a. 1 in 12 Americans

 

b. 60 people here today

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

b. Previously:  “Joy in the Face of Adversity”

 

 

1. “Making a Difference in your World”

 

 

2. “Restoring Lost Purity”

 

3. “Why the Righteous Suffer”

 

 

a. “Five Secrets to Overcoming Discouragement & Worry”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

·         Undeserving

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

David Brainerd was a man of great spiritual power. The work which he accomplished by prayer was simply marvelous. Dr. A. J. Gordon, in giving a sketch of Brainerd’s experience, said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

·         Danger

 

·         Deprivation

 

 

·         Joy in serving together

 

 

 

 

 

·         Time to commit

 

·         Time to get into the game

 

 

 

 

 

 

One bee always seems ready to feed another bee, sometimes even one of a different colony. Mutual feeding among bees is the order of their existence. The workers feed the helpless queen who cannot feed herself. They feed the drones during their period of usefulness in the hive. Of course they feed the young. They seem to enjoy the social act.

 

Bees cluster together for warmth in cold weather and fan their wings to cool the hive in hot weather, thus working for one another’s comfort.

 

When swarming time comes, bee scouts head out to find suitable quarters where the new colony can establish itself. These scouts report back to the group, executing a dance (as they also do to report nectar) by which they convey the location of the prospective home to the colony. As more than one scout goes prospecting and reports back, the bees appear to entertain the findings of all scouts and at last the entire assembly seems to reach a common conclusion on a choice. Thereupon they all take wing in what is called a swarm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

·   Shut the heavens from raining for 3 ½  years

 

·   Was miraculously fed

 

o   Brook Cherith and the ravens

 

·   Raised the widow of Zarapheth’s son from the dead

 

 

·   Called fire from Heaven

 

·   Slew 400 prophets of Baal

 

·   Called rain from the heavens

 

·   Stood alone against King Ahab and Queen Jezebel     

o   The worst king Israel ever had

 

o   None of you named a daughter after Jezebel

 

 

·      No question that the hand of God was on him

 

 

·   The same way it gets you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

·         …and in sneaks Satan!

 

 

 

 

 

 

a.  and ran for his life

 

 

 

a.       Has he ever let you down?

 

 

 

 

1. Most of the lessons I’ve learned in life have come with suffering attached to them…and not pleasure

 

2. When I look back and knowing more than I did at the time, I realize that if I had known all that God knew, I’d have done it the way God did it.

3. The call to be a pastor is the call to suffering

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Lincoln was on his way to Washington to be inaugurated, he spent some time in New York with Horace Greeley and told him an anecdote which was meant to be an answer to the question which everybody was asking him: Are we really to have Civil War? In his circuit-riding days Lincoln and his companions, riding to the next session of court, had crossed many swollen rivers. But the Fox River was still ahead of them; and they said one to another, “If these streams give us so much trouble, how shall we get over Fox River?”

When darkness fell, they stopped for the night at a log tavern, where they fell in with the Methodist presiding elder of the district who rode through the country in all kinds of weather and knew all about the Fox River. They gathered about him and asked him about the present state of the river. “I know all about the Fox River, I have crossed it often and understand it well. But I have one fixed rule with regard to Fox River—I never cross it till I reach it.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 “Worry is like a rocking chair. It will give you something to do, but it won't get you anywhere."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Discouragement will drive you away from God’s intended place of service

 

 

 

 

 

 

·         Sent money

 

·         Sent help

 

·         Sent prayers

 

 

·         His trial

 

·         Defended his reputation

 

·         True friends

 

 

 

 

 

 

a. I love them

 

b. Shared a struggle

 

c. Drawn close

 

 

 

 

· Supernatural affection

 

 

 

 

 

Sir Ernest Shackleton was asked to tell of his most terrible moment in the Antarctic. And he said his worst was one night in an emergency hut. He and his fellows were lying there; he rather apart from the rest. They had given out the ration of the last biscuits. There was nothing more to divide. Every man thought the other was asleep. 

 

He sensed a stealthy movement and saw one of the men turning to see how the others were faring. He made up his mind that all were asleep and then stretched over the next man and took his biscuit bag and removed the biscuit. Shackleton lived through an eternity of suspense. He would have trusted his life in the hands of that man. Was he turning out a thief under terribly tragic circumstances? Stealing a man’s last biscuit!

 

Then Shackleton sensed another movement. He saw the man open his own box, take the biscuit out of his own bag and put it in his comrade’s, and return the man’s biscuit and stealthily put the bag back at the man’s side. Shackleton said, “I dare not tell you that man’s name. I felt that act was a secret between himself and God.”