Open—P. Jennings, B. Shane
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Pray.
Lord.
We all need.
Time.
Grace Day.
I have it on my heart this afternoon.
Carry on a little bit with the theme that we had.
And the reading meeting.
The value and the instruction and the help that we receives received through trials.
And the grace that has given us to do so.
I've witnessed those in the last.
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A little while who have been called to pass through trials.
Experiences that they didn't ask.
To have to go through.
But they.
They were asked to go through.
And your heart goes out to someone who is in a far greater trial than you've ever experienced.
And.
Sometimes when the Lord hasn't brought you through some of the same trials, you're you're not able to comfort someone because with the comfort that you have been comforted with.
If you haven't been called to go through that trial before and so we can't always.
Use that experience that we have.
To enter into the depths of someone's sorrow or their pain.
Through experience.
But we can turn to the Word of God, and we can.
We can find the lessons.
That God has taught.
And I'd like to.
Turn to the first.
Scripture.
That I've enjoyed in connection with trials.
In Exodus.
Chapter 15.
I know that we have a tendency to sometimes.
Have wrong thoughts about the experiences God is bringing us through Indiana our lives.
We have a tendency to judge God by our trials.
And oftentimes, we're just plain wrong.
Let's read verse 23 of Exodus 15.
And when they came to Mara, they could not drink of the waters of Mara, for they were bitter.
Therefore the name of it was called Mara. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?
And he cried unto the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree.
Which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet.
There he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them.
So the children of Israel had just crossed.
The Red Sea.
As it were, they just passed through the waters of death.
We can relate that to our salvation.
We've received the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior. We've been set free from the penalty of our sins. We've been delivered.
By that work which the Lord Jesus accomplished on the cross.
And maybe in our expense, in our experience, our hearts are filled with joy.
And we think the Christian life is just going to be wonderful.
And here it is.
After they had just sung the song of Deliverance and their hearts were filled with praise.
What happens? God introduces them.
To bitter waters.
And should it be any surprise to us?
We're going to find as we go into the New Testament.
That God has a recipe for our spiritual development.
And that recipe has a main ingredient.
And that is tribulation.
And so sometimes as we.
As we begin to examine our trials and the circumstances that we're in.
We misjudged the Lord in His purposes for those circumstances that were being called to go through.
Maybe we think we've done something that.
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We shouldn't have done. Maybe we have, and by God's grace.
He's going to use that trial for our blessing.
God has a tendency and he has, he has the ability to take everything that we go through, whether it's something we've brought in our lives.
Through.
Decisions of disobedience.
Or whether it's just something that he's called us to go through every experience that he has in our life.
Is for blessing.
Here are the children of Israel come to get refreshment for their souls.
And the waters aren't what they thought.
That they would be.
They were bitter.
Maybe there's some here who have recently gone through trials.
And you thought, you know, I have a real desire to please the Lord. At least I thought I did.
I really want to go on for the Lord's glory.
I really want to be a blessing.
To those around me.
That I'm going through this wasn't what I had planned. Maybe I don't understand.
There's a solution to bitter waters.
First, they murmured.
The Lord God revealed their hearts. We need that, don't we? Trials do come so that our hearts might be revealed.
He has a way of getting to what?
We have, we have need of seeing.
He reveals their hearts.
That's a blessing.
That's something we need.
It's good when the Lord reveals our hearts.
But he gave them a solution too. He didn't leave them with just that.
Bad taste in their mouth of as it were revealing their hearts to them. He had a way in which those waters that the trial that they were going through, that experience which they were experienced could could be made sweet and that was to take a tree.
And throw it into the water.
And that's the solution.
For every trial.
That God passes us through.
It's a solution.
That will bring sweetness out of every trial that we're called to go through. Now, we might find this to be difficult.
That's OK.
Because God has solutions for.
Our difficulties.
He has lessons to teach us and that's a part of the process.
Sometimes.
We chafe because.
We don't always rise to the height.
We don't. We don't always have wings as Eagles that rise above our trials.
That's OK.
What is the tree that made those bitter waters sweet?
It's the cross of Christ.
It's the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That makes every bitter water sweet.
It's meditating on his sacrifice for us.
The Lord Jesus.
Came down from the heights of glory.
As God.
The Son of God in all of his glory.
He came down into a world where there was nothing.
Betrayals.
As it were.
He came down.
And he suffered.
For you and I.
All the way to the cross.
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Where he was nailed to a tree and he was lifted up.
And in his submission to his father's will, he received the judgment.
Of my sins.
And yours?
We see in that everything that we need to learn in our trials.
We see submission.
A willingness.
To do the Father's will.
The Lord Jesus told.
Mary and Martha.
That this was for the glory of God.
They didn't want to go through it.
They did not want to experience the death of their brother.
But the Lord Jesus, God had a purpose in it.
It was for the glory of God.
The Lord Jesus went through.
His pathway down here as a man.
To glorify.
God.
I like the comment that was made.
I just distracted myself.
I'll get back to that point.
There are trials that we're being called to go through.
But if there is that in our souls.
Which has the glory of God.
As.
Our purpose of being here if you and I in our souls.
Just desire the glory of God.
Those trials will be made easier.
Well, the tree.
Is placed in the waters and the waters are made sweet.
Every trial.
That you and I are called to go through.
Will be made sweet.
As we see.
And joy in our souls, the sacrifice that the Lord Jesus made for us.
There won't be.
A sacrifice.
Trials sometimes.
Cost us time.
Maybe the Lord sets us aside. Maybe he sets us down. Maybe he changes our plans.
Trials always involve a sacrifice.
Maybe it's a loved one.
Maybe it's a life.
And none of us.
Naturally speaking, desire to give those things that are precious to us.
So they're bitter.
But the cross.
Will make them sweet.
It's not maybe.
It will.
Let's just turn to Matthew.
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I love.
To meditate on the Lord Jesus and I don't do it enough.
But in his life.
Is sufficient instruction.
His example is all we need.
And here in Matthew Chapter 11.
And verse 25.
We'll speak just a little bit about what went before to get the context of what the Lord Jesus is speaking about. He had just.
Expressed his displeasure.
To city after city who had experienced his loving care.
His efforts?
To bring them into blessing.
His desire that as a hen would gather.
His chicks under his wing. Under her wing. They refused.
His desire to reach those souls with kindness, with love.
And with wisdom.
And it met with rejection.
It met with an expression of what is in the heart of man against God.
Really, it met with hatred.
The Lord Jesus as a man felt this.
And it was a trial to his soul.
After that verse 25.
After that he had abraded these cities.
At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them unto babes.
Here we learn.
A key to accepting.
That which God allows in our life.
And it is submission.
Here he'd been through a trial.
Of rejection.
And he felt it in his heart.
But in the process.
He could express thanks to God.
Why?
Because he took it from his father.
Submission is a key.
A victory.
In our trials.
Victory in our trials takes faith.
We have to believe.
That God knows what he's doing.
Has he allowed something in our lives?
We have we're overwhelmed by.
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Well.
Faith says I may not understand it, but I know the God that has allowed it.
And thus I can say thank you.
You know, it's a good thing to remember.
That God is always bigger than our trials.
Our trials may seem big.
But God is bigger.
The Lord Jesus knew.
That although he had not been able to reach those cities that he had labored for.
He knew that wasn't going to thwart the purposes of God for man.
And so.
In his trial, he could say.
I thank thee.
There's more in this chapter that encourages our soul.
About.
Listing the weight the trials bring.
In our lives, we don't have time because I want to leave time for others.
Trials are heavy.
If they weren't heavy, they wouldn't be trials. And we're going to find as we go on to the next portion, the trials are necessary ingredients in the Christian life and if there's going to be any development in the soul.
It's not going to come without trials.
The trials.
Don't need to be so heavy.
That we can't make it through life.
They can be lifted, the weight of them.
Can be lifted.
As we.
Go on our Christian life in the yoke with the Lord Jesus.
We won't take that subject up. We'll go on to Romans chapter 5.
I've enjoyed the book of Romans. Most you hear, no.
I've often wondered why this portion is right in the middle of what seems to me to be the doctrine of the gospel.
But one thing that I have come to realize.
Is it right here?
We have the process.
Of Christian development.
The whole purpose of God bringing us into his family.
Is to make us like Christ.
I want to speak reverently.
But knowing my own soul.
That is no easy task.
And it's not done.
By our own effort.
You know, it's good, young brothers, young people, if you'll spend time in the word when you're young.
And it's good if you'll spend time reading what brethren have written.
In years gone by, when the spirit of God.
Had maybe more liberty to reveal.
The truth of His word.
And that will be used in the process of our.
Christian Development.
But that's not.
All.
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We will.
Become more like Christ by this process.
And we really won't be aware of it.
Let me say it this way, it's not going to be by our effort.
I'm not diminishing the thought of diligence in the Word of God.
But the process by which God?
Brings growth and makes us more like Christ.
Is done.
By his own ways.
And that which he allows and that which he brings us through.
In our lives.
Have you wondered?
Why there have been difficulties?
Why trials have come and it seems as though sometimes.
It's not just one trial, but it's one after another.
After another.
After another.
And we wonder why.
Let's read from verse 3.
Well, let's read from verse one.
Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
By whom also we have access by faith into the grace, and where we and wherein we stand, and we and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also.
Knowing that tribulation work is patience.
And patience. Experience.
And experience hope.
And hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost.
Which is given unto us.
I like to think of this as God's recipe.
For our Christian growth.
It's God's wise plan in making us more like the Lord Jesus Christ.
And you know, you notice what the first ingredients is, it's.
Tribulation.
We say we really don't. We really don't like trials and we don't.
There's nothing wrong with not liking trials because trials are difficult.
But we can value them.
And when we're in them.
We can rejoice.
Because we're not unintelligent.
As to God's process of making us more like the Lord Jesus.
He's given this instruction to help us to understand why they're there.
All of these things work for Blessing.
If we're in communion with the Lord.
Maybe we've seen those pass through trials.
Maybe they were. Maybe they've been the Lords.
Maybe they aren't.
But when trials come into their lives have come into their lives.
It appears as though it's had the opposite effect.
Of Christian development.
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And so.
How do we face our trials?
Do we face them in faith?
Believing God's Word.
That.
This trial, this tribulation, this difficulty, this pain, this sorrow.
Is going to produce something.
For the glory of God in my soul and in my life.
It's going to make me more like Christ.
The Lord never asked.
To be taken out of his trials.
Except when he was asked.
To be made sin.
Not beautiful.
It's perfectly consistent.
With God.
The only time he asked to be taken out of his trials.
When he was, when he was, his soul was going to be made sin.
And the rest of what God chose for him as a man.
Was received in perfect submission and obedience to His Father.
Did the Lord Jesus learn?
Things in his trials.
As a man, I think we can say he did.
Because it says he learned obedience by the things that he suffered.
Believe I quoted that somewhat correctly. Forgive me if I didn't.
He learned obedience.
By the things that he suffered.
That was an experience.
That was.
Something that he could only pass through as a man.
And so Tribulation.
Worketh patience.
Has there ever been anyone more patient than the Lord Jesus?
He's being patient right now.
He's waiting.
For this world.
To be set right.
He's waiting to receive his bride.
And he's waiting for his Kingdom.
And that's what the the trials and the tribulations in our life are for.
They're to teach us to wait.
Until God chooses.
His time.
Waiting isn't easy.
And by nature, we don't like to wait.
Trials teach us how.
We learn of individuals who've.
Been put on beds of sickness and there's no end insight.
What does that individual learn?
In submission to God.
They learn to wait.
Until God.
Chooses.
To relieve them of the trial.
Patience is a wonderful thing.
To learn.
And it makes us more like Christ.
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Tribulation, worketh, patience or endurance?
And patients experience.
They lookout in the room I see a lot of.
Folks who have been on this path a lot longer than I have.
And I know that one thing they have over me.
Is experience.
They have been through the trials of this life.
In fellowship with God, and they have learned Him.
And in that sense?
They are like.
Everything we learn of God makes us like Him.
That's why young people.
We value.
Our older brethren.
Because of experience.
Maybe experience teaches us.
Not to panic.
When trials come.
Because we've learned.
That the last time God allowed something unexpected in my life, He was there to meet the need.
Whatever it was.
That's experience.
And young people.
That's what your trials are going to bring.
They're going to bring experience and if you go through your trials in submission to God.
You're going to come out of them.
With patience.
And experience.
And you're going to be more like Christ.
That wasn't received.
Wasn't gotten out of a book.
As wonderful as books are.
That's not how you got that.
You've got it through the process.
That God chose to bring you through.
Tribulation work of patience and patience.
Experience. I'll stop there.
Peace to the Book of James.
Book of James, chapter one.
Verse 2.
My brethren.
Count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations.
Diverse temptations means various types of trials.
But let patients have her perfect work, that she may be perfect.
An entire.
Wanting, In other words, lacking.
That we would be lacking nothing.
Verse six. But let him ask in faith, not wavering.
Without any doubts.
Verse 12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he has tried, he shall receive the crown of life.
Which the Lord has promised to them that love him.
I'm sure the Lord will bless the reading of this scriptures as well as other ones we've heard today. We may look at a couple more verses also.
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When I was a young Christian.
I wanted to start studying something.
And I picked up a little book on James. I started studying James.
You're looking at a.
Person that has.
Learnt from the school of Hard Knocks.
I cannot learn from other people's mistakes. It doesn't happen in my life. I learn only from my own.
I learned them well.
My brethren, it starts out.
As to the saved ones, isn't it?
Count. It means to consider it.
Consider.
The topic.
When you fall into various types of trials.
It does not say if you fall.
Does it?
Brother smiling back there and shaking his head. Yes, you will fall, won't you, when you fall.
He's going to place you there. You will fall.
Not if you fall when you fall.
When you fall.
Into various types of trials. That's what it is in our life, isn't it?
A trial.
A trial.
That is testing.
Know this?
Right. Not if you're going to fall when you fall, brethren, consider it and know this.
That this testing.
Of your faith.
Work as patients.
We had one brother say don't pray for patience, pray for the grace.
It's going to work with patience, isn't it? And we need the grace to get through it.
We are going to be put there, we are going to be tested.
And it's going to work. Patience in our life.
Now we heard a passage that one thing would produce another thing would produce another thing. The tumbling down, wasn't it?
James does it in a little short passage.
James says.
That this testing of our fate is going to.
Work patience.
When you work at something, it's a slow process.
I have hobbies, as many people know.
Maybe not, but a lot of men in the assemblies that know me I like to build.
Hot rods from scratch, cream up.
And I have learned.
That if I charge into something of my own natural instinct then I'll mess it up.
And if I slowly think it over and go into it gradually.
I can conquer it.
And I can take the task on and eventually, sometimes in the middle of the night, I'll wake up and I'll have the answer to it.
And a lot of times.
When we're in the middle of a trial, we'll wake up in the middle of the night and there will still be with us.
And the Lord will.
Start to show us the answer and the way through that he's taken us and where we're going because we are going through something to a completed end.
And it's his.
Course that he has us on. When I was a young child, I had 45 records. I had the big hole in the middle. The round large albums had the little hole in the middle. We had to put this plastic thing over this steel shaft. This is telling how old I am. I know. And then we would stack these 40 fives on top of that plastic thing. And the 45 had one good song on one side and the other side was an unknown song. And you put these 40 fives on there and you put your favorite ones up and every once in a while you get in a hurry and you wasn't looking real good and you placed the wrong side up.
That's what the Lord does in our life. We get up in the morning, we're going to play Site A.
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We know what we're going to do. We got it all planned out and all of a sudden we're on Site B and that's the Lord side. He's taken us through that course that day where He wants us to his way and we have to learn the lesson getting there because it's going to be His way and He's going to teach us and He's going to produce.
One other thing after patience, verse 12. Blessed is the man that endureth.
Temptations.
It is the endurance through it.
That patients produces.
Patients produces the endurance through the testing of the trial.
Turn with me to Second Timothy and we'll come back to James. Just I'm about done that part of it and I want to cover another little part.
I don't want to take up the whole lot of time here, but I just want to couple items here. Second Timothy chapter 3 and verse 17.
We'll read verse 1672, Timothy 3 and 16. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness.
That the man of God may be perfect.
Thoroughly.
Furnished unto all good works.
We have the word perfect here and we have the word perfect back in James in verse four that we read.
But let patients have her perfect work.
That ye may be perfect and entire, wanting or lacking nothing.
If we try to fight against the trial or the testing.
We're going against his will.
James says count it all joy when you fall into divers temptation. That's at the beginning.
That's not at the end when you come out of it.
He doesn't say, let me get you through this, these divers temptations, these various trials, and I'll teach you how to be happy about it afterwards. Does it? No, it's submissive thing. Count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations. Lord, I don't know why you're putting me here, but for my own good.
You're going to teach me something. You're going to make me more perfect.
This perfect here is complete fullness maturity.
You are going to make me a more mature Christian.
So let's go into this trials of temptations together, and you teach me, and you help produce patience, and then you help produce endurance. So when we get through this trial, I will have learned it. And I'm just going to lay it on your hands that you're putting me here, and let's go through it together.
That's hard to do. What do we do at the beginning of a trial? We look up, up and say, Oh Lord, why is it me?
How many of us have done it?
Why is this happening to me? We shouldn't do that, should we?
We should look up and say Lord.
You're teaching me now.
Let's go through this together.
That I may be more perfect.
Lacking and wanting nothing thoroughly furnished.
Together.
It's hard to do.
I have to learn by experience the hard way.
I have to be taught.
I'm no longer a babe in Christ.
Sometimes I feel like.
Maybe there's some things I haven't begun to even scratch the surface unlearning.
I can remember one time when I was a young boy.
And one of the brethren was talking about the resurrection of Christ, and he said, that is the greatest miracle that ever took place on the face of the earth. And I'm standing back there listening to it as I quite often do when people are talking and not say nothing sometimes, sometimes I open my mouth too much. But I said to myself.
The greatest miracle was in this world was the day that Christ saved Bill Shane.
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I was wrong.
The greatest miracle ever took place in the face of earth was the resurrection of Christ with His power.
Up from the grave he arose of the mighty triumph over his clothes. He was victorious over the grave and death, wasn't he? And that's the one who's helping us through these trials.
The one who has the power to teach us. The one who is perfect and always did the Father's will.
That's the one who loves us and wants us to be mature and wants us to be more like him.
Why should we even think about going through one of these trials or temptations on our own?
We have to place ourselves in the one who loved us, gave himself force, and bled and died on Calvary St. on our behalf.
That's the one who's taken us through these trials and temptations. That's the one who's going to bring us out on the other side. And we will have learned a lesson, won't we?
We will have learned it because he'll teach it to us.
You know there's a verse back in.
First, Peter.
Chapter 4.
There's some good verses in there. Let's just break into verse seven. We'll get down to the verse I was thinking of.
When there's such beautiful verses, we have to look at them. Chapter four, first Peter and verse 7.
But the end of all things is at hand and be therefore sober or sober minded.
He would want us to understand scriptures, He would want us to understand what things are like in the last days, wouldn't he?
Be, but the end of all things is at hand. Be therefore sober minded and watch unto prayer.
And above all things, have fervent charity or love among yourselves, for love shall cover.
A multitude of sins. I quoted that verse to another brother earlier today.
That's covering the multitude of somebody elses sins, isn't it?
Use hospitality one another without grudging.
As every man has received a gift, Even so minister the same one to another as good stewards the manifold.
Grace of God, we don't use that word manifold in English language very often.
I use it when I put a intake manifold on a car and the carburetor sits on top. But it has nothing to do with this verse, does it? Or should we use the manifold? In our language, manifold means the complete spectrum of everything about and not leaving out any one item.
About the grace of God.
If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. The word oracles means the word of God.
There was the words and tablets of stone, wasn't there? We have the word in our hand and on our lap.
We have the words of God that the Spirit produces out of our mouths.
Oracles of God, The words of God the man speak. Let me speak as the oracles of God. If any man minister, let him do it as the ability.
Which God giveth?
Don't ever sit in your chair and think you don't have the ability.
God gives each person the ability that he needs to use him.
We are his vessel.
And whatever portion of ability He gives us is the proper portion that He wants us to have, and He will use us and use your ability that He has given you.
Which God giveth, that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ. That's what we were talking about this morning. Got to bring honor and glory. This trial and temptations. Got to bring honor and glory to Him, doesn't it?
Whom be praised and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Now the verse I wanted to it's like a new topic. After a minute, it's like a beginning of a new paragraph. Beloved, we had brethren before, now we have beloved.
Think it not strange.
Concerning the fiery trial, which is to tempt you or test you as though some strange thing happened to you.
Everybody that also kind of knows me, I love to fish.
And there has always been boats in my life. My children will tell you that.
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There's always been a boat around, regardless of the size or shape. It's always been. Boats in my life love to fish, raised on the water.
We're all in the same boat.
We're all in that same boat.
To chuckle back there, Eli, We got to teach it the way we learn it sometimes too, brethren. The ability God gave me.
I'm all on the same boat with you all, they would say down South, wouldn't they? Same boat. I've been in trials. You've been in trials. The Indian talks about the moccasins on your feet walking in somebody else's. One just got off the platform and said there's brother out there that have been through it before me. And that's why we we, we.
Cherish his older brother.
Brother Lyle, Every time I shake his hand, I ask him how he is.
He's wonderful to be here. He's always positive. We pick up on the good things of our brethren. They've been through trials and temptations. They've been in that same boat that you're going through. Maybe not the exact way you're thinking of it, but they've been in that boat.
Don't think it's strange when this trial comes upon you. God's words clearly told you you're going to be in it.
So don't think it's strange concerning this fiery trial which is to test you.
What is the intention?
Of this fiery trial that's going to test you.
The intention is to improve.
And not.
To destroy.
Did you get that? Did you grasp it?
It's to improve and not to destroy.
You're on the right Rd.
You're on the right Rd. when you're persecuted.
You're on the right Rd. if you're in a fiery trial.
May we pray for one another when these trials are there.
There's power in prayer.
If they weren't happening to you, I would question something.
Don't think it's strange when you're there.
It brings forth the love of God. It brings forth the love to one another.
Because you can see what's happening to your brothers and sisters.
And then you're going to come out improved.
Complete, entire, lacking in nothing, mature, perfect. That's what He wants us to be like. Our Lord and our Savior. My time is up.