Promises to Pass the Test

REVIEW: We have been studying Job's suffering so we can comfort those who are suffering, and to find relief in our own suffering.

We have seen that Job was prepared for his test with a sure testimony, a solid temperament, and A trust in a safe tester. We studied Job's participation in the test. His test while one great test was in three phases, wealth, health and help. We have seen that Satan uses people to try to accomplish his plan, That God cared about Job in his sufferingWe looked at the modes and means of suffering (Fiery Furnace, The Storm, Darkness) Today I want us to see that God has given us precious promises to help us pass our test.

I want to remind you today that God has promised us if we will keep our hand in His that we will pass the test. We will be able to stand on the other side of the test and declare, "And it came to Pass."

We are promised we can Pass the Test Because Suffering is Not For Nothing - Pain isn't wasted God Redeems our sufferingGen. 50:20 - The story of Joseph when he has the reveal party and lets them know who he really is they are afraid, and he lets them know, that what you intended for evil, God redeemed God meant for Good - it has saved many lives. God makes no mistakes:David Ring was born with cerebal palsy and other health issues and problems. He made a statement one time that I find somewhat humorus but so true, "God never says oops." I had a man a retired minister and evangelist attend our church for sometime before he passed away. While he attended he told me this story. He went to the eye doctor to have cataracts removed, and while the doctor was working he heard him say Oops" How would that make you feel? From then on he said, everything he saw had a bubble in itYour doctor may make many mistakes, you will make mistakes, but I promise God never says oops I like how the poet put it:

My Father's way may twist and turn, My heart may throb and ache, But in my soul I'm glad to know He maketh no mistakes.

My cherished plans may go astray, My hopes may fade away But still I'll trust my Lord to lead For He doth know the way

Though night be dark and it may seem, That day will never break I'll pin my faith, my all in Him He maketh no mistake

There's so much now I cannot see My eyesight's far too dim But come what may, I'll simply trust And leave it all to Him.

For by and by the mist will lift And plain it all He'll make Through all the way, Though dark to me He made not one mistake.

Our hymnal would be a whole lot thinner if Fanny Crosby had not been born blind.

Many of us find it hard to believe that we cannot bless unless we bleed. One definition the dictionary gives of bleed is “to feel the pain or anguish of another.”

Lockyer, Herbert. Dark Threads the Weaver Needs: The Problem of Human Suffering (Kindle Locations 89-91). Whitaker House. Kindle Edition.

We Can Pass The Test Because God's Grace is Sufficient

2 Corinthians 12:

7 And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.

8 For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.

9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.

11 I am become a fool in glorying; ye have compelled me: for I ought to have been commended of you: for in nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing.

From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Corinthians+12&version=KJV>

Annie Johnston Flint was one of the greatest hymn writers. Her biography "Making of the Beautiful" written by Roland Bingham tells how she was born as Annie Johnston shortly after that she was orphaned and raised by the Flint family and so she is known to the world as Annie Johnston Flint.She suffered a lot in her life. She got rheumatoid arthritis till she was twisted up in bed for over thirty years. She had cancer insider of her and was incontinent and lived on diapers.She began to go blindBefore Annie died she was covered from head to toe with boils and bed sores. She needed eight pillows to cushion her body. It was this dear woman who had such a faith in God, and knew all about his sustaining grace that penned those words, no doubt while in excruciating pain, He giveth more grace when the burdens grown greater He sendeth more strenght when the labors increas To added affliction he addeth his mercy To multiplied trials his multiplied peace

When we have exhasusted our store of endurance When our strenght has failed ere the day is half done When we reach the end of our hoarded resources Our Father's full giving has only begun

His love has no limits His grace has not measure His power has no boundaries Known unto man For out of his infinite riches in Jesus He giveth, and giveth and giveth again.

We Will Pass The Test Because He Will Go With Us

Isaiah 43King James Version (KJV)

43 But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.

2 When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.

3 For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee.

From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+43&version=KJV>

Elisabeth Elliot whose husband along with three other missionaries were killed in missionary work told this story:When I stood by my shortwave radio in the Jungle of Ecuador in 1956 and heard that my husband was missing and God brought to my mind the words of the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah 43:2-3 2 When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. 3 For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: You can imagine my response was not terribly spiritual. I was saying, but Lord your with me all the time what I want is Jim. I want my husband. We had been married 27 mos after waiting 5 1/2 years. 5 days later I learned that Jim was dead. And God's presence with me was not Jim's presence that was a terrible fact. God's presence did not change the fact that I was a widow. and I expected to be a widow till I died. God's presence did not change the fact of my widowhood. Jim's absence hurried me to God my hope my only refuge. And I learned in that experience who God is in a way I could not know otherwise. Suffering is an irreplaceable medium through which I learned and indispensable truth I AM. I AM the LORD in other words that God is God.

We Can Pass The Test Because He Has Suffered

Isaiah 53 actually begins in 52:13

This beautiful passage in Isaiah chapter 53 actually begins in 52:13 and runs through the end of chapter 53.

We see five stanzas of three verses each. Each stanza reveals a different facet of the gem that is the Savior.

52:13–15 he is exalted, but shocking; 53:1–3 he is rejected and despised; 53:4–6 he suffers for sinners (“us”); 53:7–9 his ministry is unrecognized and he is treated unjustly; 53:10–12 he is the sacrificial victor.

It was written some 700 years before Christ, who it is talking about. There are many titles and words used in the Bible to describe Jesus: Son of God, Son of Man, King of kings. Isaiah is the only one in the Bible to refer to Jesus the suffering servant as, "The Man of Sorrows."

The Man of Sorrows, what a beautiful and touching title. He doesn't just sympathies with our pain, he empathizes.

One of the greatest ways perhaps that Jesus was a man of sorrows was the fact of rejection. Notice the terms given in this passage:

There is no beauty that we should desire him

He is despised and rejected of men

We hid as it were our faces from him

He was despised and we esteemed him not

We did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted

Jesus understood well the pain of scorn and rejection, not just on the cross but

He was scorned by his family. John 7:5 For even his own brothers did not believe….

He was scorned by his friends. John 1:11 He came unto his own but they received him not.

He was scorned by his followers. John 6:64 Yet there are many of you who do not believe

He was scorned by his foes. In many passages in the New Testament we read of his foes mocking him and ridiculing him……especially at the cross.

Charles Spurgeon preached so eloquently many years ago, "Let it never be forgotten that the subject of the sorrows of the Savior has proven to be more efficacious for comfort to mourners than any other theme in the compass of revelation, or out of it. Even the glories of Christ afford no such consolation to afflicted spirits as the sufferings of Christ. Christ is in all attitudes the consolation of Israel, but He is most so as the man of sorrows. Troubled spirits turn not so much to Bethlehem as to Calvary; they prefer Gethsemane to Nazareth. The afflicted do not so much look for comfort in Christ as He will come a second time in splendor of state, as to Christ as He came the first time, a weary Man, and full of woes. The passion flower yields us the best perfume; the tree of the cross bleeds the most healing balm. Like in this case cures like, for there is no remedy for sorrow beneath the sun like the sorrows of Immanuel. As Aaron’s rod swallowed up all the other rods, so the griefs of Jesus make our griefs disappear. Thus you see that in the black soil of our subject, light is sown for the righteous; light which springs up for those who sit in darkness, and in the region of the shadow of death. Let us go, then, without reluctance to the house of mourning, and commune with “The Chief Mourner,” who above all others could say, “I am the man that has seen affliction.”

Jesus doesn't just know about suffering and sorrow, Jesus doesn't just understand your suffering and sorrow, He has been there, he has experienced it, and still experiences it daily in the rejection of those who refuse to come to him.

Isaiah tells us the that Jesus is acquainted with grief, that is an intimate knowledge, he knows grief, pain, sickness all too well.

We Will Pass The Test Because He Has Overcome The World.

Jesus understood this when he came. I love that powerful verse in John 16:33 where Jesus is telling his disciple,

John 16:33 (KJV)

33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

Tribulation - if any man ever had tribulation it would have been Job. Loss of family, loss of comforts of life, loss of quality of life, loss of nearly everything -

that word tribulation and that is comes from the word tribulum - the long pole like an oversized bat with a large spike in the end of it. they would use in ancient times to thresh their grain with - before they had nice combines they would put their grain on a flat stone like surface and then hit it over and over and over again till they separated the grain from the rest of the chaff.

Jesus said, "In this world you shall have tribulation." You will get hit over and over and over again - Just like Job.

And I love the precious promise Jesus gives his disciples .

John 16:33 (KJV) 33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.

14:32-33. When Jesus and Peter climb into the boat, two significant events occur. First, the storm suddenly and miraculously ceases; not as earlier with a command of Jesus (8:26), but evidently his mere presence in the boat brought calm to the raging storms (cf. Job 26:11-12; Ps 65:7; 89:9-10; 107:29). Second, the disciples’ fear is replaced by “worship” (προσεκύνησαν, prosekynēsan, cf. 2:2, 8, 11; 8:2; 9:18; 15:25; 28:9, 17), and the confession, Truly you are the Son of God.

Larry Chouinard, The College Press NIV Commentary – Matthew, ed. Jack Cottrell, Ph.D. and Tony Ash, Ph.D., (Joplin, Missouri: College Press Publishing Co., 1997), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 269-270.

I like to think of the rest of this verse as a sandwich promise In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

I surveyed several people about their suffering. Some had endured relational suffering, mental suffering, physical suffering, Tragic Loss of Loved ones, and many other types. I didn't receive all of them back but out of the ones I received I wanted to share some of the answers with you from what I gleaned. First of all I want to remind you there is a lot of hurting people out there.

Sister Willa Moore shared with me a little poem that helped her face the trial of losing her mother Sister Turner several years ago. I thought it was so good and wanted to share it with you today. Grief never ends… But it changes. It's a passage, not a place to stay. Grief is not a sign of weakness not a lack of faith… It is the price of love. I asked many people in preparing for this test, what is the hardest part of suffering and it was amazing how many got back with me and said the worst part of suffering is PainLonelinessMisunderstood

Tomorrow I want to look at with the Lord's help of what it's like to get your test back with a big red A+ written on it.