Address—Tim Roach
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We can start by seeing #246.
I'm going to read verse four. Uh, whither could we flee for aid when tempted, desolate, dismayed, Or how the hosts of hell defeat at suffering Saints no mercy. See Sing #246.
OK, let me try.
To find out if I am going to be anything. It is OK to hear anything about it. That's why I'm trying to continue.
Umm.
Let's ask the Lord's help our God and Father. We come to you this evening independence, and ask for strength.
This meeting helps us speak the words that you would have for our hearts and we just ask for help to understand and we just give thanks, Lord Jesus, for all you've done for us and we just commit this evening into your hand. In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
I want to speak a little bit about suffering tonight. And you can see we'll take a little moment in the Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo. We can see up here on the on the signs we see a monument for 702 Persons who were beaten and brutally murdered in one day. The rebels came down and killed everyone in the village. They put up this monument to these people.
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And that happened back in 1998. That fighting is still going on. It's one of the worst places in the world right now, the worst place in the world right now for all the, uh, wicked violence that's going on.
The next picture is a little girl, a young girl. You see she's crying.
The last thing she saw.
Before she passed out, when the rebels came recently to murder everyone in the village, the last thing she saw was her mother.
Her pregnant mother with the fetus, both of them being brutally murdered.
Next picture.
This is that same girl and her little sister. When the girl, older girl, she woke up, when she came to, they left her unconscious, left her for dead. When she came to, she found that they had cut off one of her arms. Her little sister. In the next picture you can see there's slashes across her face and I don't know if you can see it, but across just above her ear from being slashed and hacked up with a machete.
When you go to the refugee colonies camps and you just listen to all the tragedies of each of the refugees as they experience the savage cruelty of man, it is more than the human soul can bear to hear all these stories and try to sympathize which with each and everyone. But yet to think that the Lord Jesus bore the grief and carried our sorrows of the sin sick world and that he bore it all.
Alone. It's no wonder that the face of the man of sorrows was so marred more than any man's, when sin and its consequences were laid on him.
And also his face was marred more than any man's when he endured the wrath of an holy God against himself because of sin, the sin that was put on him. And it just boggles my mind that when bad things happen in this world, God, who so loves the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that God gets the blame.
This world turned away from Jesus. They rejected him. They hated him. They chose Barabbas.
In this world, except Satan as their leader and God, they don't even believe that God exists, but God gets the blame when everything goes wrong.
In Isaiah 53 verse three says he is despised and rejected of men. Luke 1914 his citizens hated him and sent a message after him saying we will not have this man to reign over us. In John 19 verse 15 the people cried out, they said away with him, crucify him that in mark 1515 until pilot willing to content the people.
Released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus when he had scourged him to be crucified. And so they crucified Jesus, the Creator of this universe, the very one who gave them the breath to breathe and the life to live here in this world. They crucified the Lord of glory. Another story of suffering again, coming from the Congo, a man named Desire.
He had escaped the fighting and he came down to Malawi for refuge and he was in the camp there and there was a missionary Dr. there.
And he had come to the missionary Dr. He had unexplained pains throughout his body and he couldn't. The doctor tried and tried. They did so many tests. They could not find the reason for all his pains. But then the doctor found out that.
This man when he was in the Congo.
He had suffered such trauma, emotional trauma there, that the pains were in effect from all that trauma because they took him. He had seven children and they tied the desire and his wife up to trees.
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And in front of them, they slowly slaughtered their seven children, one at a time.
This man has to live with that horror of those memories in his mind for the rest of his life and it affects his body and gives him pain.
If there is a God, why does he allow suffering?
Suffering is a result of fellowship with God being broken by sin.
The fact that there is sin in the world.
Has really disturbed peace and health and safety.
In all areas of the world, and sin causes all mankind to suffer.
In Congo is not the only place of suffering. Many people in this room tonight are suffering because of this sin, just because of sin that's in this world that has resulted in the corruption of this creation and our bodies. We get sick, we get diseases, we live with pain and discomfort. But I want you to know that you are not the only one who suffers from some malady. You're not the only one who suffers. I wanna talk tonight about a God.
Who suffers? Let's go to Hebrews Chapter 2.
Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 18. For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to help them that are tempted. The Lord Jesus has suffered so much, He's endured so much and he's experienced so much in his life here on earth that when we go through some phase of suffering in our lives.
Sometimes it's more than a phase, sometimes it's a life long chronic suffering. Put the Lord Jesus can identify and empathize with the pain you go through in Ephesians. So before, before God, before creation, God chose to create people and put them on earth, people with whom he could have fellowship with. And in Ephesians chapter one we find that God chose certain people.
To be holy and to give praise and glory to God. You see, God wanted to have fellowship with man and that's why he put him in the garden of Eden. He wants fellowship. But if we go back, and before man was on the earth, before the world was created, one of the first things that God created was the angels. And the angels were created to serve God. And in Job chapter 38, when the angels were created, when when God created the heavens and the earth, all the angels were rejoicing.
Together.
God laid the foundations of the earth, and there was joy in heaven. But then the suffering began. We think we are the only ones who suffer, but God knows what it is to suffer as well. He has suffered. He has suffered disappointments and discouragements, and he knows pain. He knows rejection. He knows sorrow. This God who created the universe.
Began to suffer Genesis Chapter one.
If we were to go over to Isaiah chapter 14, we find Lucifer who is the chief of the angels. We find that he attempted to overthrow the power of God. He, Satan, wanted everything in creation for himself.
And at that time when Satan Lucifer tried to overthrow God, this could possibly be the time when the creation was thrown into chaos where where we don't know that, We're not told that, but it seems like that could be very likely. But in Genesis chapter one and verse two we find that the earth was without form and void. Without form and void it was waste and empty and darkness covered the face of the waters that covered the face of the earth.
God did not create the heavens and the earth in this way. We had the verse on Isaiah 4518 the other night says God created this earth. He did not create it. Waste and empty. God created the earth to be inhabited.
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He created it in a beautiful way so mankind could live here. But something destroyed that wonderful creation that God had made. Ecclesiastes says. That God made everything beautiful in his time.
But when the Spirit of God came down in Genesis one verse 2 and saw the chaos and the darkness that the world had become.
We can't imagine what God was thinking at that time. When the Spirit of God was moving through the darkness and over the waters of judgment, God was surveying the state of confusion.
And the emptiness into which this world had become.
From that time in ages past, God suffered all the way up to the time of Genesis one verse 3, where we find that God was working on his plan. And in six days we find that God fixed up his creation because he was going to prepare a place for man, a place where God could have fellowship with man, and in Genesis, Genesis chapter one again.
In verse 26.
God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over the all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He Him, male and female created He them. On day six God made man in his own image. That means God made man with the Spirit.
So that God could have an intellectual interaction with man on a spiritual level. And God, God originally made man when he put Adam and Eve in the garden. He originally made man to be good and righteous so that God could have fellowship with man.
But when Cindy came in, Cindy destroyed that capability for Fellowship.
Let's go to Ephesians chapter 4.
You and I, we were born with a sinful nature, and that's why we sinned, because we have sinned even before we're born. We have that sinful nature in US, and that produces sin once we come out of the mother's womb.
And that sin has destroyed the capability for fellowship with God. So in Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 24 we find that at the time when we were saved we received eternal life at that time. And the verse says that we have put on the Newman which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. So when God gives us eternal life, He now gives us the capability.
To have fellowship with God because that new life is made and created in righteousness and true holiness. Well, Adam and Eve are in the garden of Eden. God came down into the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day. I suppose that could be the evening. And he came down to enjoy a time of fellowship with man, and it was a good fellowship, and God was glorified.
In this fellowship that God had with man in the Garden of Eden, well, it wasn't long before Satan also came down into the Garden of Eden. He's gonna check out God's restoration job that he did on the earth. And Satan saw Adam and Eve there, and he saw the glory that God received through his fellowship with man. Satan became jealous, Satan became jealous, and he wanted all that glory for himself. And Satan came into the Garden of Eden.
With a plan to destroy the fellowship of God with man.
Satan came in and he saw Eve.
She was up there looking at that tree, and he deceived the woman, and she ate the fruit. Then she took the fruit and gave the forbidden fruit to Adam, and together they disobeyed. Gone. And from that moment on sin controlled the heart of man. We read in the The heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. And that started right there in Adam, in the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, and that wickedness and deceitfulness.
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Has spread to each and everyone that is born into this world.
The fellowship at that moment, remember we said God came down from heaven and into the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day. Well.
That fellowship with man, of God, of God and man was broken because of that sin and the suffering. The suffering of God was increased at that time as man was separated from God because of that sin. Let's go to verse five, Genesis 6, verse five and six.
And we know that the sin of man, it grew, and violence in the world became worse and worse. And this God who suffers looked down from heaven, and what did he see in Genesis 6, verse five? And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, verse 6. And it grieved him at his heart.
The grief and the suffering of God was too much, and in verse seven he says, I'm sorry I ever made man, I'm going to destroy him off the face of the earth.
And so it was that in the day of Noah, God told Noah, I want you to build this big boat. Noah built a boat. A flood was coming, God warned him.
And the waters of judgment. When the floods came, the rains came, and the floods came up. The waters of judgment once again covered the face of the earth. But we know, we know that the long-suffering of God is not willing that any should perish until God made a way of escape. And God told Noah to go and build this big boat. And everyone was invited to come into the boat to escape the judgment that was coming on this world.
This wicked world was going to be punished at that time with the flood on the Washington on this world. But NOAA built the boat. He got onto the boat. The animals got onto the boat. His family got onto the boat. There are eight of them. That's the only ones who got on the boat. Nobody else believed, nobody else wanted to be, to believe God. They hated God. Let's go over to Genesis 11.
We find in Genesis that the Creator God He put Noah and his family after the flood after the ark landed on Mount Ararat after the water dried up about a year later.
God put Noah and his family back on the earth into a new beginning. All that sin, the violence, the wickedness was gone. They had a new beginning. But it wasn't long before the years passed by and man turned away from God again, and they began worshiping the sun and the moon and the stars. And they built the tower, the Tower of Babel that went up into the heavens. And they worshipped. They wanted to reach the creation that they worshiped.
And they worship the creation rather than the Creator. And in Genesis Chapter 11 and verse 6.
And the Lord said, Behold, the people is 1, and they have all one language. And this they begin to do. And now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do. Go to let us go down. And there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth, and they left off to build the city.
And now notice verse 9. Therefore is the name of it called Babel Babel, because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth, and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of the earth.
The face of all the earth. And so the Lord scattered people all over the earth. And so by families they didn't have they, they had different language for each family. And so the families of the earth spread out in all the all the earth. And that's why we have all the different nationalities and all the different languages in the world today, because God spread them out. But though I'm sure the heart of God was suffering again as he mixed up the languages and he dispersed the people throughout all the world.
God wanted people together fellow, but but because of the sin, God spread them out all over the world. You know, fellowship with God cannot happen in the presence of sin.
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And so man was separated from God, and he got further and further away from God.
Well, sin, sin continued to grow, and it controlled the heart of man. And so God was going to test man in yet another way. And so God looked down in all this world of wickedness and idolatry, and God saw Abraham, and God chose Abraham, and he chose Isaac and Jacob and the nation of Israel. He chose them to be his special people.
God, then He gave the nation of Israel every opportunity. He gave them every advantage to be blessed with having the fellowship of God and this nation of Israel as they were wandering through the wilderness for 40 years. God wanted to have fellowship with them. Yes, they were rebels, Yes, they were sinners. But Jesus wanted to have, But God wanted to have fellowship with them. And he told them, build me a Tabernacle, a house where I can dwell with his people a place.
That was reserved for fellowship with God. So man the priest could go into the into the Tabernacle, they could OfferUp the sacrifices and the pre high priest could go right into the presence of God with the blood once a year.
That place was reserved for fellowship of God with man. But the Israelites, they didn't want it. Israel did not want the fellowship of God.
And God gave them just a few commandments to keep, and he gave them some rules to worship in fellowship with God. But Israel turned away from God. They wanted to go their own way. Let's go to Romans chapter 3.
We know from the book of Romans that man in his own strength and his own efforts cannot please God. Here in Romans 3 verse 23 says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
With this test of Israel in the wilderness and with the law, and over the many years of of the law and the 10 commandments, God proves that man is unable to approach to God by good works. God suffered so much during this time of testing of His people Israel.
He suffered.
So what was God going to do now? He gave them every advantage, every opportunity to have fellowship with him. They didn't want it until God suffers. And So what was God going to do? It was at this time that God decided to send his son into the world to become a man, and he wanted his son to be with his people, Israel.
A man, God with his people, Israel.
But the Lord Jesus came, and he came unto his own, and his own received him not. And God suffered when the people of Israel rejected his Son Jesus Christ.
When the Lord Jesus was born into this world, there is no room for him in the inn. And when he was tempted by the devil Jesus, he refused the offers of Satan in the in those uh those days of temptation. And as a result Jesus suffered hunger because he would not do the commands of Satan. And then Jesus suffered Jesus, we can say Satan offered the Lord Jesus all the kingdoms of this world.
But the Lord Jesus wasn't ready to receive them, and there is no way the Lord Jesus was going to bow down and worship Satan. So the Lord, the Kingdom for the Lord Jesus was delayed.
Jesus suffered for righteousness sake. They accused him of blasphemy. They tried to stone him to death. They spit on him, they beat him. They put crown of thorns upon his head and they mocked him. Hail King of the Jews.
God suffered, God suffered when he saw sin at its worst.
And God saw his Son despise. They hated him. They rejected him. They crucified him. Jesus. Jesus was a man of sorrows. He was acquainted with grief.
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Let's go to first Peter, chapter 3.
We know that up to this time.
God was suffering because of sin, because sin had separated man from fellowship with God.
But now there is going to be a little change taking place, because now the time had come for Jesus Christ to suffer force in.
And in first Peter 3 verse 18.
For Christ also has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.
Before the Lord Jesus went to the cross to suffer for our sins.
Jesus said to his disciples in Luke chapter 22. He says with desire, I have desire to eat this Passover with you before I suffer the Lord. Jesus knew he was going to suffer there at the cross, but yet.
The Lord Jesus was looking forward to the fellowship he was going to have with you, with the believers who would be brought into that new relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ as the bride of Christ. And this is the church, this is the body of Christ. And God wants to have fellowship with people in the body of Christ. And so he was looking beyond the cross, beyond the suffering, beyond the shame. He's looking beyond the cross to the glory and the joy and the fellowship.
He would have on the other side of the cross.
We are now on this side of the cross, and we have been joined together into one body with Christ as our head. He is the Bridegroom, and we the Bride, the Bride of Christ the Church.
Let's go to Romans chapter 12.
Romans chapter 12 and verse 2.
Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
The Lord Jesus.
Said. Don't be surprised if the world hates you. You know that it hated me before it hated you. A Christian will suffer in this world.
This world is trying to make everyone to accept and to conform to the LGBQT agenda. I think I got all the.
Letters.
That's the homosexual lesbian.
Gay. I'm not sure what all these, the queer, all these letters. I'm not sure what they all mean. But if the parents show the children that this agenda goes against the will of God.
The children will consider that the parents are ignorant bigots and wicked people. That's right, parents. That's what they're teaching your children in the in the schools.
That is what many children think of their Christian parents.
As an intolerant bigot because you stand for righteousness.
That is similar to the man lot.
He stood for righteousness in the wicked city of Sodom, and he was hated for it, and his own children mocked him.
They mocked him when they he warned them of the judgment that was coming against the pride and the luxury and the homosexual lifestyle that was going on there in Sodom. They mocked the righteousness of Lot.
Satan is bewitching our children.
He's brainwashing our children in the schools to accept the lifestyle that was never intended by God.
And children all over the world are confused by this movement and they are caving in to the lust of the flesh and the lies that Satan is is spreading.
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If you live by Christian values in this present evil world, you represent righteousness and you will be persecuted and you will be ostracized and you will be hated.
That's what it says in John 15. We referred to that verse. John 15, verse 18. If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. So as Christians, how do we react to that? Yes, we suffer. And God suffers when he sees it, and God suffers when he sees his believers, his people, his bride, when he sees us suffering at at for righteousness sake.
But as Christians, we should not hate these people. We should not turn our backs on them.
I was talking to a young man and he had a job.
He was. He's just just a young, a young fellow.
But he had a summer job, and his and his job required him to work with a transvestite.
A young I don't know if it was a girl or a ma uh, boy who changed his his sexual disposition to be the other one.
And he was very uncomfortable working with this person. He didn't know if it was a boy or a girl or how to talk to him or her.
And so he wanted to avoid them. But I told him, you need to be careful because you may be the only Christ that that person sees because.
They're having an identity crisis. They don't know who they are, and they're trying to become something that they're not so they can feel better about themselves. Many of them end up committing suicide.
So as Christians, we should not hate them. We should not turn our backs on them because they need Christ as well.
They are suffering an identity crisis because it is imposed on them by their environment.
And they are sinners.
They are sinners like all the good.
All the good people, the morally upright people.
They're sinners. There's no difference between those ones and all those good people, you know?
But the good people don't think they need God. They think they're good enough the way they are. For the Lord Jesus died for whosoever whosoever will may come.
So why does God allow suffering in this world?
It's a simple answer.
I believe that God allows the suffering in this world so that we might have an idea how he suffered and how he felt, and so we can get to know Him better and so that we can be conformed to the image of his Son. He wants us to become conformed to himself.
And we may need to go through sometimes of suffering.
And persecution.
So we can become more like Christ. Philippians Chapter 3.
Philippians 3 and verse 10.
That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death.
So we find that God allows us to suffer in this world, in this life, and we suffer sorrow, we suffer pain, we suffer persecution, and we suffer for righteousness sake, but in the eternal future with Christ.
We can look forward to that. We will not suffer anymore. And let's go to Romans chapter 8.
Romans chapter 8 and verse 17 and 18.
And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together.
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For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in US.
We have spoken about a God who suffers.
God suffers when we suffer.
I want to read some verses in Hebrews chapter 2.
Hebrews 2 verse 17 and 18.
Wherefore in all things it behooves him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered. Being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted.
God allows us to suffer.
Many people can sit through a meeting like this through a week like this.
And they look like everybody else.
But you sit there and you're in pain.
You have emotional hurts.
There's things that disturb you.
And you have to learn how to deal with those things.
You can accept them and live by faith, where you can become discouraged and depressed and angry.
But just know this that when you do suffer.
The Lord Jesus, He knows what it is like because he has suffered himself and so he is able to help to sucker them that are tempted.
Because when we when we're in pain.
We have a 10. We're tempted sometimes to question the goodness of God. Why are you allowing this in my life?
Why is it so? Why won't it go away? And we pray to the Lord for mercy?
And kindness, please take this away.
But then we find that sometimes, instead of mercy, He gives us grace.
Grace to help in time of need, the Apostle Paul found himself in the same situation when he was suffering from a thorn in the flesh. We don't know what that is, so we can identify with the Apostle Paul. Maybe it was just like the same type of suffering that you have.
But he said the Lord told him, my grace is sufficient for you. My grace is made perfect in weakness because when we are suffering, it makes us weak. It makes us dependent on on others. It makes us dependent on God so.
We need to accept that the Lord Jesus is trying to conform us to the to Himself.
Let's close by singing.
#168.
But I.
Reckon I need to say.
This turtle.
Come on.
I'm welcome.
00:45:06
Give it wrong.
Then the Lord.
Land when the big land and the declared.
I'm in the end of the day, the honourable man.
It's done. What I'm pretty and warm.
You can give you times and and.
For the beginning and loud and thumbnails and the bottom.
Holy.
Time they might be able to love the woman.
Let's pray.
Our God and Father, we give thanks that we have a Savior.
Who has suffered?
And that he's able to identify with our suffering. We just ask that we'd be able to cast all our cares on the Lord Jesus. Father, we give thanks for this resource we just think of that Crown Incorruptible will be the will be for those who have suffered.
Father, we just give thanks for the time we've had together this past week here at the camp. We just ask that uh, we might all be encouraged to continue on in our Christian pathway and that we might have developed fellowships, relationships with one another that might last until the Lord comes. We just commit our way to you, Father. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.