Jonah Yates - Adversity

Psalm 10:6 “He hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved: for I shall never be in adversity.”

Proverbs 24:10 “If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small.”

Hebrews 13:3 “Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.”

2 Samuel 4:9 “And David answered Rechab and Baanah his brother, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, and said unto them, As the Lord liveth, who hath redeemed my soul out of all adversity,”

1 Samuel 10:19 “And ye have this day rejected your God, who himself saved you out of all your adversities and your tribulations; and ye have said unto him, Nay, but set a king over us. Now therefore present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes, and by your thousands.”

Ecclesiastes 7:14 “In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: God also hath set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him.”

1. Man’s ignorance of the significance of adversity and prosperity (7:1–14)

The key to this section is found in verse 14a where Solomon declared that God is the author of both adversity and prosperity and that He so mingles them together that man in his finite understanding cannot discover anything about his future. The ramifications of this for Solomon were that adversity might have positive benefits and prosperity might have ill effects. But the effects of either depend on how one responds to them, whether wisely or foolishly. Thus in verses 2–4 Solomon portrayed the positive benefits of the greatest adversity, death, if wisely considered, and in verses 11–12 he portrayed the benefits of prosperity if wisely used. In the verses between (vv. 5–10) he warned that both adversity and prosperity offer many temptations to abandon a wise lifestyle and live like a fool. Interestingly in pointing up preferences, he used the word “better” eight times (vv. 1 [twice], 2–3, 5, 8 [twice], 10).

Donald R. Glenn, “Ecclesiastes,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 991–992.

God’s providence is immutable and inscrutable (7:13–14) 7:13–14.

Solomon closed his treatment on the wise response to adversity and prosperity by reminding his readers that God sovereignly disposes of both and that His disposition of them is immutable (cf. 3:14) and inscrutable. Though people might find fault with God’s ways (what God has done), no one can change what He thinks is wrong or unfair (Who can straighten what He has made crooked?). Moreover, God so mingles together adversity and prosperity that man cannot discover anything about his future (cf. 8:7; 10:14). In view of this, Solomon recommended submission to God’s sovereignty, enjoying the good times (be happy) and remembering (consider) in bad times that adversity has inscrutable purposes beyond finite human understanding (cf. 8:17).

Donald R. Glenn, “Ecclesiastes,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 9

The adversity that we face has to do with outside circumstances that we have no control over. everyone here has faced adversity at least to some degree and here’s the thing; it’s not just a singular event, it’s imminent that there will be more nobody’s immune to that and so you have to prepare yourself in a way ahead of time and also realize that you are going to face more adervsity it’s not an if it’s a when. So if you have no control over that, what’s the one thing you do have control over? you control the way the way you respond, you are the determiner of if that adversity is goinn to be what we can ultimately call a wing or a weight. will you allow it to be a weight that just sinks you leaves you knocked down never to get back up agian and people just say “that’s it they’re out for the count they’re never coming back from that one” OR will you find a wing in there somehow and be able to rise to the accasion. You will either fail because of adversity or you will be forged by adversity