-Transcript-
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Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the program. Welcome to the Cafe. Pastor Clark Covington here from Heartland Community Baptist Church of Kings Mountain,
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North Carolina and Heartland Ministries, Amen, which is kind of our umbrella ministry group. I’m just so glad that you’re here joining us today on the program as we get into God’s Word. That’s what we do here on KJV Cafe. We have a daily message, 15 minutes. Then we have a 28-minute message and a 30-minute message.
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So that’s what we do all the time is get into God’s Word and study it. And it just is a blessing to get into God’s Word to see all the truth we can find in it. And we know the Bible says that God’s Word is the living Word, that His Word never returns void. And as we look at the deeper truths in God’s word, just so much clarity comes about in life today.
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I find myself this past year preaching almost every single time on struggle and mountaintops and valleys and affliction. And I mean just like, I swear, it’s interesting, even in our congregation, we’re constantly talking. They must think that I think they’re all, this little group of ours here, is all going through something nonstop. I’m sure some of them are thinking, man, I’m not even in a battle, and your preacher goes
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on about the battle again. But that’s just where the Lord has me just kind of set. And no different here today about how God is with us in affliction. There’s goodness in affliction. A wonderful verse here, Psalm 119. I absolutely love this verse. One of my favorite verses or passages of scripture in the Bible.
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Psalm 119:71-73. It is good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn thy statutes. You know, chew on that for a minute. It is good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn thy statutes. God’s statutes. The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver. Thy hands have made me and fashioned me. Give me understanding that I may learn thy commandments.”
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Wow. You think about that second verse there, Psalm 119:72. The law of thy mouth, the law of God’s mouth, which can be found in God’s word, right, is better than thousands of gold and silver. Let’s just take that gold, thousands of say gold pieces, say it’s worth a million bucks. I wonder if people would have if they had a million dollars in a box the size of a Bible, I wonder if
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they would have that box kind of in the back window of their car or if they’d have that box just sitting somewhere on the shelf or they just give that box away because they never used it. Yeah, I wonder if that’s what they’d do with a million dollars. Course not. They’d have that thing tied to their body. They’d be checking on it multiple times a day.
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They’d put it in a safety deposit box or wherever. They’d be treasuring it because it was treasure to them. But the Bible should be treasure to you because the Bible is more valuable than that. That’s what David is saying here in the Psalm. And my hands have made me and fashioned me. God’s the one that made us.
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We need to think that the maker, our engineer, gave us a book and it’s the Bible. And David here says, give me understanding that I may learn thy commandments. So David himself is asking for understanding so he can learn God’s commandments. So we see the word interchangeable, commandments and statutes, statutes earlier on in verse 71 of Psalm 119. And so we see this passage of the scripture as an opportunity to understand that sometimes
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things go wrong and it’s God’s intention they go wrong so that we can learn His ways, right? And there is goodness in affliction. I’ve preached also on God’s statutes and what’s a statute and commandment and all. But just taking broadly, there’s goodness in affliction because we are able to learn about God when we go through hard times. So ask yourself, where have you been afflicted?
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Where have you been afflicted in the past and what came from it? Where have you been afflicted in the past and what came from it? You know, I’ve just preached recently on Jeremiah 29:11, a very familiar verse about how God has plans for us to give us an expected end and that these are peaceful plans and not evil and so forth. You know, I preached on the context of Jeremiah 29:11 and how the Israelites were facing captivity
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at the hands of the Babylonians and how God himself had arranged that as a judgment to them because they had gone Afar off from him because they had fallen into grave sin because they were worshiping pagan gods because they were serving You know idols they were Living opposed to his law. They were living opposed to God’s ways. They were living unholy. Amen. They were Infuriating God they weren’t recognizing him and what he had done for them. And so He allowed judgment to come their way.
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But then in the midst of judgment, He gave them instructions to build and to marry and to be fruitful. Just like in the time of Egypt, I mean you read about that time of Egypt when the Israelites left the Exodus story, they left as a very prosperous group. They left as, the reason why Pharaoh wanted to keep them is that they were the best labor he had. They were the ones that were doing a lot of the work around that area and Pharaoh didn’t
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want to lose them and there was many, many of them. So we read the Exodus account, we understand that they were fruitful there and God’s telling them again in Babylonian captivity, look, you’re being judged but be fruitful. Be fruitful and build and plant and grow in these things. So we have to understand that if we’re being afflicted, it doesn’t necessarily mean that God is done with us, number one.
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Some people I think, they have sin in their life, they’re going through hardship, and they just say, okay, I’m being punished for my sin and God is just done with me. Well, that’s not true. Now, you may be facing adversity because of your sin. Let’s say you were a gambler, you lost all your money at the casino, you went and you robbed your mother-in-law and your mother-in-law threw you in jail.
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Okay, this is a total random example. I don’t know anyone that did this, but I’m just thinking this right off the top of my head. And your mother-in-law says, no, convict him. I didn’t like him anyways, right? And then I like the mother-in-law.
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Okay, so now you’re in jail and you’re rightfully in jail because you stole, okay? And you’re rightfully, you know, not living up to God’s standard because you stole and because you were not earning money in the casino, but you were trying to win it, you know, in a way where you weren’t doing anything to earn it.
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And you were coveting after the riches that the casino promised and on and on, okay? So you have this whole situation at your feet and you say, God, you know, are you done with me? I believe God would answer, I’m just getting started. And not in a bad way, I’m just getting started,
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I’m opening up a dialogue here. Now you wanna seek me. Now that you’re alone and isolated, now you wanna talk. Again, I think the prison ministry is one of the most effective ministries because people are in a place, it’s God’s mercy almost,
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it is his mercy, that they’re in a place where they really wanna commune with God because they’re at a low point. You know, I really, really, really called out to God, not when I was saved because when I was saved I was just out of college, I was very naive, and I was totally kind of yoked up in the world.
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I wasn’t communing with God. I wasn’t desiring a relationship with God at that point. I thought I was, but I wasn’t. But when I was near bankruptcy and when all my friends had left and when my relationship had ended and everything was just in a mess. Then I was communing with God.
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When I was at my bottom, that’s when God was really able to go ahead and step in and start showing me some things. We see here, David’s no different. It’s good for me that I’ve been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes. When was David afflicted? Many times, certainly.
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Absalom wanted to kill him, his own son who ended up dying. He miscarried, he lost a child with that Sheba and that whole situation. He had a good friend of his killed, Amen, by sending him off into the hardest part of the battle. God almost took his life at that point. He went through some very hard times.
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You can read in the Psalms about these hard times. David knew what it was like to be afflicted, and David knew that it’s good that he was afflicted because it teaches him God’s ways. And so we need to ask ourselves, what is God’s law doing? What role is it playing in our lives? Are we seeing God’s law in our life?
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Are we living up to what God’s called us to do? Amen. Now we’re not under the law. We’re saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone. We are saved by grace, Amen. And I believe God is a God of his word, that when we truly believe on Christ, we are saved one time for
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an eternity. Christ died one time for all time for everyone that would believe on Him, that accept that free gift of salvation. So we’re not talking about salvation. We’re talking about sanctification. We’re talking about living for God day to day, here and now.
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Because you know what? We’re saved. We’re not transported to heaven. When we’re saved, it’s not like we’re taken out of the sinful body and we’re put in heaven and we’re just put on the sideline in heaven until, you know, God’s ready for us. We’re left here on earth. So we are saved, we’re renewed, we’re born again,
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but we are like sheep for the slaughter. We’re out here living in this broken world. We are a light shining in a very dark place. And we are to live for God, now being saved in light of the fact that we are in a world that is very broken and dark, right? And so we see that in the Bible. You look at Joseph who’s jailed for being honest. And for a long time he was in prison and he had done nothing wrong. His brothers had sold him off into slavery and he had done nothing wrong.
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And that is an example of a sinful dark world and Joseph’s a picture of Christ, Amen. And Joseph is highly exalted at the appointed time. Well, we need to live as Christ-like as we can by understanding that God’s affliction is good for us. It’s good to go through hard times that are brought about by God because we understand what God wants us to know. Our faith is tested.
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We have an opportunity to show God we truly believe in Him. We were able to show God that we have faith, amen. We’re able to understand that eternity will no longer be like this short season, so we can bear this short season and go through affliction because we understand the principle that eternity in heaven there’s no more sin, there’s no more pain, there’s no more crying, there’s no more night, there’s no more darkness, there’s
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no more bad actors, there’s no more theft and all these other things. In heaven everything is perfect. Amen. And so we realize that this short season in life we bear living afflicted so to speak so that when we’re in heaven we don’t have to deal with it. So we realize it’s just for a season.
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We realize the scope of eternity in a way. We realize the closeness with God that’s not found in ordinary day-to-day life. As I’ve testified here today, I wasn’t close to God when I had ordinary everyday life, Amen, when I was just a graduate student or something. I wasn’t that close to God, but I got real close to Him when everything fell apart and I didn’t want to live anymore.
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I got real close to Him then, and I begged Him to let me serve him and he opened a door for me in midst of my sin and my despair he opened the door for me and he said there you go and oh it took a long time and there’s a lot of sorting things out a lot of consequences to my actions that I had to deal with for years but God truly set me on that solid rock foundation and allowed me to see that it was good that I was afflicted so I could see his statutes and I could start living for
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him and grow close to him and by the grace of God and the glory of God, I’ve continued to do that now for over 10, 11, 12 years. A reflection on Christ as your personal Savior. You know, we’re able to reflect on Christ as we go through affliction because He went through affliction. And we’re able to understand that He will never let us go because of what He’s done
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on the cross at Calvary. And we’ll long for His return as we go through affliction. It gives us a right heavenly state of mind where we aren’t getting yoked up in the world, we’re not making the world our home, because we’re desiring the better things in heaven that are to come. And so we long for his return in affliction. That’s only going to happen in affliction, amen? If everything was great, you’d tell Christ to take his time, but now you want him to come soon
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because it’s hard. And you understand finally God’s sovereignty, that he’s completely in control, that he knows best, that the potter knows the clay and the potter needs fire to harden that clay in the right form, Amen. And so we understand God’s up to something when we’re going through something and we need to trust Him that it’s for our good, for the believer’s good. And as we trust Him, what happens?
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We grow in faith and knowledge. We mature as Christians. We become more patient. We become more loving and graceful and giving as we realize how humble we should be and how we should fear God and we realize our place in this world. We realize what God’s done for us, Amen, and
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his great love for us, it shapes us into more like Christ each and every day, which is what God wants us to do. And so instead of saying, oh God, let this affliction pass, I don’t want to deal with it, let’s ask God to show us his statutes, his commandments, his ways through the fire, through the affliction so that we learn more about him and we grow closer to him and we come out of that affliction grown and matured as a great man or woman of God.
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That’s what we are to do and we should thank him for it. That’s how it happens. That’s how Christian growth happens. We go through the fire, we come out better for it. Let’s thank God for it. I thank you for listening today.
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Tune in next time for great truth from the Bible. Thank you so much, take care, God bless and Amen.