I invite you this morning, if
you have a copy of the Word of God with you, to turn the Old
Testament to the book of 1 Chronicles chapter 4. 1 Chronicles chapter
4. I want to read verse 9 and 10.
Two verses. Verse 9 and 10. 1 Chronicles
chapter 4. And Jabez was more honorable
than his brethren. And his mother called his name
Jabez, saying, Because I bear him with sorrow. And Jabez called
on the God of Israel, saying, O that thou wouldest bless me
indeed, and enlarge my coast and that thine hand might be
with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may
not grieve me. And God granted him that which
he requested." I wanted to speak this morning
on this scripture that we've read out of 1 Chronicles chapter
4. My heart is filled with many
things this morning. I do hope that God will be pleased
to give me a clear mind as to how to set before you those things
that do press in upon me this morning. I want to begin by giving
you some remarks on this text of scripture. Martin Luther said
that these texts, like the one we read, two verses, that seemed
to have very little or no connection in the context. He said they're
little Bibles. They're like little Bibles. You have two verses filled with
many, many things that are very informative. But we know nothing
whatsoever of the Jabez that is mentioned here beyond what
we find in just these two verses. We don't know anything about
this man. We know nothing about him other than what these verses
tell us. But I think this is enough to
mark him out, to set him apart as being worthy in no ordinary
degree of being admired and imitated by us. This man was indeed a
character that we need to study, think about, and glean from what
these two verses have to say about him, the truth about him. There seems to me to be a depth
and a comprehensiveness in the prayer of this unknown individual,
unknown except from this prayer, which I think would suffice to
make him a teacher of the righteous in every generation. This man
can teach you something. If you would listen to what he
had to say in this prayer, you can learn a great deal from this
Jabez. Let us this morning, as we can,
look at these two verses and search out what lessons that
we can find that'll be useful to us. First of all, the ninth
verse gives us a short account of Jabez. And in the tenth verse,
we see it's occupied in its entirety by his prayer and the answer
that God gave him to his prayer. Now the first thing that strikes
me as I read These two verses, especially in verse one, is the mother's faithless anticipation. Her faithless anticipation. You take note here that it says,
and Jabez was more honorable than his brethren. And his mother
called his name Jabez. And that name means sorrowful.
saying because I bear him with sorrow. Now when this boy came
into the world, his mother bore him in pain as all children are
born in pain, but there's something more here than just the pain
of the mother in a physical way in bringing this boy into the
world. And this reminds us, now listen
to me now, this mother at this time looked upon this child with
great sorrow and she had no joy in her heart at the birth of
this boy Jabez. And this reminds us of how the
present Often colors our thoughts of the future now let me and
if I can to kind of introduce to you Why I'm preaching this
message today We're living in very strange and difficult times
We're living in days that are so challenging in many ways if
not in in actuality they are in a in what we're hearing in
our day, we're hearing so many things that disturb, so many
things that troubles our young people, so many things that will
cause a young person to look at their future in a way that
they should not look at it. I overheard the words, these
words the other day from one who will graduate from high school
this month. And this individual said that
they wished somehow or other that they were older so that
they would have less time to have to live in this world with
all of the problems and the forebodings, the various rumors and fears
that are being peddled in our day and time. That was the exact
words of this individual. Now, beloved, we see how that
in unbelief the present can cloud and color our thoughts of the
future to the point where that we would make maybe such a statement
as that. And I'm not sure that if you
were as serious-minded maybe as this individual that you possibly
would say the same thing this morning. Maybe you would be thinking
in those terms. But I want you to recognize that
we need faith in our day. We need to believe God in our
day. We need to understand in our day that life is bigger than
we are. And we need to understand that
God Almighty is on the throne and that God has a purpose and
plan for every life and that God His will will be done and
God will undertake for His people as they wait in faith upon Him. And we need to be very, very
careful how that we allow the present, how we look upon it,
to in some way or another color our thoughts of the future. I
know that in many occasions where there's abortions, that this
unbelief and this selfishness that we're speaking of is involved
in the decision of young women to abort their children. They
possibly had the same, maybe they possibly had the same mental
attitude and maybe the same mental unbelief that, and hard unbelief
that Jabez's mother had. Although she didn't, she didn't
have an abortion. She brought this boy into the
world. And we need to be very careful in our day and time.
You young people need to be very careful. And don't develop the
attitude we'll just live it minute by minute, enjoy every minute
and do whatever we want to do and live just like the world's
coming to an end tomorrow because the future don't matter. We need
to be very, very careful about that attitude. We need to actually,
it's the wrong attitude for anybody to have. And we need to develop
an attitude of faith, an attitude of confidence in God Almighty.
Because our faith and confidence as it is in Him, it will not
be in vain. and we need to trust God. I said
life is bigger than we are. Now Jebez is a name which corresponds
with the circumstances of his birth and with his mother's spiritual
state at that time. She named this boy Jebez. because
she was in pain and sorrow, she was afflicted, and beloved, there's
no denying that we, our short-sighted beings, we're so like this woman,
we're so unable to look into the future, and we constantly
miscalculate as to what is really for our good, anticipating ill
and evil from what is working by God in His providence for
our benefit. and expecting benefit and good
many times to come from that which may prove to be nothing
but ill and evil. We're so short-sighted, we're
so blind, and we cannot see past the present. And we look at some
things and we say, well, that's really terrible, that's going
to be awful. Look what we're facing as soon as we graduate
from high school, or look what we're facing as soon as we go
out into the world. Look at the terrible deficit
that we have. That is all reality, it's true. But yet, We must recognize that
we're looking to God, we're not looking to men. Our eyes are
upon the Lord. Our eyes are upon Him and His
faithfulness and His being dependable. We're looking to the Lord and
not to men. We're trusting in God and we're
not looking to ourselves. Now we do not know the particular
reasons which influence the mother of Jabez to call him by that
name. As we said, it is a name which
speaks of the spiritual state of the mother at the time of
the birth. She said, I am in sorrow and
pain. We're merely told his mother
just called him Jabez. Now some think that it was because
of the sorrow that's spoken of in Genesis 3 and 16 that women
have upon natural birth. Others think that she may become
a widow, and I'm kind of inclined to believe that this is so. That she became a widow right
before the birth of this son. And here she is in the world,
she has other children. because in verse 9 it speaks
of Jabez being more honorable than his brethren and I think
that implies that there were other children in the household
and so here this woman becomes possibly a widow before the birth
of this boy and here's this mother alone in the world with these
children to care for these children to look after these children
and to raise these children and his mother evidently felt that
it was an awful thing to happen. Here I am having a child and
I have no husband. My husband's been taken from
the world and here I am in poverty and what an awful thing it is
that I'm having this child. I was talking with Mike earlier
this morning and I told him that I was about Kent's age when my
mother had her last, her 10th and 11th child. And you might have thought that
it would have been a time of great stress having 11 children. You might have thought it had
been just a terrible calamity when a mother found out she was
going to have her 10th and then found out a couple of years later
she's going to have her 11th and you wouldn't believe it,
but I'm telling you it's the gospel truth. They planned to
have the 11th one because they'd had the 10th one and didn't want
to raise that boy by himself. And so they had another boy,
the eleventh one, a planned child. Say, well, I'll tell you what,
now that is optimism, I mean, right up to the top. Well, beloved,
listen. I remember it. I was nine and
then I was eleven when my youngest brother was born. And I never
will forget it. There was no pressure, there
wasn't anybody who thought that there was any intrusion, that
there wasn't anybody selfish around that felt like that, oh,
it's a terrible thing at this time to have these two little
boys, it's such an awful thing. There wasn't anybody that felt
that it was somehow or other going to infringe on their ability
to fulfill their destiny and therefore they're going to rebel
and they were going to cry and moan and groan about having these
children at this age. No, no that wasn't the way it
was. But this mother evidently felt but little of a mother's
joy and looked on her infant with forebodings and fear. And
there was no joy that a man was born into the world. But I'm
convinced that the mother of Jabez, I'm convinced of this,
that she had a deeper and more lasting sorrow to register in
the name of her boy than just that of giving him birth. That
there was something else. And I think it was due to her
poverty, probably, and due to the fact that she had no husband
now. But whatever may have been the cause, we may consider the
woman When this boy was born into the world, as having bent
over him in bitterness over her newborn child, having only tears
to give him as his welcome in the world. Only tears. And so
she called him Chabez. She felt it impossible to associate
with him any hope and any happiness. No hope, no happiness. Terrible
event. Well, she might have looked with
different sentiments on her other children when they were born,
but when Jabez, it was all gloom, no happiness to associate with
his birth. And yet the history of the family
is summed up in this brief sentence here in verse 9. And nothing
is told us of his brethren except that they were less honorable
than Jabez. Now get it now. Here's this Jabez
and he was born in the world when he was a baby. He come into
this world and all the time of great sorrow and unbelief and
it was just a kind of one of those times, you know. But yet
the scripture says that he was more honorable than all of his
brethren. And that's the history of the
family right there. So his brethren were honorable, but Jabez was
more honorable. So you see the direction that
I'm going with this this morning. They might have been honorable.
in their life, in their worship, and in their service to God.
But Jabez, he outstripped them all. He led the way. This one
that was looked upon maybe as a misfit and one that shouldn't
have been there, one that maybe was born out of time, season,
and just was a mistake. And here he is more honorable
than his brethren. I'm telling you, life is bigger
than we are. And I'm telling you that when
a child is conceived in the womb, that that's God's work. And I'm
telling you that when a child comes into this world, that this
is God's business. And we need to be very careful
the way we treat life. Very, very careful. Now, if his
mother had lived to see, and maybe she did, all of her sons
grow up to manhood, how strange when she thought of the name
Jabez and saw how he was more honorable than all of his brethren,
how strange that name, which she gave to him in a moment of
despondency and in faithlessness, How strange that name must have
appeared to her as she saw this boy grow up and was more honorable
than his brothers, more honorable than everybody else in the family.
How strange. I call him Jabez. And look at
him now. Look at him now. It may seem
to her as a standing memorial of her want of confidence in
God and the wrongness of human calculations. She calculated,
well, the only name that boy ought to have is Jabez. She said,
this is the way it is. Ah, this a sad and sorrowful
time. Well, beloved, is this not full
of warning and admonition to us? When we look at things of
life, how ready are we to give the name Jebez to persons or
things? Could we but look into God's
purpose, we would see that they were designed to minister to
our security and our happiness in our life. Reminds us of that
little saying that says behind a frowning providence there is
a smiling face But we give the name of Jebez to a lot of persons
and a lot of things in this world We ought to just keep our mouth
shut about and wait and see what God brings out of what the Lord
does with it You remember the patriarch Jacob whenever he was
under great trial. He said all these things are
against me and He said, Joseph is not, Benjamin is not, this
is wrong, that's wrong, got these problems, that affliction and
all, but yet you all know that it was by and through these gloomy
dealings that a merciful God was providing for the sustenance
of the patriarch Jacob and his household. God was going to,
he went before them to support and to provide for them in the
season of great need that was coming on. But old Jacob said,
all this is against me. And so we're inclined to say
that we judge by present appearance, allowing our fears and feelings
rather than faith to rule the day. And that's so often the
case with me. We look with gloom and melancholy
on our sources of good. Number one, we would thank sickness.
We call that jabez. When we get sick, that's a sorrowful
time, a terrible time, an afflictive time, though it may have been
sent by God to minister to our spiritual health. And it may,
it just may, it just may make the difference between us being
a spiritual individual and a carnal individual. A holy individual
or an ungodly individual. Sickness, many times we say that's
Jebez. It's what it is. Poverty, we
call that Jebez. Though through poverty many times
God enables people to take possession of the heavenly and the true
riches. You know the scripture says that the poor of this world,
those who are rich in faith, they are the heirs of the promises.
They are the heirs of the promises. The poor have the gospel preached
to them. And so many, many times we don't
appreciate the true riches unless we don't have any of this world's
riches. and when we become afflicted
and we're poverty-stricken, then we look away from this world
and the things of time and look away to those things of eternity
and bereavement. We all call that Jabez, a time
of sorrow, a time of great sorrow, though it's designed by God to
graft us more closely into the household of God and to draw
us Upward, upward. It's to make us feel the power
of the world to come. It's to give us a possession
over there. To draw us in that direction.
To draw us up and toward eternity and the things of eternity. And
then chastening. You know, we all call that jabez.
Oh, what a terrible thing, the rod of God is upon my back, and
I'm suffering under the chastening, or the chastening hand of God.
And the scripture says that every son he receives he chastens.
And every one of us here, or most every one of us here, knows
something about what it means to have the rod of God on us.
and we call that Jabez even though afterwards the scripture says
it worketh the peaceable fruit of righteousness you see how
we misjudge and how we miscalculate we're blind and we're deceived
in this beloved you know that we're deceived in all of this
we really are we just simply we look at things wrong we just
don't have a clear view of these things and so we call them Jabez
we're not to look confidentially on what looks promising, nor
despairingly on what looks like it would fail, but were to trust
God. Mark chapter 11 says, have faith
in God, trust God, lean on God, believe God, and quit judging
these things by outward appearance. Quit calling these things jabez,
and start believing God. For as one said, one old writer
said, God often wraps up the withered leaf of disappointment
in the bright purple bud. And as often, he unfolds the
golden flower of enjoyment in the nipped and blighted shoot. Now if you got that, you got
the thrust of what I'm talking about here this morning. Our
experience is full of evidence that there is no depending on
outward appearance or judging by the way things look to us. There is no way that we can do
that, because we just simply are blind to the future, and
we don't know what God's doing. We don't know what the Lord's
doing, but He's got a purpose in everything. And once in a
while, you know, and I'm probably the hardest-headed person in
this building this morning, especially when it comes to learning the
truth of God. I probably am. But I'll tell you this, it's
amazing to me how that I've looked at things at different times
and said to myself, this is where this business of all things working
together for good to them that love God ends. From here on out,
I'm on a different basis. And things are different from
here on out. This thing is going in a way
and in a direction now that is contrary to everything the Word
of God teaches. And I know these things cannot
be for me or for my good. They cannot benefit me. And you
know, over the years, you may have those things in the back
of your mind. And every once in a while there'll be some,
some little thing happen. Some little something or other
the Lord will just show you, just like that in your mind,
that if it hadn't have been for something, something this way,
something that we had made bitter judgment about, something we
said just was just so totally wrong that nothing could ever
be right again. that we would have never been
able to enjoy the blessings that we have at that time. God is
pleased to continue. And like I say, this thing is
bigger than we are. And the Lord has a way. He knows. He is all
wise. And God knows what He's doing.
God knows what's coming right down the road for you. He knows
what He's got planned. He knows what this thing is all
about. We don't. We don't. And so you've
got to be careful when you look at the experiences of life and
say, I give up. You give up? Who are you to give
up on the ways of a sovereign God? Who are you to pass judgment
on God Almighty and what He's doing? Who are you to do that? Who are you to say, well, I know
more than God does. I know more than God does. I'll
end this pregnancy. I'll do this. I'll do that. I'll
do something else. because you're a little god and
you want to feel you're a little god and feel you're in control
and this my friend is contrary to the teaching of the word of
God we gotta be careful about this business of making these
judgments Now then, I don't know whether I've got time to finish
this or not, but I've got about 11.30, is that right? Well, okay,
I'm going to try to finish it within 10 or 15 minutes. Would
that be okay? You've got to go somewhere? If
you do, you'll have to get up and go, I guess, but bear with
me. I want to talk about this prayer a little bit. Okay, so
we have this one that is more honorable than his brother. And
this one that had two or three strikes against him when he was
born. And his mother said, dude, bad time. This boy shouldn't be here, and
it's a bad time. And here's the prayer, though,
that he prays. And he has a prayer. And he calls
on the God of Israel. Listen to it here. He says, And
Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, O that thou wouldst bless
me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be
with me, and that thou wouldst keep me from evil, that it may
not grieve me. And God granted him that which
he requested. Now then, here we have him calling
on the God of Israel. He was an Israelite himself.
and he was calling on the God of Israel. Now in the Old Testament,
we find that the children of Israel would often call upon
the God, and they would call him the God of the fathers, they
would say God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, God of
Israel, Lord God of Israel. And they would use that in calling
upon the Lord. They would speak of God in this
way. But then you remember that in the New Testament, the apostles
and the saints of God would speak of the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Now then, in saying and in calling
upon the God of Israel, he was remembering the past mercies
that God had bestowed upon the nation of Israel, the deliverances
that God had given, and the evils that had been averted coming
upon the nation because of the goodness of God toward them.
And so when he said, God of Israel, That meant, Lord I remember that
you're a God that's been with us, you're a God that's done
something for us, you're a God that's blessed us, you're a God
that's delivered, you're a God that's provided for us. That's
what that means, God of Israel. And then, when the apostles said,
when Paul would say, God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
he was doing the same thing. One of the greatest blessings
that I've ever had in my Christian life is to just solemnly think
of those words, O God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, beloved, if you want a God
to be sympathetic towards you, if you want a God to hear you
when you pray, just remind Him that He is the God and Father
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Any God that would provide Christ
for us, any God that would give His only begotten Son and spare
Him not, but deliver Him up for us all, Paul said He'll freely
give us all things. And one of the greatest encouragements
of my troubled and distressed soul on many, many occasions
has been God is the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. and
in that that He's the Father of Christ. Oh, look at all I
have through Him, and all I have in Him, and surely God means
to do me good in that that He provided Christ for me. And so that's what I get out
of Him calling on the God of Israel. Now then, God is a very
present help in the time of trouble, and I want us to consider this
morning what he prayed for. And first of all, he prayed and
said, Oh, that thou wouldest bless me indeed. I want you to
bless me indeed. Now, beloved, this is quite a
prayer. This is quite a prayer. Many
things pass for blessings which are not blessings indeed. There is a blessing in appearance
which is not also a blessing in reality. And the reality may
exist where the appearance is wanting. For an example, the
man who is in a prosperous state appears to have been blessed
indeed. But that's not necessarily so. You don't know anything about
his bills, do you? You don't know nothing about
tax time that's coming up. It may wipe him out. And then you say, well, the man
who has is the man who's blessed indeed. But how often does God
bless an individual by withholding something from them? Don't you
think that God could bless An individual as much by withholding
something from him that would ruin him as he would by giving
him something that would eventually turn out to be the worst thing
that could happen for him? Don't you think that would be
as much of a blessing for God to withhold it as to give something?
I think it would be. I think we need to understand
that. Now listen to this. Send me that which thou knowest
is a blessing. That's what this man is saying.
Though it may not seem a blessing to me and he says deny me that
which Lord you know is not a blessing however ready I in my ignorance
may think it to be so. That's what this man is praying.
That's how he's praying. Lord bless me indeed Indeed the emphasis
on the indeed bless me indeed The spirit of the prayer is that
of confidence in God John Gill says the spirit of the prayer
is that of confidence in God and unqualified acquiescence
in his appointment You see we don't know just what to pray
for And we see we need to ask God like Jabez did. He's an honorable
man, you know. More than his brethren. And he
said, you bless me. You bless me indeed. You'll bless
me with something I think is the thing I ought to have. You
bless me with that what, that you know is a blessing. You give
me a real blessing. A real blessing. So we leave
it to him to bless us. Well, we could talk about the
many apparent blessings that there are, that we seem to have
or seem to get in this world, but beloved, there are many,
many things that we think are blessings that turn out to be
no blessing at all. Some of the apparent blessings,
which are real, would be the fear of God. That's a real blessing. And then some intimation of God's
favor toward us. Did God ever do anything in your
life that showed you beyond a doubt that God was for you? You know,
Paul said that if God be for us, what good does it do anybody
to be against us? Do you know God's for you? Do
you know it? Somebody tell you that He was?
Or do you know it? If you could get some intimation
in your soul today that God is with you and for you, don't you
think that'd be a valuable blessing? I think it would be. I think
it would be and I think that I've received that and I rejoice
in that. Now the revelation of Christ
to the soul is a real blessing. That is a real blessing indeed.
Do you know Christ? Do you know the forgiveness of
sin? Do you know that your sins are under the blood? Do you know
Christ? Has He been revealed to your
heart? That's a real blessing. And then do you have that spirit
of unreserved trust in the Lord? That you just trust God. And
whatever happens, sink or swim, I just trust the Lord. You know,
I ran across this poem the other day. I really like it. Let me
give it to you. It says, Oh, this unstable heart
of mine, it's like the troubled sea. The more I have, the more
I want. When shall I settle be? I know
this wretched world can't fill this anxious soul of mine. Oh,
could I to my father's will, my soul, my all resign. If I could just trust God unreservedly. You know, if a man can do that,
that's a real blessing. That's a real blessing. That
fella, he ain't gonna have the, probably won't have an ulcer.
And he probably won't have to take much Maalox. He probably
would just be pretty well, you know, it doesn't mean that a
fella's not trusting God if he has to take a little Maalox once
in a while, or what do you call them, Tums, or something like
that, but probably things would be better with ya. I know they'd
be better with ya. It wouldn't be as much stress
on ya. if you trust the Lord. And then if you had an appetite
for the Word of God, that'd be a blessing indeed, wouldn't it?
That'd be a blessing indeed. All right, now the second part
of his prayer was, he said, enlarge my coast. enlarge my coast. Now a coast means a boundary
line, such as divides one territory from another, like the seacoast
is the boundary of an island. And every believer, every quickened
soul, has a coast, the territory of inward experience, which is
limited and bounded by the line that the Holy Spirit has drawn
in his conscience. In other words, every one of
us are at a different place spiritually in our growth. and there's a
whole lot more. that we need to explore. Just
take for an example the Word of God. How much unpossessed
territory is there in the Word of God that you've never even
looked at? You know, we all have our favorite
verses, and we'll read them every once in a while, but there's
so much of the Bible that we just occasionally notice, or
we don't even notice it at all. We pay no attention to it. There's
so much of the Bible that we need to be looking at. We all
live just within these narrow bounds. We need to pray like
old Jabez did, Lord enlarge my coast, let me to grow up spiritually,
have a bigger heart, to know the things of God, and to be
what you want me to be. Now then, the next thing he says
is, and that thy hand might be with me. I want your hand to
be with me. I want you to bless me indeed,
I want you to enlarge my coast, and I want your hand to be with
me. Now beloved, the hand that directs and supports and supplies
and chastens us is the hand of the Lord. And we want that hand
to be with us. There can be nothing more delightful
to the child of God than the constant recognition of the fact
that his father's hand is with him. Pointing out to him the
path of life and the way of life that the father's hand is with
him to provide and to comfort and lead and direct and Then
the last thing he prays for the fourth thing is that thou wouldest
keep me from evil That it may not grieve me now the evil here
You know the scripture says shall we receive good at the hand of
God and shall we not receive evil and I think that's Isaiah
45 and verse 7. Now this is not talking about
moral evil. This is not talking about sin. Sin is not intended
here. When he says, oh that you would
keep me from evil, what he's talking about, he's talking about
some of these calamitous situations that happen and befall us in
this life, like what happened to old Job. And he says when
these kind of things happen, and they're bound to happen,
He says, Lord, don't let them grieve me. Don't let this grieve
me. And we all have had some experiences
with some things coming into our lives that grieved us greatly. Grieved us to the point where
that we just were in rebellion. And we were not submissive to
God in the matter. We couldn't submit to the situation. It grieved us. And he is grieved
by evil, John Gill said, who does not receive it. If a man
doesn't say, well, if evil comes, and that means these things that,
as we explained, that happens in this life, we can't explain
why. And when we don't receive it
as from the hand of the Lord, saying as Job did, the Lord hath
given. Evil coming and trying us May
do us a great good But Jabez prayed and we may also pray that
evil should not grieve us Overcome evil with good But don't let
evil Overcome you do not be overcome of evil overcome evil with good
We may pray that evil may never be allowed to harden us, that
evil may not make us fretful, that it may not make us rebellious,
that it may not make us impatient. Whatever happens, and brother,
sister, you better get your feet chopped. There's a lot of things
going on and we're not going to always be untouched by what's
happening around us. Chalk your feet. and begin to
pray like old Jabez did. I don't know how many people
I heard say down there and over the television newscast and so
on, Oklahoma City, we heard these things happen to other people,
but now they're happening to us. And one of these days, some
of the things that happen to other people happen to us. You
better have your feet checked. You better have your feet chalked. and begin to pray like old Jabez,
let not evil grieve me. Don't let it harden me. Don't
let it drive me away from you, Lord. Don't let it just ruin
my life. Don't let it just make me just
appear to be nothing. I have no faith, no confidence
in God, no ability to weather a storm, no ability to stand
fast. You know the scripture says that
if you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is weak. Your strength is weakness. You're
weak if you faint in the day of adversity. Your faith is small. Your strength is small. So then
it says that this is the way Jabez prayed. He said, Lord,
bless me indeed. Bless me indeed. Enlarge my coast. Let your hand be with me. And
then don't let evil grieve me. keep me from evil and don't let
it grieve me. And you know what scripture says?
And it said God heard him. God heard him and granted him
his request. You know I like this so much
because you know I couldn't begin to tell you
people how I grew up and how I was raised And how I felt most
of my life, I couldn't tell you. But I want you to know this,
that I just somehow or other just
kind of feel like that, you know, I wasn't voted the most likely
to succeed when I graduated from high school. There's some others.
I think Grace Hanna probably is going to be the, I think she's
going to get that designation as probably the most likely to
succeed. I think they already told her
that. But anyway, I certainly, what nobody expected much come
from me, I'll tell you that. And there hadn't been a whole
lot. But I will tell you this, that old Jabez, his mother gave
up on him when he was born, you know, since, but yet he was more
honorable than all of his brethren. And he prayed this prayer that
God heard, and God answered. And so I just, I don't know whether
I've made this clear, whether it's been of any help to you,
but that's the burden of my heart this morning. I trust the Lord
will use it in every one of our hearts. Be careful the way you
look at things. Be careful. And don't ever discount
God and say, because this looks bad, this looks bad, and this
thing looks bad, I better not go on with my life. Do you know
that we're living in a time when there's more suicides among young
people than any time I can remember in my own lifetime? And it's for that very reason
right there. They're so smart it can't ever be right. It just won't ever work for us. This thing is bigger than we
are. And you've got to trust God with it. He's the Lord of
life. And you've got to trust God.
Father, in the name of Jesus, receive the glory and the praise
of our hearts this morning, and bless this service. Thank you
again for every mother here, and thank you for our mothers.
And we ask your blessing, Lord, now upon this message. May it
be carried out of here, and may there be much meditation upon
the things that's been said here this morning, and may it be kept
in remembrance. In Jesus' name, amen.