-Transcript-
Amen, Glory to God. Thank you for joining me today. Welcome to the cafe. Hopefully, you’re having a great day. Today, we’re talking about a wonderful characteristic of God. A wonderful true fact in the Bible about God and that is that He delivers? He delivers those that believe on Him, from all their affliction. It’s a wonderful true fact that God delivers the righteous those that have been made righteous by His only begotten, Son, Jesus Christ. He delivers them from all their affliction. And when we think about all the affliction in the world today,
Man is so great. There’s so much that we have to deal with as believers. There’s so much that um, we have to face each day from the trials that come with just living life to trying to be an example. To being a good parent or brother or sister, or relative or friend to doing our very best at work and at the job site to not compromising our morals and our values to living for the Lord in these last days to standing up to even anybody that wants to go against God’s word and proclaiming the truth in this wicked time is so difficult. And we face things that look like we can’t overcome the mountains that look like we cannot climb, and we say God how will we do it? And the Lord reminds us that He delivers us from all afflictions. So, we’re talking about deliverance here, several parts series here on deliverance. Psalm 50:15 is our text verse “and call upon me, this is God in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee and now shalt glorify me”. Such a wonderful verse, so simply it’s so profound call upon God. Many people won’t do that, but when you do call upon God in the day of trouble, He’ll deliver you. And then what are you to do after? He’s delivered you in this day in trouble that you called upon Him. Well, you’ll give Him glory. Amen! You’ll glorify you should. Think of this in the Bible. All the times that. People in the Bible face trouble and they called upon God. And He delivered them, think of King Hezekiah and how He delivered King Hezekiah in circumstances that looked. Uh, like he could not be Victorious. He thinks of King David and how He delivered King David. And in a time when He was on the run from King Saul and looked like His life was going to be taken from Him and hiding in caves. And He delivered King Saul, and you think of all of those in the Bible that He delivered, Amen. And you realize that He will do the same for us. He will do the same for us. Affliction is a serious thing. What is it? What is Affliction? It’s when things go wrong, Amen. It’s when you’re swimming upstream. It’s when problems happen. We’re all affected by it. Are we not we’re affected by Affliction in so many ways. You may wake up in the morning and you may face, uh, an angry phone call first thing in the morning and your, your mood, your tenor. Your whole manner is changed. Uh, and yet you have to go about your day and do what God’s called you to do that day. Or you may wake up and have a flat tire, or maybe right before bed and you’re coming home from work. And, uh, you get a phone call and you’re devastated, you know, you go, you get a bill in the mail, you didn’t expect to have that you don’t have the resources to pay. Affliction look. I don’t need to go too deep into it. I’m sure you understand what it is. But what is God’s word say about the matter when it comes to Deliverance? I’ve got good news. He delivers us out of all afflictions, Psalm 34:19, “many are the Afflictions of the righteous but the Lord Delivereth him out of them all”. Isn’t that interesting that God is so unique? His ways are so much higher than our ways. You know, if you were God and you had people that followed you, you’d probably give them a cake walk. Would you not you’d say I’m God this person, you know, they read my word every day and they uh they’re good, they come to church, you know, they pay their tithe, whatever else, I’m going to go ahead and give them easy street. I’m just going to make them rich fat and happy. Let them just chill and be good and everyone’s gonna look at that person. Say man, that person from God is just so everything’s so easy for them. No, he didn’t do that. Did he? He didn’t do that. Romans 8:32, “He that spared, not his own son but delivered him up for us all. How shall he not with him also freely? Give us all things”. So, Romans 8:32 really sums up this idea of affliction. God’s only begotten, I mean, how does God feel about Jesus? I can’t imagine. It’s hard to put into words. I have a young son, I’ve got two kids, and I got one that’s young and one, that’s older. And I think of the young one because he’s very tender, and he’s, you know, he’s my wife calls, some clueless and he’s four. So, it’s okay to be glueless at four. Amen. And uh, Goodness, those things happen to him is just defenseless, you know, you worry about him and so forth, but you have that heart for him like oh, he’s just this young boy, you know. And, and I think of the Lord father God giving that young child, Jesus Christ, uh, in the manger, there virgin birth, giving Jesus to the world, to be afflicted, to live in Affliction, His life to have no room in the end to be from Nazareth where I think it was Nathaniel said, what good think can come from Nazareth to be from this no-nothing Town to have to come of? No. Good report to look like nothing special to be not even accepted in his own hometown. To deal with people that wanted to kill him. God willingly did that, right? And so, how can we expect to live on Easy Street? But then here’s the kicker. In Romans, 8:32 it says, “but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely? Give us all things”. So, here’s the kicker. As Jesus was given all things. Jesus is, Lord of lords, King of kings. The entire Bible is about Jesus. We love Jesus. We thank Jesus for His sacrifice on the cross. He was the perfect sinless spotless lamb life is all about Jesus life without Jesus, is pointless, Jesus is everything. So, through His affliction through Jesus Affliction, He became blessed. And now we’re seeing as we die with Christ on the cross, as we die to self, and as we are risen again, amen. As new creatures in Christ, though. We’re afflicted, we are now given all things freely. We are now blessed. It’s one of the many Mysteries of serving the Lord and getting to know the Lord and living for the Lord. Is that wow? We’re afflicted. We’re also blessed and because we’re afflicted that blessing takes on such better context. And the example I gave is so if you know if you were God or if I were God we just live and we bless everybody and all that but if you’ve ever lived in a time of comfort, it’s not actually the best time to live. It’s really not. I mean you know when you’re in a time of comfort, you’re worried about that, comfort being removed, you have all kinds of anxieties and fears founded or unfounded, um, You’re, you’re maybe more self-focused if you’re just in the time of comfort and on, on, on, and so being very comfortable is actually not our best place to be. Amen. And being an Affliction, a little bit of comfort goes, a long way. Amen. A good night’s sleep. When you’re an affliction is, is the blessing. Amen. And so, we see that God’s ways are so much higher than our ways. And that maybe he allows some of these Afflictions because Psalm 34:19 says, “many are the Afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord Delivereth him out of them all. Maybe he allows some of these Afflictions”. So, that he can Deliver us out of them and get the glory. I think, maybe sometimes, I think the inflictions that I have to face, and I know that maybe they’re not as bad as what others have to face. I think sometimes Lord will give them to me and I believe this that He’ll say, I’m going to give this affliction to brother Clark and brother Clark’s gonna go through it. I’m going to deliver him out of it, and then he’s going to go on Sunday morning and he’s going to preach the congregation. How I delivered him out of it and he’s going to give me glory or preach on the radio or whatever it is. I really believe that. I really believe some Afflictions may come my way so that I can give God glory and I’m happy to do it now. Hopefully, God will be merciful on me. I know He won’t give me more than I can handle, sometimes, I wonder but you’re in the same boat. I’m sure when you get afflicted and when God delivers you out of that as Psalm 50:15 says and call upon me and the day of trouble and I will deliver thee and now shock glorify me when you call upon God in the day of trouble, He delivers you, hopefully, Lord, willing, you are then giving God the glory. You’re given God, the glory, what? Good in life has happened to you. That is not because of God, everything. Good in life is because of God. How about this those things that Not in your life maybe the Lord has removed. Those things out of his mercy on you and his love for you. I believe in heaven. We will thank God for all that He has done for us and we’re also going to thank God for all these protected us from or kept away from us. And I can’t even imagine God’s ways are Unthinkable. But his heart is so enormous his love for his people is so great. So great that He give His only begotten Son, I mentioned my son CJ before my youngest, like, giving CJ up for people, some of which would spit on him, some of which would hate him, some of which would never believe on him. But yet our father, God did that, and Jesus Christ was obedient to the father, understanding, the father’s will doing all that the father called him to do. And we as Christians, which means Christ like, are called to do the same, we are called to suffer. Well, I went to a church, one time I visited a church, a beautiful church and a really nice area uh in a big city and the church. It was so and so church or so and so denomination. And then the sub headline on the sign or whatever it was on the brochure or the Bolton. It said suffer. Well and I looked at the bulletin and I said did I read that right suffer. Well, I mean at church like this in a fancy part of town with nice facilities you figure they’d be saying you’re going to prosper when you come to this church. But then literally they were saying suffer well because they get this scripture aim and they certainly got it. And the idea is that we should suffer well for Christ, because He suffered so well. He suffered so elegantly so wonderfully. So, so full of wisdom and so full of patience and think of His captors coming to the Garden when He was there with a disciples and, you know, He could have just wiped them all out, but He willingly gave Himself. He told the disciples to put away their swords explained later on, I believe it was the high priest, or the pilot. Look, if I wanted to fight my people would fight, but I’m not from this Kingdom. He knew his place was in heaven. Do we know our place today? Do we know that our place is in heaven? Amen. If you’ve been saved, if you accepted Jesus Christ, his savior, and if you haven’t, I urge you greatly to accept Him today as Savior. And Lord, if you’ve accepted Christ as your savior, then your place is in heaven. I’ve got news for you. There’s a, there’s a book. Amen. There’s a book in heaven called the Lamb’s Book of Life, amen. And if you’ve been saved your name’s written down there. Amen. That name, it will never be blotted out. Never erased, you are there forever. You already have a place in heaven. So live, as if you have a place in heaven, not as if this place is your home and everything has to be done here, right in exact, and you need comfort here and piece hear all the time. There’s going to be times of discomfort and times of turmoil but like I said, I believe God allows it at least for one reason to allow us to bring Him the glory. Of course, another reason to keep us humbled to help us build patients to allow us to appreciate when the good things in life, more give us context, all of these things, I believe, Lord, help me, but I believe in heaven. If we can remember Earth, we’re going to be really happy. We’re in heaven. Amen. Does that make sense? Those that have always been in heaven, may say, well, this is just normal, but us here on Earth we get to heaven. We’re going to say, oh, glory to God, this is beautiful, this is wonderful. Oh there’s no sickness. Oh there’s no, there’s no sin, there’s no line. There’s no there’s no corruption. Oh this is amazing. Oh I mean just I can’t even. Oh it’s just exciting to think about Him and it’s exciting to think about little random fact. The first message I preached at our little church, we’re Literally called Chapel on the field. We’re a little Chapel in the field and I preached about Heaven, Amen. I believe it was the first message I preached or one of the first messages I ever preached in front of our congregation because it’s so excited and won all to know that one day, we’ll be there, all those that are saved. Amen, will be there with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and will be able to say, then you have delivered us from all of our Affliction, but why not? Get started now by praising God and giving him the glory. And saying, you’ve delivered us from all our affliction today. If you’re listening to this today, He is delivered you from all your affliction, to this point, you’re still alive, you’re still breathing, you still got ears to hear. Amen. Praise God today. Give him the glory. Tell others about what God has done to deliver you from these Afflictions. You know what? Uh, the disciples celebrated when they were afflicted, they were worthy to be counted Afflicted for Jesus. Amen. We should celebrate, as we go through hardships, knowing that our reward is in heaven and are reward will be great. And that we are not promised to ease here but we are promised that Jesus Christ is overcome this world. So, let’s remember that. And let’s give God the praise today. Thank you so much for joining me. Take care, God bless and Amen.