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Amazing Facts

Joe Crews

Trials Part 1

The decisive Battle of Waterloo was a crushing defeat for the French forces under Napoleon.

But for 2 days, the people of London believed that the English army had been defeated.

I'll be back in a moment with the amazing facts about the Garbo message and its unexpected results.

Hello, this is Joe Cruz and the Amazing Facts broadcast.

We're going to deal today with the problem of human suffering.

Trials and afflictions do not impress us very much until they strike our own home or our own families, and then we begin to question God sometimes.

We begin to wonder why He has permitted difficulties and reverses to come to us.

With all the teaching and examples of the Bible before us, friends, suffering should no longer be considered a strange development in human experience.

The time should come when our faith will be able to oversee the trials and accept them as a part of our life plan.

I don't know how long it took these different men of the Bible, but Paul and James and John finally came to rejoice in their persecutions.

Even Peter could say, Rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's suffering.

Now, I am not going to try to tell you how to reach this point, friends, that these men reached.

I can't tell you because I've not been in your shoes.

I've not suffered as you've suffered, and you can't put yourself in my place either.

In spite of the mysteries in every individual case, God is still working in our behalf through His marvelous power.

In 1 Corinthians 10.13 we read these words, 1 Corinthians 10.13, But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way of escape that ye may be able to bear it.

Now the most wonderful thing in the world would be for every human being to reach this point of absolute resignation to God's will.

If only we could leave the future in his hands and accept the possible events of tomorrow in faith.

Have you ever struggled with yourself over this question?

Have you ever wondered if God's way might lead you through thorny paths tomorrow?

We don't even know what 1 hour will bring forth.

Only God understands the events of the future.

No doubt many who are listening to this broadcast today will face terrible trials in the future.

Some of you may lose loved ones, and some will be brought into other emergency circumstances of life.

Will those emergencies shake your faith or destroy your trust in God?

This is why a correct attitude must be developed before the approach of those afflictions.

Now we've all read the story of Job and the Old Testament scriptures, I'm sure.

We read with interest about those calamities that came to take away all his possessions and then all of his children in 1 terrible stroke.

And yet the first reaction of this godly man was to fall down and worship God.

With the fearful conflicts facing us, we must come to that same position of trust and confidence, friends.

Some of the most distressing and despondent moments have come to individuals on the heels of their greatest happiness.

Satan uses moods as 1 of his greatest weapons against us.

It's said that the great English poet, Calper, was so depressed at 1 time that he contemplated suicide.

He actually hired a cab to take him to London bridge so he could jump off and end his own life.

On the way to the bridge, a great fog settled down over the city, and the cab driver became lost.

Finally, he had to take Kalper back to his apartment and leave him there.

And immediately after that experience, Kalper wrote his immortal words that are so familiar to us, God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.

He plants His footsteps on the sea and rides upon the storm.

Well there is 1 thing for certain, friends.

God does not allow a single needless pain to fall on the Christian.

Now if we could believe that, we would be happy to accept whatever comes in life.

Now somebody raises the question, well, why does God allow any pain to afflict us?

And the answer is found in a variety of Bible verses.

In Psalms 11, verse 5, for example, the Lord trieth the righteous.

In Psalms 119, verse 67, before I was afflicted I went astray.

He controls those fires of affliction that come to us.

He builds a hedge around us to protect us from that which we cannot bear.

He sees that we need an experience of pain sometimes, and in great love He permits the right amount of it to come to us for our own good.

Parents will often give their beloved child into the hands of a surgeon for an operation.

Now the parents know that great pain will be involved for that child, and yet they are willing to permit the operation to take place anyway.

Those same parents will sit by the bedside of that child, suffering along with it, and yet they will allow the knife to be applied, the surgery to be performed.

The child, of course, would not choose it for himself, But the parents can see days of joy ahead when that child will be able to play more happily because of the cutting experience of surgery.

Now it's often necessary for us to go under the knife and suffer in order that we might have a happier tomorrow also.

And when the cutting is necessary, God sits up with us and suffers along with us, his children.

In the tunnels he'll be with us, in the dark moments of pain he'll never forsake us.

What a joy it'll be after we reach the kingdom of heaven to understand the divine permissions of God and why He allowed certain things to take place.

You know, the safest ways are not always the shortest ways.

There's a zigzag route that can relieve the force of the hill sometimes and make it much easier for us to reach our destination at the top.

God's paths are not supposed to be open to us so that we can understand each step before we take it.

That's where our faith is tried and tested.

Can we believe that all things work together for good to those who love the Lord?

Could we spend 40 years out of the wilderness like Moses did, taking care of sheep and apparently forsaken?

Could we wait on that lonely isle of Patmos as John did until God stepped in to assign the writing of a Testament.

Could we sit behind prison walls as Paul did and write a letter saying, Godliness with contentment is great gain?

Could we endure as Joseph and say afterward that God intended it for good?

Well, I think, friends, that Paul was actually ripening for the Kingdom of Heaven while he was in jail, and I think John needed that rest on that Isle of Patmos.

You know, a Cambridge naturalist experimented with a pigeon that had been born in a cage, and it had never actually flown at all because its life had been spent in the confines of that cage.

The naturalist was anxious to see how well it could fly, so he released it in a large room.

Round and round the bird flew, becoming more excited all the time, and then finally that bird seemed to be in great distress and it flew directly into the body of the naturalist and fell panting down to the floor.

And then it was discovered that this bird had inherited the instinct to fly, but it didn't know how to stop.

Had it not risked the shock of flying into the man's body, it would have died of exhaustion in midair.

Now perhaps this is the reason God sometimes permits us to be placed on our backs in places of confinement.

Sometimes people are moving so fast and working so hard they can't even think of God as they ought to, and so God allows them to slow down a little bit.

Beneath the streets of the city of Shechem in Palestine, rivers flow constantly.

The noise of water can't be heard during the day, but at night, when all the other sounds are quiet, the musical flow of the waters can be heard beneath the streets of that ancient city.

God would sometimes have us be quiet so that we can hear the music of his plan and his will.

It might require shock, just as it did for the bird to cause us to stop our friends in rush.

Strange as it may seem now, we will all someday thank God personally that he led exactly as he did during our earthly life.

Paul will learn why a thorn had to stay with him during his sojourn here.

Perhaps he'll learn also that his life might have been without that thorn a real disaster.

I think it would be an awful revelation if every 1 of us could see ourselves without God's mysterious permissions.

We forget God so easily in times of prosperity and peace.

A man imprisoned in a tower was trying to attract the attention of passers-by.

Taking some coins from his pocket, he dropped them down to the pavement below.

As the gold pieces fell, the people rushed around to pick them up and put them in their pockets before hurrying on their way.

Finally the man managed to break off a piece of stone from the edge of the wall and drop it down on the street below.

It struck a man on the head, wounding him.

And only then did somebody look up and get the message from the prisoner.

You see, blessings may be falling all around us, and we don't even bother to look up to see where they come from.

But when troubles strike, we do look up and become concerned.

It's only then that some people can think about God and become aware of Him.

Yes, it's true that all things do work together for good to those that love the Lord.

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Trials Part 1

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