare our hearts and minds
to leave this cursed place. I want to give you a couple of
scriptures here, and if you'll turn with me to 2 Corinthians
chapter 4. While you're turning, I'm going
to read you something over here in Romans chapter 8. In Romans 8, 17, he said, And
if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ,
if so be we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified
together. For I reckon that the sufferings
of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the
glory that shall be revealed in us." Nothing we're subject to in this
world is even fit to be compared with the glory that God is going
to reveal in His saints. And then look here in 2 Corinthians
4, 16. for which cause. And if you want to in your spare
time, you can go back and read the beginning of that where he's
talking about the God of this world blinding the minds of them
that believe not. And then by the commandment of
God, that glorious light of the gospel of Christ shining in their
hearts. But we got this light in earthen
vessels. And we communicate it to men
in darkness. And in doing so, we're just We
identify with Christ and his sufferings and death. We're killed
all the day long for this reason. For this cause, the cause of
Christ, the cause of this glorious gospel of Christ, for which cause
we thank not. But though our outward man perish,
and he does, yet the inward man is renewed day by day for our
light affliction. Have you ever read of what the
Apostle Paul suffered? I saw that man suffer. Back then, they had this thing
of lashing down to a science. Thirty stripes killed a man.
He was beaten twenty-nine stripes, save one, twice. Took him right
up. William took a brink of death
and then let him live. He was shipwrecked. Day in the
night, out in the deep. I couldn't tell you all such
thugs. They hired thugs to beat him up and leave him for dead.
And that's not even counting the day-by-day trials of the
people that he loved. People that he loved because
they were persuaded by hypocrites and liars. They caused him pain
and suffering. And because of the gospel he
preached, all the obscenities and the stories and the lies
that were spread around the countryside. And then when he was in prison
for the sake of the gospel, how often did they try to ruin his
reputation while he's just a lawless vagabond. That's all he is. That's
why he's down there in prison. That's where he ought to be.
Suffering, suffering, suffering. He calls this a light affliction. A light affliction. Mm. High light affliction, which
is but for a moment, he said, worketh for us a far more exceeding
and eternal way to glory. That is, if we look not on the
things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen,
because the things which are seen, they're carnal, they're
just temporal. But the things that are not seen
are eternal. How could any man suffer like
Paul and refer to his sufferings as light afflictions? I'll give
you three reasons. They were light afflictions in
the light of what he deserved. And he knew it. Oh, when you
think about what you deserve, whatever little dab of suffering
God... I don't even know anything about
suffering, do you? I don't know anything about it.
The little things I get upset about don't amount to a hill
of beans compared to what these men suffered. They were light
afflictions in the light of what we deserve. And then secondly,
they're light afflictions when compared to others. Boy, you
don't have to go very far to find somebody a whole lot worse
shape than you are, a whole lot worse. And then thirdly, they're
light afflictions compared to the glory that's promise to be
revealed in us. You know, I just made a mention
a while ago just of a few things there about that judgment day.
But you think about this. While God's casting this world
into hell, some of our own family members, some of our own children,
some of our wives and husbands are going to be cast into hell. God's children are going to have
such a knowledge, such a character of truth and justice in that
day, sin being totally removed, the blinders being taken off,
that they're going to say, Amen. True and righteous are His judgment.
That's what they're going to say. They're going to say that. And you think of the glory when
the multitudes are being cast into the lake of fire. And God
holds His hand out to you. He said, come here. Sit right
here. Sit right here by me. Can you
imagine old Mephibosheth when he come in? Mephibosheth thought,
he thought when David called him in, David was killing. I mean, their armies were killing
all the enemies. All of Saul's relations were
put to death. Here comes Mephibosheth, laying
on his feet. Brings him in. Mephibosheth thought
he was fixing to die. David said, fix him a place here
at my table. That's where he's going to eat
from now on. He's going to eat at my table. Eat at my table. You think of that. He said, come,
sit right here. Huh? Don't that make that go
away? Don't that make that suffering
go away? Come sit right here. Sit right here by my side. That make that suffering leave
real quick, don't it?