Triumph Through Trials part 2 Wisdom is Needed

Now, we have really just gotten started in the book of James, verse by verse, chapter by chapter, sometimes word by word, going through the wonderful book, the little book of James. Now, what we have really grown to understand as we've just gotten started is the tremendous need for the lost world to see true Christian works come out of our lives, thus the series title "Good Works Flow Through Good Faith." Now, I want to say to you, there's only one kind of good faith, and that's the born again Bible way. And the world that we live in desperately needs to see just good Christian works flow out of our lives.

I said it because I quoted someone else, "We do not need to give the world a new definition of Christianity, but the world needs to see a fresh demonstration of Christianity." And I think that the book of James will just lead us down that path of being Christians who express good works by the way they live. Now, last week we established the fact that trials, they are a part of real Christianity, the real Christian's life. It is not if trials come, it is when trials come. It's not a question of if or how many. Trials will come, they do come, and trials, they will be many. Now, I want to say this to you.

If you have not listened and studied last week's message, you need that. Some of you have come to me and asked me for notes. Some of you have asked me for messages, and I think it's extremely important that you listen to, study, and you digest last week's message. Last week's message was called "Triumph Through Trials." Our faith is tested. And this morning the message is part two, "Triumph Through Trials." Wisdom is needed. We're just going to continue with the verse. Now, this is of utmost importance that we understand God's purpose in trials for us as Christians. It is about building Christ's likeness in us.

It is about building usefulness in us. There's a Bible word that some preachers use, I've used. This word is called sanctification. This is part of the work of sanctification. I ran across something that Warren Wiersby, the Bible commentator, said. He said, "God can't build character without our cooperation." And aren't we learning? Aren't we having to realize that we must cooperate with God in trials to create Christ's likeness and usefulness in us? This is sanctification. Now, we must understand. We must submit. I want to say to you, church, we must even welcome trials because we know that it is God's plan to work in us.

And we learned last week that we are commanded to do this with joy. That sounds like an odd thing. I was reminded in this study of a story of a preacher that I heard. This preacher was a pretty famous preacher in the country where he lived. He was at a very big church, very successful, preaching a successful ministry, God using him. And God came and God worked in his life. And God led him to resign his position at this pretty successful church. And he felt led to go into some new direction, into some new ministry endeavors. And he moved his family to another country.

And when he moved his family to the other country, all of those hopes and dreams, all of those new ministry opportunities, one by one, began to just dissolve, begin to fall away. They did not come to fruition. And he began to be in a time, he called it a desert situation. And his wife came to him and began to console him and begin to try to perk him up. And he looked at his wife. And as the story was told, he rebuked his wife and said, "Do not rob me of my desert experience." What am I trying to say?

That man knew that he must welcome trials into his life because they are part of God's work to make us more like Christ and make us useful for kingdom endeavors. And so I want to say to you this morning, we must submit to trials. We must even welcome trials. We look for him, that's the living Lord Jesus, and his work in trials. And I want to tell you that mature Christians can even be excited because they know that they are part of God's working in their life. And this is where the men are separated from the boys.

This is where the mature Christians who live life in victory are separated from Christians who flip, who flop, who waver left and right. I'll say it again, this is where the men are separated from the boys. And I'm going to tell you, church, it takes preaching like last week. It takes preaching like this morning. It takes digesting these truths even when it may hurt. And it takes walking with God through trials to embrace this and understand this and let God fully bring us to maturity and completeness like we learned last week.

Now, before we move on from trials, we must see that there is so much more that the Lord wants to teach us in these verses. There is more to understanding trials and understanding God's work in trials. That's why we have part two to triumph through trials. I've already given you the title of the message. Triumph through trials, part two, wisdom is needed. Now we will be in verses five through eight, but I will go back and I will start reading the verse two because verses two through four are part of these verses. They all go together. We just divided it into messages. Let's look at the text together.

Verse two, consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance and let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. Here's where we will be this morning. But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all men generously and without reproach and it will be given to him.

But let him ask in faith without any doubting for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven in tossed by the wind for let not that man expect that he would receive anything from the Lord being a double minded man, unstable in all of his ways. Now if you're taking notes, I want to tell you the two main points that we will look at this morning. There's only two. We will see number one, we must seek wisdom and then number two, we will see we must seek wisdom in faith. Only two points this morning, but there's so much truth to hang on these two main points.

So if you're taking notes, Roman numeral one or number one, as we experience trials, we know now that trials will come. They are inevitable. They've embraced it. And as we experience trials, number one, we must seek wisdom. We see that right away in verse five. But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all men generously without reproach and it will be given to him. That is the subject of verse five. But I want to ask you a question. What is wisdom? What is wisdom? A lot of people who misunderstand what wisdom is. One definition that I found was extremely simplistic. It said wisdom is the right use of knowledge.

One misunderstanding of wisdom is thinking that wisdom is knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Knowledge is gained through study. Knowledge is gained by our efforts, by our good works. Knowledge is gained through study. But spiritual wisdom is given by God. Now listen, through experience, there is a tremendous difference. In true wisdom, I heard someone say or I read someone that said, in true wisdom, we discern God's divine dealings and we seek to profit from them. Now let me give you an example. I used to go to church with a man. He was very educated. He was educated at a Christian, Baptist Christian institution.

As a matter of fact, he taught in a Christian institution. As a matter of fact, he was a leader in the church. He held many different offices in the church, taught Sunday school, you name it. And if you peeked over his shoulder in church, I'm telling you there wasn't a page on his Bible that wasn't marked. You could mention a book of the Bible and he could open his mouth and rattle off tremendous information. Any sermon that was preached, any verse that was quoted, any Sunday school lesson taught, he was full of Bible knowledge, but he was very foolish. He did not possess any wisdom.

He could not make one decision in life according to the will of God. Knowledge is not wisdom. But I'll never forget, I knew a man one time. He was a very uneducated man. He was a very rebellious man. He was in the drugs and he was in the alcohol and God gloriously saved him. And in a matter of a few short months, the limited Bible knowledge that he had, he could take that Bible knowledge and because he had a living, breathing experience with God day by day, he was a very wise man and meaning matters of life. That is wisdom. Wisdom is not knowledge.

Spiritual wisdom is given by God and it is coupled with knowledge and it is lived out through experience. That's wisdom. We have failed to understand this and many times when someone comes along and they have knowledge, we assume they are wise. One definition I ran across or one quotation or commentator said, John McCrauthery says, "Strong, sound faith is not based on feelings but on knowledge and understanding of the promises of God's truth which is spiritual wisdom." It's knowledge that is experienced and it is enlightened by the living God as he works in our lives. So we must seek wisdom and let's just divide this verse.

Let's dive into this verse and let us just be taught what we must do to seek wisdom. So under Roman numeral one, we seek wisdom. I want you to see a truth. I want us to see our responsibility. Our responsibility. What does he say? But if any of you likes wisdom, here we go. Let him ask of God who gives to all men generously without reproach. And I want us to just divide this text and see our responsibility. First, we must see our need for wisdom. We must see our need for wisdom. Whether you know it or not, whether I know it or not, all of us are in desperate need of wisdom.

We see this truth taught in the book of Proverbs, chapter two, starting in verse one. The writer of Proverbs says, "My son, if you will receive my sins and my treasure and treasure my commandments within you, make your ear attentive to wisdom and climb your heart to understanding for if you cry for discernment, lift your voice for understanding. If you seek her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasures, then you will discern the fear of the Lord and discover the knowledge of God for the Lord gives wisdom from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

And if you take the book of Proverbs and you thumb through chapter three is about wisdom. If you throw them through some more, you will get over to chapter seven and chapter eight and chapter nine. What are they about? Wisdom, wisdom, wisdom and man's tremendous need for wisdom. Who wrote the book of Proverbs? Many people say the wisest man who has ever lived. What did Solomon do? He said, God, if you would just give me wisdom. Therefore he pinned many words of wisdom in the word of God. And I want to tell you, we desperately need wisdom today.

The second thing I want you to see is in the verse, we must ask for wisdom, but if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God. Now something that's extremely important with this asking of God is the original construction of the language in the new American standard, the King James, the English standard version, it says the same thing. Let him ask. Now the, in the original language, this is in the imperative form. What does that mean? It means that it is a command. It does not mean that it's a suggestion. This is not good advice. This is not option one, option two, option three. James is giving them a command.

He is saying, but if any of you lacks wisdom, I command you to ask of God. So we are commanded number two, to ask for wisdom in the number three. I want us to see, we must ask now listen, God for wisdom. I read it earlier. I'll read it again. Proverbs two verse six for the Lord gives wisdom from his mouth, come knowledge and understanding. You might say, well preacher, you've already said that. Most people make a tremendous mistake here. They come into crisis in their life. They have problems in their life. They have trials and they know they have a need. They know they need answers. They know that they need help.

They know that they have problems that are far greater than they are. They are sinking beneath the problems that they have, but they fail to come to God because many people, they will rush to the feet of another man. They were rushed to a book that was written by a man. They will rush to a friend or even their pastor and they will seek advice from them when truly they should go into their prayer closet and they should close the door. And according to this verse, they are commanded to seek wisdom from God. That is our responsibility. And it's so easy to just read past this verse.

It's so easy to just ease on through there and not see the great importance here of our responsibility. And I want to tell you people, if you are in the midst of a trial, if trial has enveloped you or when trial does come, you need not seek any advice from any other man. If you do, sometimes you will thwart the commandment of God. You go to the living God. You submit yourself to Him and you say, "God, I am being obedient to what You have commanded me to do." I want us to see God's commitment to us. God's commitment to us. We've seen man's responsibility, but now let us look at God's commitment to us.

But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God. Now it changes right here and it shifts from us who gives to all men generously and without reproach and it will be given to him. Now we see God has made a commitment to us. He's committed Himself to us Christians. First I want you to see that God will give to all who ask. Isn't that what He says? Let him ask of God who gives to all. So according to what we've read, God will give to all men who ask. What this tells us is God does not show favoritism. God is no respecter of men. The only qualification is that they would come and obey the commandment and ask of God.

Then second I want you to see God will give generously. Isn't that what the Scripture says? Who gives to all men generously. Now the word generously in the original carries the idea of single-mindedness or a single-heartedness, doing something unconditionally. So what we see here is when we're obedient to the commandment of God and we ask of God, God will come and He will give to all who ask and He gives generously and God comes in a single-minded, single-hearted manner in an unconditional manner responding to our request. Then also I want you to see that God will give without reprimand. That's what this word reproach means.

But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all men generously and without reproach. What does the word say here? God will give this wisdom without reprimand. God does not give the wisdom out in one hand and reprimand us in the other hand. No, it simply means that God will come in a loving manner without reprimand to give that which we need. Do you see the picture? Do you see the picture? Number one, we must seek wisdom. We understand what wisdom is. We see our responsibility. It's very simplistic. It's very childlike. But we also see God's commitment to us in the verse.

This is a wonderful picture that we have begun to see develop here and we must understand our need for wisdom. We must understand our responsibility that we are commanded to come. We are commanded to ask, but notice this. We see the wonderful, loving, caring heart of God. We see a loving God, a single-minded God, a caring God who wants to come without reprimand and give us that which we need when we are in the midst of our trial. I was reminded of how this needs to be clarified. I can remember years ago my home church pastor sharing.

She stood up in a group, a small group setting, and she shared that when she came to Christ, she had a faulty understanding of God the Father. She said, "I viewed God the Father based off of the earthly father that I had." She described the relationship that she had with her earthly father. She said God had done a wonderful work in her life where she did not see God as a big policeman in the sky with a stick and wanting to bop her over the head at any Bible in life. She began to weep and cry and say that she saw that God was a loving, heavenly Father, and He was not about ready to punch her in the mouth every time something went wrong.

This is the picture of God. But also I was reminded of those who have a faulty understanding of prayer. They have a faulty understanding of their relationship with God. There are some that say, "Well, I just pray because I'm commanded to." That's been gutted. When we say that, when we just have this artificial, bland commitment to prayer, what we have done is we have just ripped the guts right out of this verse. Because in this verse when trial has enveloped our lives, we see that our greatest need is wisdom and He has commanded us. Now get this, God the Father, who has said, "I will give all the wisdom you need without reproach.

I will give it to you lovingly." That is His heart. And He says, "And I commend you to come to Me." Isn't this beautiful? Isn't this wonderful? And our response should be to this verse that our heart is warm because we have a loving relationship with our heavenly Father. Not that He's some big Santa Claus in the sky. No, we are not maligning the very character and holiness of God, but it is God who has listed Himself this way in the text. Two of the greatest mistakes I believe people make is they don't come to God.

They go to this book and they go to this book and they listen to this sermon and they listen to this hero of the faith and they go to this man and they go to that man and they never just shut up, sit down and get humble before God and say, "God, I just gotta have you." And the other mistake is I think we fail to understand that God desires to give us what we need and that is wisdom in trial. Now as we continue, I want us to see the second main point. As we experience trials, we must seek wisdom by faith. We must seek wisdom by faith.

Look at verse 6, "But let Him ask in faith without any doubting." It's almost like James is saying the same thing, but yet he's adding another layer. I think that's what he's doing. He said if any of you likes wisdom, ask of God. Now he's saying, "But if any of you are let Him ask in faith." He's adding another dimension and it causes us to ask another question. What is faith? Many people misunderstand faith. They mix up faith with hope. Faith is not hope. Faith has an object. Well you might say, "Yeah preacher, it has an object. It's an answer to my prayer." That's the object. No, that's not the object of faith. God is.

God is the ultimate object of faith. Let me give you an example. Don't turn there. I'm not gonna turn there. Matthew chapter 15 verse 21 through 28, it's the story of the Cyril Phoenician woman. She was a Gentile. I preached on this woman when we were going through the gospel in the book of Mark, but that woman was a Gentile and she had a demon-possessed child. She comes to Jesus and Jesus said this, "Go away from me woman. I've come to the law sheep of Israel." And oh, she humbled herself and she said, "Yes Lord, but even the dogs get the crumbs out from under the table." And what did he do?

He turned around and he granted her request and who was her faith in? Her faith was in Christ. He was the object of her faith. Hebrews chapter 11, I will turn there. Hebrews chapter 11 verse 6, writer of Hebrews says, "And without faith it is impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is." What does that mean? When we have faith, he is the sinner of our faith. Our faith isn't just hope. You know the story of the old boy is broke, can't pay his bills, he goes down to the convenience store and he buys him a lottery ticket and he hopes he wins the lottery. A lot of people view faith that way. That's not faith.

Faith has an object and our faith rests in Christ. In our case, Christian faith is in God through a personal relationship because he has saved us. I'll give you an earthly example. It's kind of an easy one. I have two daughters. My oldest is at the age now where she's starting to ask questions about work and bills and money, you know things like that. Why do you leave the house? Why do you come home? Those kinds of things. But whether my children know it or not, my children have faith that I will provide for them.

My children have faith that I will provide materially for them, emotionally for them, physically for them, I've already said that, spiritually for them. They look, they trust me. And when I go out to work, my children do not run outside and run up to my dirty Ford pickup and hug the truck and kiss it and say, "I'm so glad you're going to take my daddy to go to work so he can bring home money to take care of us." They have faith in me. They know it is me. I go out and I do what I have to do to provide for my family. Look, that's the way our relationship is with the living Lord God. We have faith in Him. That's the dimension, the added layer.

Now let's divide the text. Verse 6, "Now let him ask in faith without doubting." So we see first, we ask in faith. We have learned that we ask, but we see now we ask in faith. He is the source. And look, again, I go back to the verse and I want you to see, in the original, this is an imperative. I know you might get tired of hearing imperative, imperative. This is key. This is something we must see because the reason it is an imperative, this is not a suggestion. This is not just something that we can take it or leave it. He commands us to come and ask in faith.

God is saying, "I command you to come and come ask of me, but I am the center of your request, the center of your problem, the very center of your heart." This is an imperative. He commands us to ask in faith. He is being the center. He must be the center of our being, the center of our asking, the center of our trial. That's asking in faith. And second, I want you to see that we must ask without doubting. But let him ask in faith without doubting. We must ask without doubting. Now, when we doubt, do we doubt our request? Let me repeat that again. When we doubt, do we doubt our request? No. When we doubt, we doubt who God is.

When we come as Christians, and when we ask Him, when we seek Him, when we knock, and when we ask by faith, but yet when we doubt, we doubt who God is. We doubt His word. We doubt His ability. We doubt His trustworthiness. And we doubt even His very character. We doubt. And that's what He's teaching. He's saying, "You ask and you ask of me in faith, me being the very center, and when you ask, you ask my faith without one shred of doubt." That's what He's saying. And we must see that God is teaching us how we are to ask. We ask just like the Scripture says. We see this all through the Scriptures.

You don't have to turn there, but one of my favorite passages on prayer that God has taught me so much is in Luke chapter 11. And this great parable, this great teaching on prayer, it teaches us how to ask in faith. We see if we divide the text that Jesus teaches the disciples to have perspective in prayer, thus vision in prayer. He teaches them to have persistence in prayer. He teaches them to have progression in prayer. He teaches them that there is a promise in prayer. And in that promise in prayer is at the very end of the teaching in verse 13. Because this is what He says.

If you then, talking to the disciples, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? What are we seeing? The Spirit of God is the very object of our prayer. Who are we praying to? We're praying to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. All three have a role and we understand that, that's the great trinity. We understand the totality of who God is by faith. But what we see here in Luke 11, that it is God who is the center of our praying. It is God who is the center of our asking. And we do this by faith. And our faith rests in Him.

Not some little whim, not some little fancy, not some little cheap hope. And this can only be grasped by understanding that as saved individuals, we have a living relationship with Christ. Only born again people can understand this people. If you don't know Christ, you cannot understand this. Now there's another dimension to these verses and I want you to see. The second portion of verse 6 on now, notice what he says. "For the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.

However, let not the man expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways." Now I wrestled with how to deal with this portion of text, this portion of scripture. And let me show you how I dealt with it. I want to give us, now listen, the picture of the doubter. I want to paint for you a picture of the doubter. We see this starting in the verse 6 on down. I want to show you what the doubter looks like. First of all, the doubter, he's like the sea. And then what the second portion of verse 6 says, "For the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea." That's the water.

"Driven and tossed by the wind." And what James is saying is, the one who doubts is just like the sea. He's tossed here, he's tossed there, he's tossed over here, he's tossed over there, he's tossed up, he's tossed down. What do we have here? This is the picture of immaturity. This is the picture of one who is not strong in their faith. They do not trust God like they should. And left in this state, they will go from bad to worse automatically. This is the picture of the doubter. He is immature. He's tossed here, he's tossed there, and that's what James is saying. For the one who doubts is like the surf or the waves of the sea.

The second thing in this picture I want you to see is the doubter, he receives nothing from God. "For the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For, let not that man expect that he will receive anything from the Lord." This is the doubter, and he will receive nothing. What does that mean? He receives no direction. He receives no guidance. He receives no instruction. He's tossed here by his doubt. He's tossed over there by his doubt.

And even though he might say with his words one thing, because he will not trust by faith, he is a doubter, and he will receive no direction, and he will wander aimlessly in life, here and there, to and fro. Therefore, again, he will go from bad to worse every time. What's the other item of the picture? Third, I want you to see that the doubter is double-minded. Isn't that what he says? "For let not the man expect that he would receive anything from the Lord." Verse 8, "Being a double-minded man." Some translations say doubting and hesitating. What do we see here? He is a doubting man. He is a hesitating man.

He thinks he can go this way, but then he says, "No, I need to go that way." He thinks this is right over here, but then he says, "No, this is right over there." He goes here. He goes there. He's double-minded. He thinks one way. He thinks another way. You don't know what he's going to do on Monday, because it's going to change on Tuesday. You see the picture? He is double-minded. Minded. He is doubting. He is hesitating. And we see the picture again. This is immaturity. There's no direction, because he will not receive instruction from God. He thinks one way. He thinks another. And again, bad to worse.

And then I want you to see the fourth thing about the picture. The doubter is an unstable man in all of his ways. Being a double-minded man, unstable, verse 7, in all his ways. What do we see here? He's unstable. You can't put any hope in anything about him. Immature. No direction. No God. It's from God. He thinks about the things of God one minute, and then he lets go of them the next. He goes here, he goes there, he goes everywhere. There is no straight line of direction in following the lordship of Christ. And look, that man is an unstable man. You get the picture? This is a picture of one which is in defeat. There is no victory.

Look, the trial has come. Isn't that right? We learned that last week. The trial has enveloped their life, but because they've not been obedient to the Scripture, what has happened? They are failing the test of God. And look, we have examples in the Scripture. Lot is a great one. Don't we know the story of Lot? If you don't know the story of Lot, you need to go read the story of Lot, because Abraham went to the Promised Land. Lot went with him. There was a day when God blessed Abraham. God blessed Lot. They had many animals. They had many herds. They had many herdsmen. And one day they became a rift.

They became a fight between the two houses. And Lot said, "We must leave." Abraham said, "No." But Lot said, "We must leave." And Abraham said, "Wherever you go, I'll go the opposite way." And the Scripture says that Lot looked. He looked towards the hills of Sodom, and he saw good pasture. See there was the test. He could stay in the Promised Land with God's people and work out their problems. But no, he chose to look the way of the world, and there was good grass near Sodom. And if you see the progression, he went near Sodom, and then he was in Sodom. And then lo and behold, he was at the very city gates of Sodom.

That means he was a man of prominence in the very wicked city. He failed the test, and he was unstable in every way. As a matter of fact, when God rescued him by Abraham, when God sent a great rescue party, God got his possessions back, his wife back, all of his goods back, and what did he do? Because he was unstable, he was double-minded, he went right back. And if you follow his life and you look what happened, look, he lost his verbal witness for Christ. Why? Because when God was going to judge the city, he told his sons-in-laws, "Come on, let's flee the city," and they laughed. He had no testimony.

He lost his family because his wife died. He lost all of his goods, and he finally got out of the city with just his daughters. And if you follow the story, his daughters got him drunk, they slept with him to preserve their family line. And listen to this. The very descendants of Lot became the people groups who were the enemies of God. He lost his heritage. And later the people of God, God said, "Kill him." And if it wasn't but for 1st and 2nd Peter, the writings of Peter, we would not think that Lot was even saved. What am I showing you? The picture of an unstable man because he failed the test.

And a great picture of God's grace because God did rescue him once. But he failed. He failed. I was talking to Brother Keith last night on our drive home, and I was telling him about how good this was, the nuts and bolts of it. And I just knew it would minister to people and how it really tied to last week's message. And I didn't want to divide it up by moving on to another subject. And I tell you what Brother Keith said. He said, "This isn't chicken soup for the soul." I said, "No, it's not." Let me tell you what kind of Christianity this is. This is roll up your sleeves, get your fingernails in the dirt.

This is getting your elbows down, bruised knees, crying, tearing eyes, sweating and praying and getting through the trial, waiting on God even when you cannot see daylight. This is knuckling down and holding on to the very work of God and not giving up because you're fearful of failing the test. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is where the men and the boys are separated. And look, I was talking with a good Christian friend of mine this week who's a little older than me and been saved long and been in ministry with me, been in ministry longer and he said it like this. Some of these young guys, they had to live their life.

This is how you live your life. This is what puts those gray hairs in your head. And look, makes you the mature man and woman of God that he wants you to be. Now, as I close, I want to ask you to close your Bible. Put away your notes. I'm not going to share anything else that needs to be written down. I want to tell you how I know this because of my trial. Let me explain what I mean. As I've been studying to preach this and studying to teach it and studying James for quite some time, God has been teaching me now listen in hindsight. In 2006, I left a difficult ministry situation. I left under a set of circumstances that I didn't choose.

And there I embarked on my spiritual trial. Oh, I had trials before, but never one like this. And see for me, my trial lasted about five years. Oh, several months to a couple of months before it all just blew apart. God was preparing me and God was giving me verse after verse, chapter after chapter, promise after promise, preparing me for the rough waters. I think of Psalm chapter 40. I think of John chapter 21. I think of Revelation chapter two. I think of so much that God did to prepare me. God worked in my life and I experienced tremendous revival in my life prior to the trial.

And it was almost like something in me knew that something was coming. I lost the ministry that God had given me. Now I was in ministry 10 years and then all of a sudden God jerked the rug out from under my feet. And I've said it like this. Not only did he take the rug out from under my feet, but the four too. God put me in a job that I didn't like. My income was cut in half. Praise the Lord because we live within our means. All we did was make some adjustments. And I just didn't like it. I hated it. And look, I struggled. I wavered. I had a hard time. Look, I can remember going to work and I want to get to work. I would stare at my watch.

People would say, "Why are you looking at your watch?" Couldn't wait for break time. And then after break time, I'd look at my watch and people would say, "Why are you looking at your watch?" I'd wait for lunch. And then after lunch, I would look. Couldn't wait for quitting time. I can remember begging God to get me out of the circumstances. I did not like it. And look, I didn't fight bitterness. I didn't fight anger. I fought depression. And I'll never forget a couple of times when I just could not keep going. I remember coming home and I think I just took my work boots off and I got into bed in my work clothes, dust and dirt and all.

And I just pulled the covers over my head. I said, "God, I quit. I just can't. I'm tired of it." Out here knock on my bedroom door. And I'd be kissed. And say, "What are you doing?" I said, "I can't." He said, "You got to. I gotta have you." And I just couldn't. But see, all the while I was fighting this battle. Yes, I was praying. I was praying in a sacrificial way. I was holding on the things that God had taught me. I remember holding on the truth and I would just look at the words and say, "God, this meant something one day in the past and it doesn't feel good anymore." But I would just hold on.

I remember all of the things I did to try to better my own life. I tried to get better jobs. I tried to make decisions on my own when all along God was saying Psalm 40 verses 1, 2, 3, "Just sit down and wait, son. Just wait." I remember I would travel and preach. I would remember I would go to a church and I'd have on my coat and tie and I'd walk in the door and I'd sit down and I would stand up to preach and it was like I became another person and I would preach and I can remember preaching thinking, "I like this God." And I would come down and I can remember being so hurt I wanted people to stand about 10 feet from me.

I wanted to say, "Hey, how you doing?" I can remember going to church when I wasn't preaching and I've always been good with people and comfortable with people. I've never been a bruised person, but I can remember being in the church and thinking, "I just wish people would be nice to me because I've been so hurt." I've been in the church for a long time and I've been in the church for a long time and I've been in the church for a long time and I've been in the church for a long time and I've been in the church for a long time and I've been in the church for a long time and I've been in the church for a long time and I've been in the church for a long time and something would come along, some circumstance would come along and I would take my eyes off the living Lord and I would just glance for a moment at my circumstances and back under the water I'd go.

And what God showed me was how I had, without even knowing it, I had become a doubter and I would waver here and I would waver there and then sometimes God would just correct me because I never quit praying. I never quit being in the Word and God, He would redirect me. He would redirect me and I barely had the strength to get through. What am I trying to show you? When trial comes, we simply obey what this says and why does God do this?

He does this because He is a loving God, a good God, a heavenly Father who wants to mold us into His Son Jesus, who wants to make us like His Son Jesus and make us more useful and today I can stand here and say I am more useful for kingdom work because of what God did before 2006 and I rejoice in it and I thank God for it and I wouldn't trade it for the world. Now, have I been stoned like Paul? No. Was I placed on the island of Patmos like John? No. Was I locked up in prison like some of our Indian brothers that we've heard about? No. Was it the trial that God brought my way? Now what am I trying to show you this morning?

We must triumph through trials and if we don't come through the trial and victory, we will be in the trial in defeat and if we are true born again Christians, God will just keep us there and keep us there. You know what I have wondered before? I have wondered if I would have handled the trial a little better. I've wondered, maybe the trial wouldn't have lasted quite as long. I've wondered. I've wondered if God just said to Himself, "If the boy would just trust me, I could get him on through quicker." I don't know the answer to that, but I do know this. We must triumph through the trials. God just taught me this and this is good stuff.

You need it and I need it and this is what produces mature, victorious, solid Christians. Amen? Amen. Father, I thank You for Your precious Word. I thank You for the truth that prepares us for the future. I thank You for the truth that teaches us what Your character is like.