Lamoille Valley Grace Brethren Church
June 28, 2026

      • Psalm 30:11–12LGCYSTNDRDBBLSB

  • He Will Hold Me Fast
  • Jesus Thy Blood And Righteousness

      • Proverbs 3:1–12LGCYSTNDRDBBLSB

      • 2 Corinthians 9:6–7NASB95

  • Scripture Reading: Proverbs 3:1-12
    Kid’s Time:
    Proposition:
    Interrogative: Why do bad things happen to God’s children?
    Transitional Statement: God uses difficult circumstances in our lives to discipline or train us in 4 different ways.

    Introduction

    Hebrews 12:4 NASB95
    4 You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin;
    This is the measuring rod for suffering. As bad as it might get in your life, your are still alive! Jesus died in His striving against sin (not His own, but the sin of the world). He resisted Satan and those voluntarily under his influence. We have Jesus as an example of endurance and we have the great cloud of witnesses testifying that endured through difficulty with faith in God’s promises as their anchor.
    Hebrews 12:5 NASB95
    5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved by Him;
    An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon παιδεία

    παιδεία, ἡ, 1. the rearing of a child, Aesch.

    2. training and teaching, education,

    from Proverbs 3:11
    Not just negative as in punishment. Remember, a christian cannot be punished for his or her sin because Jesus has already taken the punishment for our sins on the cross. He can lovingly discipline us as children to keep us from sinning more but He will not punish us for sin. The positive meaning of this word is education. Even when sin is not involved, Our Father uses difficulty in our lives to educate us in godliness.
    This fatherly education can take four forms in our lives. We experience “bad” things and the Father gives us His Word to explain those circumstances for our education and edification.
    2 Timothy 3:16 (NASB95) 16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;

    1. Teaching

    God can use physical pain and even psychological hurt in our lives to teach us valuable lessons and even prevent other hurts that are far worse.
    We put boundaries up for our kids when they are young to prtect them and teach them some things are not safe or good for them. We restrict them eating a whole bag of candy to teach them that it is harmful to their tummies. The apostle Paul is a good example of this. He experienced an ongoing thorn in his flesh.
    2 Corinthians 12:7 NASB95
    7 Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself!
    It was not sin in Paul’s life that caused this thorn, but God allowed it in the school of life to teach Paul not to exalt himself. With how privileged Paul was to receive so much revealed truth from Jesus along with visions so powerful that he was not even allowed to talk about them, this thorn in the flesh was a physical reminder of his weakness before God. He could say that God strength is perfected in his weakness. It is one thing to read that truth on the pages of the Bible, it is another thing to live it. God knows how each of us learns best.
    Another example of God allowing bad circumstances to teach, is Joseph. Why did God allow his brothers to hate him, sell him into slavery, be falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife, and forgotten by the Pharaoh’s wine taster? Because God was going to save Jacob and his family along with the whole mideastern area from a famine and position God’s people in the most fertile area in the world at that time to prosper and become a mighty nation. Joseph learned to be leader and a manager of resources in Potiphar’s house. He honed those skills in the prison. When encountering his brothers many years later, Joseph said to them:
    Genesis 50:20 NASB95
    20 “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.
    Joseph would never have learned God’s plan and become the man he needed to be without the hardships that he faced.

    2 . Reproof/Correction

    The second reason why God allows bad things to happen to His children, is because of sin in the believer’s life. When we don’t listen to the teaching of God or we respond sinfully to the lessons that He is teaching us He may choose to reprove us.
    When someone is driving over the speed limit, a police officer my pull us over and give us a ticket. That ticket is a legal written reproof that states we did something that was wrong. It is actually the best thing that could happen to us because it points out the dangerous conduct that we have done. We could have injured ourselves or injured other people on the road because of our reckless driving. We now are confronted with our mistake and given the opportunity repent.
    Do you remember Nebuchadnezzar? In his pride he set up a statue of himself for all his subjects to bow down before and then later he looked out over his vast kingdom and his beautiful palace saying, “look at what I have built by my own hands.” God sent him a dream and Daniel interpreted it for him.
    Daniel 4:20–25 NASB95
    20 ‘The tree that you saw, which became large and grew strong, whose height reached to the sky and was visible to all the earth 21 and whose foliage was beautiful and its fruit abundant, and in which was food for all, under which the beasts of the field dwelt and in whose branches the birds of the sky lodged— 22 it is you, O king; for you have become great and grown strong, and your majesty has become great and reached to the sky and your dominion to the end of the earth. 23 ‘In that the king saw an angelic watcher, a holy one, descending from heaven and saying, “Chop down the tree and destroy it; yet leave the stump with its roots in the ground, but with a band of iron and bronze around it in the new grass of the field, and let him be drenched with the dew of heaven, and let him share with the beasts of the field until seven periods of time pass over him,” 24 this is the interpretation, O king, and this is the decree of the Most High, which has come upon my lord the king: 25 that you be driven away from mankind and your dwelling place be with the beasts of the field, and you be given grass to eat like cattle and be drenched with the dew of heaven; and seven periods of time will pass over you, until you recognize that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever He wishes.
    Another example is King David being confronted by Nathan the prophet
    2 Samuel 12:1–9 NASB95
    1 Then the Lord sent Nathan to David. And he came to him and said, “There were two men in one city, the one rich and the other poor. 2 “The rich man had a great many flocks and herds. 3 “But the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb Which he bought and nourished; And it grew up together with him and his children. It would eat of his bread and drink of his cup and lie in his bosom, And was like a daughter to him. 4 “Now a traveler came to the rich man, And he was unwilling to take from his own flock or his own herd, To prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him; Rather he took the poor man’s ewe lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.” 5 Then David’s anger burned greatly against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, surely the man who has done this deserves to die. 6 “He must make restitution for the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing and had no compassion.” 7 Nathan then said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘It is I who anointed you king over Israel and it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul. 8 ‘I also gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your care, and I gave you the house of Israel and Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added to you many more things like these! 9 ‘Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in His sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon.

    3. Training in Righteousness

    God can sometimes use difficult circumstances to give us positive spiritual experience that helps us to become stronger in our faith.
    When a weightlifter trains, he or she strains their muscles to their limit. The muscle tares as they strain until they cannot lift anymore. They then rest those muscles for a day or two so the body can repair those tears. The body repairs the tares to a better state than they were to begin with because the body assumes, that more muscle is needed. What a great design from our perfect designer. Then the bodybuilder does it over and over again.
    Spiritually, God will strain our faith like a bodybuilder does muscle. God may place you in difficult life situations that tare at your faith. These are challenges in you life that strain your faith to its limit for a season. When the season is done, He gives you rest enough for your faith to be repaired. Once it is repaired, it comes back stronger than it was before.
    Job went through a time of faith building strain.
    Satan challenges God by saying that Job only worships God because of how good Job’s life is.
    God gives Satan permission to take his wealth away from Job. Children, houses, possessions.
    Job asses his life and relationship with God, determines that there is no gross sin that needs to be rebuked and corrected and retains his faith in God.
    God — what do you think about Job now. Satan — he has his health, take that and he will curse you. God — OK but you cannot take his life.
    Job is covered with painful sores, his faith is strained again.
    Job’s “friends” try to convince him that God is rebuking him, but nothing sticks.
    Job cries out to God for answers.
    God responds, and His answer is, “Job, be quiet, I am your Creator, I do what is best and you don’t get to question me.”
    God never answers why.
    The season of training for Job is finished
    Job 42:5–6 NASB95
    5 “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees You; 6 Therefore I retract, And I repent in dust and ashes.”
    God restores Job and his faith is even stronger than before.
    God may allow experiences like Job’s in our lives too. People face the loss of a child, financial ruin, loss of a job, diagnosis of a debilitating disease or cancer or heart disease, even persecution for our faith in Jesus Christ. One of the reasons may be that our Father is training us in righteousness. And when He is done testing our faith, we will be stronger.
    Nelson’s Complete Book of Stories, Illustrations & Quotes Therefore We Must Go Forward

    Therefore We Must Go Forward

    William Carey, the “Father of Modern Missions,” wanted to translate the Bible into as many Indian languages as possible. He established a large printshop in Serampore where translation work was continually being done. Carey spent hours each day translating Scripture, often while his insane wife ranted and raved in the next room.

    Carey was away from Serampore on March 11, 1812. His associate, William Ward, was working late. Suddenly Ward’s throat tightened, and he smelled smoke. He leaped up to discover clouds belching from the printing room. He screamed for help, and workers passed water from the nearby river until 2 A.M., but everything was destroyed.

    On March 12, 1812, missionary Joshua Marshman entered a Calcutta classroom where William was teaching. “I can think of no easy way to break the news,” he said. “The printshop burned to the ground last night.” Carey was stunned. Gone were his massive polyglot dictionary, two grammar books, and whole versions of the Bible. Gone were sets of type for 14 eastern languages, 1,200 reams of paper, 55,000 printed sheets, and 30 pages of his Bengal dictionary. Gone was his complete library. “The work of years—gone in a moment,” he whispered.

    He took little time to mourn. “The loss is heavy,” he wrote, “but as traveling a road the second time is usually done with greater ease and certainty than the first time, so I trust the work will lose nothing of real value. We are not discouraged, indeed the work is already begun again in every language. We are cast down but not in despair.”

    When news of the fire reached England, it catapulted Carey to instant fame. Thousands of pounds were raised for the work, and volunteers offered to come help. The enterprise was rebuilt and enlarged. By 1832, complete Bibles, New Testaments, or separate books of Scripture had issued from the printing press in 44 languages and dialects.

    The secret of Carey’s success is found in his resiliency. “There are grave difficulties on every hand,” he once wrote, “and more are looming ahead. Therefore we must go forward.”*

    We cannot regard the training of the Lord lightly nor can we lose heart when the testings come. We must go forward.
    Hebrews 12:6 NASB95
    6 For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives.”
    Hebrews 12:7 NASB95
    7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
    Hebrews 12:8 NASB95
    8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
    Hebrews 12:9 NASB95
    9 Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?
    Hebrews 12:10 NASB95
    10 For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness.
    Hebrews 12:11 NASB95
    11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
    Reason number one.  Retribution.  I’m going to use the word retribution.  It means punishment.  Retribution.  The first reason the Lord would discipline you like a father would discipline a child, is because you've sinned.  And sin is bad for you.  sin harms you.  Sin can devastate your life.  It can render you useless in the service of God.  It can forfeit God’s blessing.  It takes away your joy, your peace.  It produces shame, guilt, worry, fear, anxiety.  And a loving father doesn’t want you to have that.
    As a loving father punishes a child not to hurt the child but to help the child, he punishes the child not to produce long-term pain but short-term pain and long-term correction.  So, God punishes sin in the life of a believer for positive purposes.  We have sinned and we need to be dealt with.  That’s one of the reasons we get disciplined.
    And frankly, when you're going to work your way through these things, struggles are going on in your life, maybe you've been told you have cancer.  You have a disease.  Maybe you're struggling in your marriage.  Maybe you're fighting off the pain of a partner who left you and maybe left you with a child.
    Maybe you're married partner had an affair with somebody.  Maybe you were planning to marry somebody and she turned away from you and you're in the forlorn situation of having unrequited love.  Maybe you're struggling with a death in the family.  I don't know what it is.  All of those kinds of things.  And you start to take a look at why is this happening with me?  You start with this.  You start with this.
    Look into my own heart.  Look into my own life.  Is there sin there?  Could this be corrective in my life?  Could it be that a loving father is trying to show such consequence in my life as a result of my sin pattern that I need to correct that?  Now, that was the case with David.  Remember the great king of Israel, David?  A remarkable man, credible man, very brilliant, a songwriter, a sweet singer, a harpist, a great leader, a noble king.  A man who had gained not only the esteem of his people, but he had been the man that God had identified to be the king of his theocratic kingdom – the nation Israel. 
    David had everything a man could ever have.  He had it all.  Sitting in his palace one day, and his palace was higher than the rest of the houses around him, he looked out and saw a woman sunbathing on the roof of her house.  And he desired that woman.  Her name was Bathsheba. 
    The story, of course, is known to everybody.  He worked out a way in which he could get that woman.  Came together with that woman.  Actually, she became pregnant as a result of that union, so he committed adultery, violated his own marriage, his own vows to his own wife.  Violated the nation.  Violated his role as a king. 
    And more than that, he worked it out so her husband, who was one of his most dedicated soldiers, fighting a battle on the behalf of great King David, would be put in a place in the battle where he would be compromised, left alone to the will of the enemy.  And Uriah became the victim of the plotting of David so that he was actually killed in battle.  David was responsible not only for adultery, but murder.  Murder.
    And then the floodgates of chastening opened up.  And the Bible says, about David, the most amazing thing.  God said to David, “The sword will never leave your house.”  Never.  You're going to need to learn that you can’t conduct yourself like that and expect no consequences.  There will be consequences to that behavior that’ll go on through your life.
    The first consequence that came immediately was the baby died.  The child of Bathsheba died.  And you remember, David bemoaned that.  And in his sorrow, he made a pensive statement.  He said, “He cannot come to me but I shall go to him,” which was full of hope.  He knew that little baby, that little innocent life was in the presence of God.  That was a little bit of God’s grace extended, of course, to him, even though that was an illegitimate child.  God does take care of all little ones.  But David mourned the loss of that baby.
    As if that wasn’t bad enough, coo after coo after coo came against David and the sword really never went out of his house.  And the worst of all the coos was the one led by his own son, Absalom.  Absalom tried to overthrow his father and take his throne.  And Absalom eventually was riding fast through the forest and killed himself when he ran into a tree.  And as you know, he was hanged there. 
    And David cried, “Oh Absalom, Absalom, my son, my son, my son.”  David suffered the terrible pangs of guilt.  It says in Psalm 32 that David said my life juices are dried up.  It affected his blood flow.  It affected his saliva.  It affected his nervous system.  His whole body convulsed in the anxiety produced by the guilt and the shame and the sorrow of his sin.  And his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth, and as long as he didn't confess his sin, he suffered through all that agony.  His whole body ached from head to toe.  Finally, he burst forth in confession.
    In Psalm 51, he writes a similar Psalm and cries out to God against whom he has sinned, in penitence.  He got the message.  He really got the message.  He became a faithful and a righteous man.  He became the friend of God.  He wrote more Psalms than anybody else.  He became the sweet singer of Israel.  He became a man after God’s own heart.  But it took some tremendous and immense correction.  And that’s where, whenever something happens in your life, that’s where you have to start.  I mean that’s the right place to start, isn’t it?
    Take that self-examination.  Is there some sin in my life?  You remember Job?  I mean talk about having it tough.  Job is a very wealthy man, one of the wealthiest men in the East.  He lives during the time of the patriarchs; time of Genesis.  Job may be the first Bible book in terms of writing.  May be even have written before the Pentateuch – Genesis.  Talking about men in the patriarchal times.  One of them was Job.  Very wealthy.  Lots of land.  Lots of crops.  Lots of animals.  And lots of children.  And one wife.
    And all of a sudden, everything goes.  He loses it all.  Loses absolutely everything.  Loses all his crops.  Loses all his animals.  Loses all his children.  The only thing left is his wife and she is just cantankerous and adds to his pain.  He lost it all.
    And then he lost his health.  And he’s sitting in a pile of ashes, scraping scabs off with a broken piece of pottery to sort of relieve his misery.  And the question comes to his mind – this is a man of faith.  This is a man who believes in the true and living God.  This is a man who has served God with his whole heart.  This is a man who’s been absolutely obedient and faithful.  This is the good man.  This is the best of men at the time.
    How do you know that?  Because in Job 1 and 2, Satan went to Heaven.  And Satan says to God, look God, you don't have anybody who’s faithful to you, if you don't give him all kinds of riches.  If you don't bless him and pour out all this stuff on him, they're going to curse you.  And he says that’s not true.
    God says, no it isn’t and I’ll show you.  There’s Job.  He’s a man of faith.  He’s a righteous man.  He’s very wealthy.  I’ll let you go and take away everything he has but his life.  Everything away but his life, and his faith will not fail.  We’ll Job didn't know that.  Job never read the first two chapters of the book that bears his name.  It wasn’t written until long after he was gone.  He didn't have a clue.  He never knew what was going on up in Heaven.  He didn't know God and Satan were trying to make a point.
    He’s just down here, and everything has gone wrong in his life.  He doesn’t know.  So, the first thing he does is look at his heart.  He does a self-examination.  He comes out and he says, look God, I think everything’s okay.  I've confessed my sin.  I’m working through the issues of my life.  I want to serve you.  I love you.  I’m trying to be a good man and obedient man and I don't know of any sin in my life that I’m hanging onto.  God, I think everything is okay.  And he’s sort of scratching his head.
    So, some of his friends come over and they feel so sorry for the guy.  The guy’s absolutely in desperation.  And it says for seven days they did nothing but sit in silence.  His friends, three friends, just sat there in dead silence, just commiserating.  Just sympathizing.  Just probably going hum, just you know, hum.
    At the end of seven days they broke their silence.  And as soon as they opened their mouth, all wisdom left.  The first thing they said was oh, Job, you've got a lot of sin in your life.  We know.  We have a good theology.  Our theology is if you've got problems, you've got sin.  Well, sometimes.  But Job said, “No, I don't.”  They said, well you better check again.  So, his friends add to his pain because they keep accusing him of something that isn’t true.
    And so literally, they ran that man – they ran that man through weeks of personal inventory and he came up with nothing.  It wasn’t that he was sinless.  It was that he wasn’t holding out some sin.  He was willingly yielding his life to the Lord.  He wasn’t like David.  David did inventory and he knew he sinned.
    When a believer is smarting under the rod, you might have to say, “I brought this upon myself.”  God is correcting me in love.  He’s not smiting me in wrath.  He’s correcting me in love.  That’s where you start.  Retribution.  And David knew it the rest of his life.  It never went away. But don't get stuck there.  When you do that inventory, you've got to move on. 
    John MacArthur— Let’s go to a second reason why God disciplines us.  Prevention.  Prevention.  You know, as a father, obviously, in dealing with the children we raised, Patricia and I were concerned about retribution.  We didn't spare the rod.  We spanked the children and punished the children when we thought it was appropriate for their well-being.  But we were also very concerned about prevention.  That is to say, we wanted to build some walls around our children to protect them from what could potentially harm them.  We wanted to wall them off.
    There were certain things we didn't allow them to do.  there were certain places we didn't allow them to go.  There were certain people we didn't allow them to fellowship with.  And the children would see that as a hardship. 
    Did you ever have your children say to you, “Why not?  Everybody else.”  Boy, I heard that one.  “Ah, come on Dad.  So, and so is going to do it, and so and so’s going to do it.  Why can’t I do it?”  I mean even down to never stepping off a curb, because we lived on a busy street and was just preventative care and protection of the children to say, “Don't ever step off that curb.”  And occasionally, when they were little and stepped off the curb they got spanked.  And so, you could see them run full speed and just come to a grinding halt when they hit a curb. 
    It was almost like this was – you know, they would know they were truly liberated in life when they were old enough to step off a curb.  You know, that was sort of like the adult rite of passage.  You know?
    But you do that because you care.  Right?  You do that because you love your children.  And that’s preventative.  The apostle Paul knew that.  As David is an illustration of God’s discipline for retribution, Paul is an illustration of God’s discipline for prevention.  I don't find anywhere in the New Testament, and I pretty well have searched the scriptures with regard to Paul.  I don't find anywhere where we see God bringing some punishment into Paul’s life for some sin that he harbored.
    Boy, he wasn’t perfect, but he really did deal with the sin issues in his life.  But he suffered. He suffered.  I mean we saw it, didn't we, in Second Corinthians.  He was beaten.  He was shipwrecked.  He was beaten with whips by the Jewish leaders.  And he was beaten with rods by the Romans and he was stoned and left for dead, and he was hated and despised and he was thrown out of town and he started riots and they tried to kill him.  And you know all that.
    Was that for sin?  In Second Corinthians 12, verse 7, Paul says this, “That God gave me a thorn in the flesh.”  He uses the word for a stake, like a spear.  God literally rammed a spear through my flesh.  That’s very painful.  God impaled me, if you will.  God gave me immense pain.  And it tells why in that verse.  Second Corinthians 12:7. It says, “To keep me from” – do you remember it?  “Exalting myself.”  Hum.  Now, that’s not retribution.  That’s prevention. 
    God brings things into our lives to prevent us from the sin of pride.  You get to feeling self-sufficient.  You get to feeling almost omnipotent, able to control everything in your world.  And God will bring something into your life just to humble you, just to prevent you from being overly proud.  After all, Paul had had many visions, many revelations he says in that chapter.  He had even gone to Heaven.  You remember he was caught up into third Heaven.  Saw things he couldn't talk about and things that he really couldn't explain, and he was forbidden to speak.  It was an incredible thing that God allowed him to see. 
    He had numerous occasions after the ascension of Jesus Christ and after his conversion, seen the ascended Christ who appeared to him on the Damascus Road and several other times.  And Paul says, because of those revelations which could make me proud, the Lord had to bring pain and suffering into my life in order to humiliate me.
    And I think sometimes you've got to go there.  After you've looked at the retribution issue, you've got to look at the prevention issue and you've got to ask yourself, is the Lord just trying to make me remember that I don't have another breath unless he gives it to me?  Do I need to be reminded of the fact that I’m not in control of my life?  I’m not the master of my fate.  I’m not the captain of my destiny.  I don't call the shots.  It’s God who gives me the right to live.  In him I live and move and have my being.
    Do I need to be reminded that in the truth I’m nothing?  And as Paul learned, “When I am weak, then I am strong and his power is perfected in my weakness.”  When I have come to the end of myself.  When I have nowhere to turn, and I cast myself on the mercy of God, then I’m just the kind of person that I need to be.
    I really do believe God brings those strictures into our lives.  God brings discipline and difficulty into our lives and trouble and trauma to keep us from feeling that prideful sort of invincibility that we can easily gain.  He wants to make us feel dependent on him.  He wants to protect us.
    And I think the Lord sometimes just brings in discipline to wall us off from something we might otherwise have done that would have been against his will.  Who knows what ways he protects his children.  Who knows?  He knows.  We don't know.
    And Paul, you know, in Second Corinthians 12, he said, “I prayed three times for the Lord to take that spear out of my body” – to remove that pain and three times the Lord said no because you need to be humbled.  Three times the Lord said, it’s better for you to have this in your life because it’ll prevent you from being proud and thereby, being useful and forfeiting blessing.
    So, all through Paul’s whole life – I mean from the time of the Damascus Road where he became a preacher of the gospel, until his head was chopped off in Rome by a Roman soldier and he was executed.  All through his whole entire life and ministry he suffered, didn't he?  And I think all of that suffering was not – it’s not designated in the New Testament as some kind of retribution for this man’s sins.  It is more often defined as some kind of prevention. It kept him humble who, otherwise, would have been very proud.  And he was remember prior to his conversion, a very, very proud man.  Wasn’t he? 
    There’s a third purpose in God’s discipline.  Not unlike a human father.  And that’s education.  Retribution is one.  Prevention is two.  And education is three.  How can I say this in a way that you’ll understand it?  I really believe that if you don't suffer in the vicissitudes of life, you're not going to experience God.  There are tremendous lessons to be learned.
    You can read the Bible and it says certain things.  You know that when you go through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, you know, I’ll be the Good Shepherd and I’ll be there and that’s all fine.  That’s words on paper, and we believe them in our minds.  But it’s not until you go through the Valley of the Shadow of Death that that’s personalized.  Right?
    If you've been in the valley and death has cast its shadow over you and you've come through and out the other side into the sunlight, you can read the 23rd Psalm and it’s not just words on a page.  All of a sudden, it grips your heart because you've been there. 
    If you say that the Bible says, “My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in Christ Jesus” and you're like William Carey and you're sitting out in India and you've got a sick wife and you've got three little sick boys and you're sitting in India with nothing to eat and no money and you're pleading with God to provide the next meal.  And God sustains you, and you never miss a meal in 35 years of missionary work.  And somebody says to you, “My God shall supply all your needs” is that theology or is that experience?  If you never have that experience, then that theology never grips your soul.      And when you go in and you find your little baby has died of crib death, and that precious little treasure is blue and you know the life is gone, then you're going to find out whether God is able.  Aren't you?  Then you're going to find out whether God can give you peace that passes all understanding.  Peace for which there is no human explanation.
    Whether God can turn your sorrow into joy.  Whether God is enough.  If you ask a couple that’s never had that experience, “Do you think God is sufficient?” they will smile and say the Bible says he’s sufficient.  I believe he’s sufficient.  You ask the couple that lost the baby, “Is God sufficient” and they say, “The Bible says that and I have experienced his sufficiency.”  And one of the reasons that God takes us through these issues in life is so that we may experience his sufficiency. 
    And the great illustration of that is back to our friend, Job.  Job is down here on earth and everything has gone wrong.  And his friends give him such stupid advice.  And he can’t get any advice out of anybody that’s worth anything.  And his wife just says, “Curse God and die.”  That’s no help.  They're telling him he’s the problem.  She’s telling him, God’s the problem.  No answer. 
    And God never tells him what went on.  He never knows – his whole – he never knew till he got to Heaven.  He didn't know what was going on.  He didn't know why it was happening.  But you know what?  He lost everything.  All his children.  everything.  He lost everything.  And eventually lost all his friends because they got sick of telling him stuff that he didn't listen to.  He was absolutely all alone.  Everybody was on the other side.  His wife.  His friends.  Everybody.  He was absolutely alone and he never knew why this stuff was happening to him.
    And you know, I just remind you, that it’s not up to you to know why it’s happening.  It’s up to you to know who it is that cares enough about you to be doing it.  We may never know why, in every case.  Oh, you may, if you go through the retribution and you see a sin in your life.  It may be prevention.  But you may not know all of that because you may not know what the Lord is preventing since it’s prevented.  You may not know.
    But what did Job learn?  There was never a time when God said, “By the way, Job, I’ll tell you what’s going on.  I had this conversation with Satan.  And I’m doing this to make a point to him.”  He never told Job that.  Never.  Never.
    And finally, in the end, do you know what he does say to Job?  Shut up, Job.  Don't ask any more questions.  Who are you?  Who are you?  Were you around when I created the world?  Who are you?  Just be quiet.  Don't say anything.  And Job apologizes for his questionings.  And then this is the cap at the end of the book, at the end of the story of Job, which is so incredible.
    Job says this and here’s the great lesson of the Book of Job.  Job looks at God and he says I don't know any more now than I knew when it started except I know this.  “I had heard of you with the hearing of my ears” – and there wasn’t any written scripture at the time.  He says I heard about you, God.  Who you are was told to me.  What you were like was told me. 
    I heard that you were the true and the living God, the creator of Heaven and earth and all that is in them.  I heard about you that you were a God of righteousness.  That you were a God of mercy and justice and all those things.  I heard of that with the hearing of mine ear.  Then he says this, “But now my eye sees you.”  What happened to Job?  A personal, private education.  He was tutored by God.
    Is God able to sustain a man when he loses everything he has?  Job will give you an answer.  What’s his answer?  Yes.  Is God able to allow you to overcome the bad advice of your friends and misdiagnosis of your problem?  Yes.  Is God enough when you're sitting there with a terribly painful, excruciating disease that goes on and on and on without relief?  Is God enough?  Is there still a place for peace and joy and trust and confidence in your heart?  And Job’s answer is yes.  And he never, ever would have known that if he hadn’t experienced it. 
    And then in the end, he says, “I repent in dust and ashes.”  God, forgive me for ever questioning.  And you know what he was saying?  I didn't like the trip, but the end is worth the trip.  The end is worth the exercise.  In this sense, I now know God personally.
    You asked me, could God sustain you in the losses of life?  Can God sustain you when your children die?  Can God sustain you when your wife turns against you?  Can God sustain you when you lose everything, including your friends?  Can God sustain you when you become embarrassed, when you become a laughing stock, when you're mortified to even be seen by anybody because of the horrors of your condition?  Can God sustain you through that?  Answer:  I now see you, God, in a way I never, ever knew you before.  That’s what we said earlier, isn’t it?  If you don't go through those times, you don't know God can sustain you.
    And he also had a new sympathy for others, Job did.  And Paul says the same thing in First Corinthians 1when he says, “God brought me through all my suffering in order that I might be able to teach you how to suffer.”  So, I became educated so I can help you.  But the real education is in the pain itself.
    If you've never gone through a frightening, extensive, life-threatening heart surgery or cancer surgery of some kind, then you've never been able to experience the peace that you know the Bible promises, but you've never experienced it.  You talk to somebody who goes in and comes out of that and can rejoice in the very personalized theology, God who stood by them and granted them what he pledges in the scripture to grant.
    That’s part of the discipline of the Lord.  You know he’s there.  You know he’s able.  That’s part of the training that he wants to do in your life.  And Job is an illustration of that, as Paul was an illustration of prevention.  As David was an illustration of retribution.
    I told you I've been reading this biography of William Carey, which has captivated my mind.  I've been thinking about going to India as a missionary.  It’s just incredible.  The story – listen to this.  William Carey goes to India.  He has a third-grade education.  He’s a shoe – he’s a cobbler.  He repairs shoes in England.  He’s at the low, low rung, you know, on the social ladder.
    He goes to India where, of course, he runs right into a cast system and he’s even lower than the lowest cast because he’s not Indian.  He goes to India and terrible, difficulty there.  But he decides he’s going to translate the Bible.  Before he’s done, 34 years later, he’s translated the Bible into 18 languages, none of which he knew when he got there.
    He became the greatest living scholar in Sanskrit because Sanskrit’s the basic language for all those other Indian languages and dialects, as Latin would be for the Romance languages.  So, he works for years and years and years and translates the Bible into Sanskrit.  And then out of Sanskrit into all these languages.
    And then he decides that if he’s going to get the Word of God out, he has to build a printing operation so they get a printer named Marshman from England.  He comes over and they build this printing operation.  They bring in all these reams of paper that they're very difficult to get.  They got the presses rolling.  They've made the type out of lead now and they've got it all set up in all these various languages.  And they're characters – not just English letters.  So, it’s a very arduous task to do all of this in all these languages and they're starting to spread the Word of God everywhere. 
    They build this big printing operation.  They've got, I don't know, up to 200 people working there and thing is going great and the Lord has made it all happen.  And inside the building are many of the original translation sheets that he’s worked on – his original translation work.  It’s all in there.  And one night a fire comes and burns the entire thing to the ground and all the letters of lead melt.  And all his life’s work, original copies of all of that, are gone forever.  Irreplaceable.
    Now, what are you going to do in reaction to that?  It’s like a Job experience.  Isn’t it?  Do you know what they did?  They all got together and they praised God because they were about to see God put himself on display.  You ask William Carey, well, why did that happen?  He says, “I don't know.  Maybe God had a conversation with Satan and he’s trying to prove the point again.  I don't know.”  He doesn’t know.
    To the end, he didn't know why.  And who would know why that happened?  And why would God, who could prevent such a thing allow such a thing?  But in the end, it worked out to the furtherance of things.  When they began to put it all back together again, within a year it was at full operation.  And they were printing Bibles and sending them everywhere.
    Every missionary who’s ever gone anyplace in the world of there is dependent upon those guys’ work, who worked around William Carey.  But all I know is they all got together and had a praise service because they were about to see the hand of their God on display.  And they saw God do things that if they hadn’t had the fire, they never would have seen him do, which was a tremendous education in knowing their God.

      • Hebrews 12:4LGCYSTNDRDBBLSB

      • Hebrews 12:5LGCYSTNDRDBBLSB

      • 2 Corinthians 12:7LGCYSTNDRDBBLSB

      • Genesis 50:20LGCYSTNDRDBBLSB

      • Daniel 4:20–25LGCYSTNDRDBBLSB

      • 2 Samuel 12:1–9LGCYSTNDRDBBLSB

      • Job 42:5–6LGCYSTNDRDBBLSB

      • Hebrews 12:6LGCYSTNDRDBBLSB

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      • Hebrews 12:11LGCYSTNDRDBBLSB

  • Rejoice, Ye Pure in Heart!
  • May The Mind Of Christ My Savior
Lamoille Valley Grace Brethren Church
pastorethan@lvgbc.net
8028883339
http://www.lvgbc.net
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