Men who suffer

The Prophets: take them for an example of suffering

We are encouraged in the book of James, chapter five verse 10 where it says, “Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.” James then brings up Job to encourage them to endure. If we look at this book from beginning to end what we see is men who have been tested and we see suffering. Though not a suffering, in a religious way, through will worship or observing specific days for our own religious purposes. When I was a young Christian I never thought I’d see evangelical churches having ash Wednesdays and covering crosses in purple. What blows all of the religious observances away is the Holy Ghost. This is why they feared Jesus, He said He was going to take away the temple they had so fallen in love with, and with it their rituals and their religious days.They were afraid He was going to blow it all away and in a way He did, he bought it all down to belief. So when I say we are going to have a message on men who suffer we have to have the right attitude going into it. Our hearts have to be in the right place, not “Lord we have to suffer because it has some value in it, that gets us closer to You,” that is not what God is after. God has an eternal purpose He is heading towards. Everything in this world is opposed to us giving God what He wants, in these last days the purposes of satan are no longer hidden, more and more of the purposes of God need to be fulfilled. God always has the ones that He wants there in the times of declension. So James says to look at these men for an example of patience. All throughout the Word we see the trials these men go through for the eternal purposes of God.

Noah: Preacher of Righteousness

You see the man Noah, the preacher Noah, and God is calling him because he’s going to preserve his eternal purpose through this man. Noah experiences loneliness and separation. Some archaeologists and historians say it took him about sixty years to build the ark, sixty years of carpentry, working without a drop of rain, going a way that was completely opposite to the world. While the world went headlong into the deluge of their judgement Noah was faithfully preparing the ark. The suffering he must have felt, not the suffering of the blisters on his hands, or of the workload, but the suffering of knowing “I’m building this ark while the world pays no attention and is moving headlong into this judgement.” It says in the New Testament that he was a preacher of righteousness. I don’t know if that means that he stood out there and was preaching while everyone was laughing at him and his boat, or just by what he was doing he was preaching, but he was faithful and he was sure.

Abraham: Father of Many Nations

What about Abraham? We often don’t think of Abraham as a man who had to suffer, in the way we think of suffering. In fact there are those who are quick to point out how God made him rich and how many possessions he had, but that view is a limited and foolish one. He most definitely had God’s blessings but his eyes were not on them, Abraham had this promise of God and yet he suffered along for all those years waiting, with no son, for that promise. In Genesis 15:2, Abraham says “Lord God, what wilt Thou give me, seeing I go childless and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?” Especially as an ancient man, he needed and wanted to have a son, it was so important that heritage be carried forward. We don’t understand this kind of pain because we don’t understand God’s lineage. We get all caught up in debates on why this one had so many wives or concubines but we fail to see that through it all God wanted His lineage, the lineage of Judah, who’s descendents would sit on David’s throne. I lived in a society overseas that rejected the necessity of men in raising their own children, and that is where we are headed today in America. Today we view pregnancy as a sickness, society looks at the husband to say look what you’ve done, get out of the way; we fail to see the heritage in it. I want my heritage to go on, we should see that in a spiritual way with the church. God doesn’t just want us to number out salvations and put them on a chart, or to a pray a sinners pray or to say how many clicked off a “yes” on a Sunday. He is interested in children being born again and walking in His heritage, it is important to Him. This is a part of the suffering that Abraham went through. He had problems in his own home, Sarah couldn’t wait and he had Ishmael. Called to faith Abraham failed in faith, yet persisted and endured until the promise of Isaac was in his arms.

Joseph: Loved of his Father

What about Joseph, the patriarch? This was a man loved by his father and misunderstood by his brothers; the calling always brings conflict. His brothers took action against him and sold him into slavery, this pained Joseph’s heart greatly. We have to constantly keep our hearts open to the Lord so that God gets His expected end. You look at these men’s lives and you see so many disappointments: Noah could have stopped in the 50th year when there wasn’t a drop of rain in sight; Abraham, year after year as he and Sarah got older the impossibility of the promise became more and more every day; or Jacob who knew the promise but found himself wondering so many times; or Joseph who knew he was his father’s special son and that the stamp of God was upon him. I want the power of God, His presence, I want to be used of God, if that is what you want and you ask Him to touch your life with anointing, there will come conflict and opposition. Satan will never fight religion, he is not going to fight your plans for a bigger building or more university classes or the boasting of how much money you give to the poor. The Bible says you shouldn’t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. If you’re going to set your mind on those kinds of things you will find that there will not be a lot of opposition but when God touches a man, when God reaches down and puts an anointing on him, he is marked. This is what the Lord had in Joseph, the special son of his father, an archetype of the Christ that was coming. Joseph’s brothers were jealous of him and there’s a jealousy that is put on Jesus. That is why so many hate Jesus, even today, because He’s the special of the Lord, He said “I am the way, the truth and the life.” You cannot try and share in what He has by suffering for it, purchasing it, or even trying to make it happen through religion. You share in it by identifying with what He did and then you share in it with the love that the Father has for Jesus and for us. God’s purposes are at work.

Joseph: Betrayed Slave, Sojourner

When Joseph’s brothers threw him in the pit they wanted to kill him, they hated him. Although Reuben tried to stop them from doing it, when the caravan came they sold him to the foreigners. What pain that must have been for him. Can you imagine? You’re a young man and your brothers hate you, they cast you into a pit, and now you are sold into slavery, taken to Egypt, where Abraham, Joseph and Jacob also had to go. Everyone has to have their time in Egypt so that they learn they are a sojourner in the land. So Joseph is taken, he goes into Potiphar’s house and is blessed because there’s an anointing on him. Although the blessing is on him, the time there  brings pain as well because he’s not just after the blessing but the purposes of God and those purposes need to be fulfilled. The devil is always after men of God, here Potiphar’s wife comes in and with her eyes upon him she tries to get him to sin with her and lie with her, he cannot breach his trust with Potiphar, but even more so he adds: “how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” Wow, what a line. He’s not worried about looking bad to just his master, although he honors his master he knows it is a sin against God. Now Joseph may have been arrogant, he was his father’s favorite and maybe he didn’t handle everything right but this isn’t really about getting everything right or wrong, it is about God’s choice. If believers would just stop and say “God chose me.” Hallelujah, I just want to sit this morning and rejoice that God has chosen me. Joseph runs away from this Jezebel archetype, a good thought for young men today. How do you get away from temptation? Run away from it. We wonder why so many people are caught up in so many thought lives because as young men they’re not taught how to fight and to run from those things. When Potiphar comes back, his wife lies, she lies because there is no scorn like a women’s, her hatred is stirred, she wanted something and she didn’t get it. Her wiley womanly ways came up against a righteous man. You want to stir up the devil? Show me a righteous man that says “I’m not going down that road, I’m going to go this road. I’m not running with that crowd, I’m running with the Holy Ghost. I’m not going to sit there and drink that in, I’m gonna sit and drink in the Holy Ghost. I’m not gonna sit and take in this movie, I want to take in the Word of God; God’s way, His way.” There may have to be some suffering in it, like Joseph had, yet this was but a very acute suffering for him because he was now going to be accused and punished for something he didn’t do. Standing for his integrity, he is thrown in jail. This is what stops many men of God who have sincere hearts and souls, they want to serve God but then everything seems to go wrong and turn backwards on them. It wasn’t just the jail, it was the fact that he was a man who was righteous and now his whole testimony was dragged into the streets. This is not God just saying I want my servant to suffer something, this is is a man of God which has satan, the world and all the lies aligned against him; but I tell you this morning, our God is for him.

Still the question: if our God is for him then why? If our God is for me then why? Because He has a purpose. Amen. Joseph’s valuable testimony, so dear to him, seemed to be ruined, what a heartbreak that must have been. All those years he was in prison, year after year and then close to the end he interprets the baker and the butler’s dreams and all he asks is “please remember me, remember me!” and they forgot him. Another two years pass. What pain is that to think you’ve been forgotten, thinking here is my escape, and yet it is turned down. Is it because God is vindictive, is it because He’s experimenting with His little man? Never, that is a lie out of hell, that is not true. It was not going to be these two men that were going to open the door for this man but God’s eternal purpose. Then the king had his dream which no one could interpret so they bring Joseph out. He had not been forgotten and God has not forgotten you. His purposes will bring liberation.

Moses & David: Born to Lead

What about Moses? Here is a man who forsakes all the riches and pleasures of Egypt, all the worldly glory of Egypt, only to be rejected by his own people and watch sheep for forty years in the wilderness. Even after God raised him up and sent him as a liberator to his brethren. So many times they turned against him, turned away from him, wanted to stone him even, but God’s purposes were fulfilled in the end. Moses didn’t get to go into the promised land but God was going to have his way.

What about David? Once again like Joseph, here is a young man: chosen. Samuel called for all the young men and as they were brought before him, one by one, Samuel’s response was “neither hath the Lord chosen this one.” Yet when David came before him he was the one, he was anointed, David was going to be king. David then has this tremendous victory against Goliath. Nonetheless, not long after he was driven from Saul’s court and had to live like a fugitive for years and years, hiding in the cave of Adullam. He even had to feign insanity to spare his life in front of a foreign king. David had a sincere heart for God but he suffered. Was it the cold nights in the caves? Was it the desert sun on his back? Was it the battles that they fought? No, his pain of heart was this: “I am a king and yet I am running and living in caves.” It is the pain of waiting and having patience, the knowing and holding on to what God has said. David knew that so clearly.

What more could we say? Of Isaac, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Daniel and the heartbreak these men experienced. You could look at Daniel and say well he had a wonderful life, he served the king in Babylon; but he faced the lions den. In Daniel 9:5-7 he prays, “We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled…O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee.” This was a man in places of privilege, even though he could walk in the courts of Babylon his heart was still towards God’s purposes. He had pain in his heart because he could see where God’s people were at. Do you see that David kept going on because of heritage, because God wanted a Jeremiah. Joseph continued on because God wanted to preserve His people. In spite of all His people, God is going somewhere; these men carried that in their heart and would not let go of it.

Joseph: A man tried by the Word of the Lord

It says in Psalm 105:17-19 “he sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant: whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was laid in iron: until the time that his word came: the word of the Lord tried him.” Some translations say “his soul was in fetters.” I want you to just hang on to this scripture for a minute. It says he was sold into slavery, he was laid in iron until the word of God came to pass, the Lord tested him. What was the real testing of these men? Sure it was a test to come through the offense against your brothers, the sting of being falsely accused and left in prison. Yet when the smell of the prison and the hurt of the lies come in saying “you are not a prince you are a prisoner,” he knew the truth: “this is the word of God and it will test your soul, God has called you to be a prince.” This was the greatest testing, that God had said his brothers would bow down to him, he knew he was called. We don’t know this type of testing today because we don’t have people opening their hearts enough to say “God, I want your purposes.”

We have people that want to be preachers, want to teach sunday school, want to have great bible knowledge but what we need is men and women of God that will say “God whatever You want, I want to give you all I am, I want your eternal purposes to come to pass.” God looks for those people and when He has them, all bets are off. I am sure there are men who are better versed than me, can speak better Spanish than me, but in a few weeks I will be in Honduras, not according to what I can do but because I am called. Jesus said the things you value in the world are an abomination to me; alternatively, we look for the best, the most beautiful, the strongest, the most talented. As we long for these men again that will say “Lord I don’t have anything to give to you, to bring to you, Lord my talent is worthless, nor is my money or education helpful, I bring to you my heart,” that man or that woman will know that kind of suffering. “Until the word of God came and tested him.” Have you got a word from God? It will test you. Do you know why some people don’t have a word from God, because they don’t seek Him for who He really is. If we surrender our lives and press in with Jesus there is always the possibility that we might just be a part of a holy conversation. Overhearing “who will go for Us?” you respond with “send me” and then the Word of God descends upon you.

Do you have a word from the Lord, have you heard something? There have been times when the word of the Lord has been so clear to a young man, then trials come, suffering and waiting and though you encourage them to hang on, they begin to think “maybe God has changed his mind.” God has not changed His mind.

Paul: Persecuted but not Forsaken

When you hear the word of the Lord it is then no longer up to you, there was not a point for Joseph, Abraham, Isaac or any of these men to say “you know, I have great strength, a strong personality, I can just press through.” What carried them on was this: “I cannot deny the reality of what I have heard.” Someone say amen. “I cannot deny the reality, the call of God, the gift.” This is why Paul told Timothy to stir up the gift inside of him, he was reminding him “the Holy Ghost stirs inside of you.” What is testing us this morning? The word of God. It is not God playing a game but His eternal purposes going forth; holding on to which can bring us through all kinds of trials and troubles. He is not trying to make you better, you will traverse through all those trials and they will most certainly make you stronger, but it is to bring you closer to Him. It is like a father telling a son “follow me,” and that son is met with trial after trial, the father is not just sitting back saying “let’s see how he’ll do,” the father calls “keep coming towards me son.”

II Corinthians 4: “Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not; but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted but not forsaken; cast down but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body of the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.”

Paul knew that every trial is producing death in us so that there can be more of the light of Christ. This is all about life, extracting the precious from the vile: organic life. Through these difficulties God is just going to get more of Jesus out of us. When Paul starts off his letter in II Corinthians 1:3 he states: “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in trouble, but the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation…but we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us.” (Emphasis added.)

I love this passage, he did not want them to be unaware of his suffering, this is not Paul preaching to his church and wanting them to know “Hey, I’m a successful preacher, follow in my footsteps and be as successful as me.” Rather, he wanted to be as honest with the Corinthians about his failures and weaknesses, sharing with them that he was burdened excessively. Have you ever felt such heartbreak, or that you couldn’t take it anymore? In that moment, if you are in a place of believing, God will give the grace that you need. God is always going somewhere; indeed, God who raises the dead, on whom we have set our hope, will yet deliver us. Paul didn’t endure just to discover more of His life but to know He is able and He will deliver.

Noah, Abraham, Joseph: Men who Suffered, Men of Faith

Look back through these men, Noah who suffered in that aloneness, preached to a world that would not listen and did God’s word come to pass? Amen. Noah, of whom we are all descendants of, was a faithful man. Was Noah perfect? No, he was righteous. Did the promise come to pass for Abraham, of whom we are spiritual descendents? Yes. What of Isaac, Jacob, Joseph? Yes it came to pass. What a beautiful time that must have been as Joseph stood before his brothers, as they are talking about him and fearing the sin they committed, they didn’t understand their God. Joseph was a man just like us. Do you think he had been angry at his brothers? It was time to lay all the lies in the past. I think he had time to forgive every one of them, time to come to complete forgiveness. Were his brothers wrong? Yes. Were they a part of God’s people? Yes. Does God love His people? Does He bring them through? Yes. That is why He needs brothers and sisters praying. As Joseph heard them talking he had to go in the other room and weep, that is not a sign of a man who was holding on to anything. Joseph knew that all the suffering he went through was for something greater than himself, greater than his coat of many colors, greater than God delivering him from the prison, greater than showing Potiphar that he was a righteous man. God wanted to spare his whole people, so he could take them into Egypt, then he could have a Moses that would lead them out of Egypt. So then He could have a Jeremiah that would prophecy, having the Word of God coming to him in captivity, so Daniel would read it and the people of God could go on. In these last days all hell is going to be spit up, truth is fallen in the streets, everything is so twisted and satan mocks but we can know: our God is at work. Amen.

Jesus: Though He was a Son

After David was anointed it was still another fifteen years later, but was he crowned? Yes. David suffered broken heartedness because of his sin and even he couldn’t believe himself how he had failed, as expressed in his confession in Psalm 51. So did David sin? Yes. Was his heart for God? Yes. Did His word come to pass? Yes. So that the life of God would be exhibited in us. We praise God because God brought them all through. All of them. He is working a heavier weight of glory in their hearts. Paul wrote to the Corinthians telling them that through his own suffering he had tremendous consolation for them, because the Comforter is here. When you meet someone who has gone through difficulties you can have compassion for them, due to your own sufferings. You can tell them “I went through something similar and my God brought me through.” Paul does not say if you know enough you’ll get through, or if you’re strong enough you’ll pass the tests. Our God is simply placing His Word and call in our hearts, all He is asking us to do is believe and If you believe you will take action. When Moses passed the burning bush, it says he stopped and turned to see. What does that mean? There was still faith in this man after forty years, he could have said: “Well I’ve seen a lot in this wilderness, so what, a bush is burning,” but because he had faith he knew there may be something of God here. When Joseph was called before the king, he quickly got washed and prepared because he knew this could be it. He kept believing. Paul could not be stopped, we are persecuted but not forgotten, perplexed but not in despair. He had that life inside of him. The suffering of hanging on to God’s Word, knowing He can when it may seem He is not. The suffering of knowing “God this is what you want.” Look at Jesus Himself, when He was on the earth, in the days of His flesh, He offered prayers and supplications, with loud crying and tears, to the One able to save Him from death. He was heard because of His piety, Hebrews 5:8 states, “though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.” Let us be clear, the Word says that in the days of His flesh, when He was on the earth, He offered loud cries. Think about that, as the Son of God, why didn’t He just walk through the earth saying “my God can do anything?” He cried. He was complete man and complete God. Can you imagine the apostles as they are falling asleep they can hear Him crying and praying, because He was in the flesh. He could feel in his heart all the sins of the world and He knew He was going to be betrayed by the world.

All the suffering and pains of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Moses, David, Jacob and all the prophets are summed up in one man: Jesus Christ. He suffered the rejection and the false accusations and He cries out to His Father in tears. Not my will. Jesus never disobeyed, He never sinned, so what does it mean then that He learned obedience? Every time God wanted something, Jesus obeyed. Every time He obeyed, He suffered the people not understanding all that He knew. “Don’t you know My father can send legions of angels?” Every time He chose the Father, He was suffering. That is how we learn obedience: when we suffer and difficulties come, we choose God because Jesus lives inside of us. When satan says to us that we are weak, we can say “Jesus isn’t weak.” If the devil lies: “you don’t have enough love/strength/endurance to love the people who are rejecting you.” You can know: Jesus endured the cross, despising the shame, He lives inside of me, I have the life of Christ in me.

Why are we so reluctant of loud cries: “God please deliver us, deliver your church, please have Your way”? Paul says, therefore since we have this ministry and have mercy we do not lose heart. It is not time to lose heart. Much of Christianity in America has lost heart, I meet so many believers and they are lovely people but they continue to live in the world because they have lost heart. I’m not going to argue drinking, I’m going to say “Listen, I’m being filled with the Spirit, why would you settle for something less?” Or to the cursing Christian, I wouldn’t argue “Why do you use those words?” but to say “I want the Word of God in my heart.” There does need to be conviction, by the Word, as to why they are living that way, but also a comfort for them to know that there is such an abundance for them.

Noah did not lose heart, Abraham did not lose heart, neither did Jacob, Isaac, Joseph or any of these men. Did they get discouraged at times? Perhaps, but not defeated. The real pain is always this: the Word of God testing us. When I read the bible and I look at America this is the pain I have, “Lord here in Your Word are examples of Your church but that is not what I see.” We’ve let the standard slip, not in a perfectionist way, but He wants every believer saved, every believer filled with the Holy Ghost and in love with Jesus. Not perfect but going on. I could take you through this book and show you that God answered everyone of their prayers, not how they thought it would turn out I’m sure. Joseph most likely thought he’d be wearing his beautiful coat and leading his family. When God first called me there were churches that wanted me to preach for them and I thought, this is where He wants me to go. I would have never thought he would lead me down the roads that I have gone down. I certainly wouldn’t have picked them, but I would not have changed them. I may have had suffering and difficulty but it brought me closer to my Jesus. When Abraham looked at the stars he must have thought, Sarah and I need to get to work, we are going to have a lot of descendants; God gave them one son and through him the Lord populated the earth. When reading Ephesians, we see that Paul had men turn their backs on him, churches began questioning, he spent most of his time in prison. Yet he knew all that mattered was “I want to know Him and share in His suffering. I want to be so much like Jesus I want to share in what he shared.” Who ever thought Paul’s words would be read all over the world? He went into glory, in faith, trusting his God, He can do what He wants; his words would be there for millions to read.

Has God given you a word?

His Word is going to come to pass, He is a deliverer. If we look back to the book of James he said to look to the prophets as an example of their suffering and their patience, like Job. Who suffered more than Job? Yes it was the boils on his skin, a broken hearted wife, the eleven graves he stood in front of, the loss of all his wealth but the real pain was this: “God I’m a righteous man, why have things turned out like this?” At the end of Job was blessing. We must hang on, keep saying yes to the Lord, keep encouraging each other to look into the sky. Instead of worrying about having multiple services, we need to have one service where the Word of God is preached and another service where we pray all night long, that is what the church of America needs. We play instead of pray. We profit instead of prophesying. We have to hold on, has God given you a word this morning? Do not let go of that word, hold onto it with faith. His word is true. If you don’t have a specific word that God has told you, then hold on to the Word of God. Has He made you a new creation? Believe it. Has he said He will deliver you? Has he said He will fill you with the Spirit? Believe it. God, You will have a people, in this city. As the last days come, God has to have the ones like Paul who have been through trials, so they can comfort those who are going through things themselves. God’s eternal purpose, His call, and His word called out to these men and they followed after that. His call and His word brought them through many trials and tribulations. God will bring us through.

Let me leave you with these words in II Corinthians 1:3-5:“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in trouble, but the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.” Amen.