Thank you very much. I get my guidance from the funniest places. I wasn't right sure what I was thinking about tonight. I wasn't praying about it. So I just kind of looking for the Lord to give me some education. I was on the right track. He did. That song was just what I needed. It's sharply off tonight. I want to read with you from the... The tenth chapter of Revelation and verse seven. Now, in order to get an understanding of this, to get the context, let me say that this is a parenthesis between the sixth and seventh compass. And it has to do with the terrible judgment of the Great Tribulation. It has to do with the sorrow that is to come upon this earth, the climax of all the sorrow and all the suffering, all the anguish that this world has ever known. And it's known a lot. Some of us have led such huge lives we don't realize how the rest of the world is. We don't realize how much pain suffering there is in the world. We don't realize the heartaches. We don't realize that three-fifths of the world's population goes to bed hungry every night. We don't know what other people are going through. Of all of that, does nothing compare to that terrible day of any great tribulation. Now the sentence begins at verse five, and the angel which I saw spent upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveeth forever and ever, who created heaven and the things that therein are, and the earth and the things that therein are, and to see the things which are therein, that there should be time or delay, really, there should be delay no longer. But in the days of the voice of the seven angels, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he has declared to his servant the cross. The mystery of God The mystery of God, I believe, is the mystery of why God permits all of the things which we see on the earth. And especially as they touch the lives of his people. Now, we're not realistic. We're not honest. We tell people, or we give them the impression anyway, that if they become Christians, their troubles will all be over. and it's not so. And we all know that it is so. But most of us have far more difficulty after we're saved than we ever had before. And the more godly we become, the more concerned we are about our lives counting for God, the harder it is. I'm not pessimistic, but I hope I'm awake. I hope that I know what's going on in this world. From experience and observation, I tell you that this is a world of suffering, and that if you haven't had your share of it yet, you like the will have. And the why of this is one of the mysteries of God. And we shall not understand it thoroughly until that coming day. I never think of this but what I think of a little story which I read about seven young men who decided to go down to the Patagonia. That means the land of big feet. At the southern tip of South America, there were some Indian tribes which had never been reached. Seven young men decided to go down there from England many years ago in the days of sailing vessels. And they got down there all right. They found out that it was pretty rough country, wild country and cold. And so they dispatched a message back to England by the captain of the ship to their friends to send them certain supplies. They told them what they would need. It was an agreement ahead of time. And this captain took that message back and delivered it to their Christian friends in England. Their friends immediately got together the food and the warmer clothing and everything it was needed, and put it on another sailor's vessel and started it for Patagonia. They never got there. three times that ship was caught in adverse winds and driven back up the coast. And three times that captain tried to make it, tried to force his ship down through there, tried to get to that country. It had never been known that a ship had failed to stay around as it wanted to, and that captain never was able to get his ship down there. The next year, a ship did make it. And they found the bodies of those seven men. They had kept a diary of their experiences. And it's enough to ring the heart out of you to read. The suffering of those men went through. As one by one they weakened from hunger and exposure. They had done everything they could themselves. They couldn't foresee if someone had been there and come back and tell them what the country was like. They had done everything they could to preserve their own lives and to help each other. And it's heartbreaking to read that diary. I read a part of it. But it's also an eye-opener to you to read that diary, to learn how those men trusted God through all that. how that one by one they became unable to write anything in the diary. So the last man had to write that he had scraped a place in the ground. It was too weak to dig a regular grave, but he had scraped a place in the ground and buried his remaining brother's body. And he alone was left. And he was too weak. And he said, I... will lay myself down, but I feel I can no longer go near the bodies of my brethren. They found his body exposed, maybe who then were addicted to the others. Others don't dispute me to try to reason that out. I think some Christians have lost their faith because they have tried to reason out a thing like that. They have tried to figure out what happened. They tried to lay the blame somewhere and there was no place to lay it. The truth of the matter is that whether you and I understand it or not, it pleased God to take home his trusting children by the wrath of starvation and freezing. That's part of the mystery of God. You and I don't understand why people who have devoted themselves to God have been our dear brethren in the Congo should be treated as they have been treated. They're not responsible. You know that. They're not responsible for the mistreatments which the natives have suffered at the hands of ungodly men. It's true that the natives have been exploited in the Congo. It's true that rich men have forced them practically into slavery. and have called them apes and everything else, and he made his service from them and treated them like gods. It's true that they've done that. But you know that the missionaries have gone down there and not done that. They've been kind to themselves to them. And why should a bunch of those half-drug Congolese soldiers be permitted to break into a compound, as they did, fifty miles out of the vehicle of Bill last week? and violate the women and damage all of the equipment and imprison the men. Why should that be permitted? Now, I don't know any more about it than you do, as part of the mystery of God. But I'll tell you that it has always taken place. And if you and I are taken home, some things that bad or worse may come in our lives. Am I depressive? Am I just an old man who's gone sour? Or am I talking about something as we as Christians ought to face and come to understand why should God's people suffer? Well, most Christians, when they hear of suffering, whether they say it or not, they think, well, I wonder what he's been up to. he must have been pretty bad to suffer like that. Or, if it happens to them, they say, well, I don't know what I've done to deserve this. I can't understand why God would let me, usually the accent on me, suffer like this. And they immediately think that when things go well, they've done really well, they say, well, the Lord certainly blessed us this last year. and they get a great big smile and they're so pleased that the Lord has been kind to them. Brother James Gunn is telling us a long time back about the friend that is coming to him and saying, well, Brother Gunn, join me in thanks to the Lord. We've had a wonderful year. He said, have you? How's that? Well, he said, the neighbor will work and none of my family has been sick and everything has gone well all year. you had lost your job and your children had gotten sick. And you had difficulties and troubles. Would God have gone on? Have they been good to you? And the poor father got embarrassed, naturally. What could he answer to that? He had already exposed his feelings about the matter. He had already said, practically, when I get what I want, God is good. When I don't get what I want, he's just not treating you right. That's what he was saying. And that's what many of us think. We don't know why. Now, I can't explain the mystery of God, but I think I can help you a little bit to understand why. Christian Shepherd. Now, because everybody thinks of chapters, let's look at that first. First Corinthians chapter eleven. Our brother, Mr. Alfred Gibbs, would be very pleased. It is because I found seven reasons in the New Testament. Why? There's some reason. You know, there must be seven points or more or less. And maybe I'll go that way myself. Maybe that's why I just found seven. I don't know. Have you found eight or nine? Or maybe I've flipped one and two and made it seven. But you judge after yourself. I'll tell you the seven that I found anyway. And then you see if you can't get some handles on it and use it in your everyday life. Well, not every brother and sister that hasn't happened to you already. It's on its way. God is not going to leave his children without this very beneficial experience of suffering. First Corinthians chapter eleven. This has to do with the Lord's sufferer. Verse twenty nine says, For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, that is in an unworthy manner, eateth and drinketh damnation, or judgment is the word in the margin, to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this cause, many, he doesn't say all, but many are weak and sickly among you. He doesn't say all who are weak and sickly. are so because of it. But for this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. Sleep, you know, is death for Christians. I think this is the sin of death, or an example of the sin of the death, as you have in First John chapter five. He says, there is a sin of the death. I do not say that she shall pray for it. There is a time when God has gone as far as he will. with a disobedient child. He takes that child home. He doesn't tell you not to pray for it, but he does not tell you to pray for it. He says, I do not say that she shall pray or such a thing. Your prayer will not be answered. There comes a time when God takes home a disobedient child who will not be corrected. And let this If you're not all too careful, you'll become legal. You will find yourself doing things because you're afraid that God's going to lay his hands on. No, that is right. That's legality. If you're going to lay his hands on you, just as one man said to me, I try to give liberally, he says to the Lord, because I'd be afraid he might do something to one of my children. I said, that's downright like it. And I thought it was. say a thing like that about the Lord. I'd be afraid to do something to one of my children. It's true that God does have to judge people. He does have to chastise people. But he does it when they are deliberately taking their own way. When they are deliberately disobeyed. Anybody who will take the Lord's supper in an unworthy manner is one who does not love his Lord. That's the all. It's a serious thing. There are many other things, too, that are serious. And when we reach this point, the Lord may have laid hand upon us. Look at Hebrews chapter twelve, where this subject is developed and explained a little more completely. Hebrews chapter twelve, and we'll read from Verse five, ye have forgotten the exhortation which speak of unto you as unto children. My son despise not thou the chasing of the Lord or faith when thou art rebuked of him. That's two ways you can take it. You can despise it. I know a man who lost all his crops one year on the farm. because he was flooded out. Rick got over banks and came down through the area, put mud in his house, put his crows down the river. I felt sorry for him, and I made a trip out of my way to go by and see, because I thought he might be discouraged, and I thought maybe I could be a little help to him. And I said to him, well, brother, I was sorry to hear about that. So, well, he says it's quite fun to always used to say, man has had much food. Well, that's despising the chastening of the Lord. They don't have to lose. And there's been a good many years that he had it, but it blew. What he was despising the chastening of the Lord, I think. When you say, well, what will be will be? You assume the place, the attitude of a faithfulness. Why is it a chastening of the Lord? You can think, well, God wouldn't have anything to do with this. He doesn't care whether I'm well or sick. He doesn't care whether I have anything or don't have it. That just happens. That's despising the teaching of the Lord. And he says so faint. Well, now it rebukes him. The word faint is oftentimes a translation of a faint word as cave in. They're not always to pray and not to cave in. You're going to feel like caving in when you're having trouble? I'm telling you that nobody's asked for a trouble. Of course you felt like caving in. I not only felt like it, I did. On more occasions than once, but I shouldn't have. That wasn't the right way to take the chastening of the Lord. What should I have done? Well, he says, whom the Lord loved as he chastened it, and scourges every servant whom he received it. Pharaoh went so bright. You should tell about a man who got away from the Lord. And he was having trouble on top of trouble on top of trouble. He was a cripple. And he was walking down the street. And this person came to his mind. And as he walked down the street, he was keeping step to it. He was saying to himself, whom the Lord ought to be chastened? Who in the Lord knows he's chasing it? And he slapped that foot down as he walked. Who in the Lord knows who's chasing it? And then he stopped and he said, Wait a minute. I think I'm now scared. Who in the Lord knows if he's chasing it? Who in the Lord loves if he's chasing it? When he began to get some good out of the chain, what he got in his head? When he began to think right, instead of thinking of the chase, he began to think of the love. And that's the secret of getting some good out of this thing. God is interested in me in particular. Now, I never could have any particular bang out of having my face and ears washed. When I was a child, I never saw the things of it in the first place. My hands were clean, that ought to be enough. My mother did, being a Holland Dutch woman, she was the day known cleanliness, and she felt that I had to be clean, or I couldn't eat well. But I'll tell you what I did do, although I didn't enjoy the washing, it's really cruel for an adult, put a wash rag on the finger and try to get in the child's ear. The Lord made your finger feel his own ear and it won't go in the child's ear. You should let the child put the wash rag on his own finger and get in there. It really hurts. And I can't say I ever enjoyed having her wash my ears, but I'll tell you what I did enjoy. As I think back on it now, I realize I got a kind of a warm glow of thinking that Mother cares. I belong to Mother, and she wants me to be a clean child. And I think you and I have a few left me about God's care for us. We ought to be glad that we have a Heavenly Father who cares enough that he wants us cleaned up. When the Lord's loveth, he chastened us, and scourges every son whom he received. If you endure chastening, God dealeth with you as his son. For what son is he whom the father chastened him not? But if you be without chastisement, when of all our partakers then are you bastards and not sons. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave him reverence. Something else must rather be submitted to the fathers. chasing the best after their own pleasure. That means, as seemed good to them. Doesn't mean they got any pleasure out of it, although we probably thought so when we were kids. But it means that they did what seemed best to them. But he, for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now, no chastings for the friends, demons of each other, but grievance. Nevertheless, after the If you mark your Bible, you ought to have a line under that word. Because after all, this is what God is trying to get us to see. Not the chastening, but the afterward. Afterward, it yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which despise. No. Them which faith. No. Them which are exercised thereby. Those who say, Lord, what are you trying to correct in my life? What have I done? Don't say, why? I could spoil grass. But say, why, Lord, show me why. Help me to put this thing right. Help me to cooperate. Help me to confess anything. Help me to judge. the evil nature that's back of that seat. Help me to walk to be made right. Help me to understand why this correction in my life. Now, many Christians, I believe, think that this is all there is to suffer. They believe that every time you have trouble, they've done something wrong, and when they can't think what it is, And even if they ask God to show them, and he doesn't show them anything wrong in their lives, then they think, well, I must be pretty bad. I wouldn't put it in the little words, but I mean, it means something to me. Or, God is not very kind to me to treat me like this when I try to be good. And the result is a disturbed Christian life. Now, you don't need to be that way, brother. It's just your Turn to Second Corinthians chapter twelve. Let me show you that the Apostle Paul had a lot of trouble, and he tells us exactly why it happened. And he hasn't been a bad boy at all. Second Corinthians chapter twelve. Verse six. For though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool, for I will say the truth, but now I forbear, lest any man should think of me above them as he see of me to be, or that he heareth of me. And lest I should be exalted above measure, through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan, to buffet me, because I am. less I should be exalted above measure. Paul, why did you have all that suffering? Because I was carrying so much labor, I needed a lot of balance. Because God was using me so much, I needed something to keep me home. Paul had the flesh in it. He said we're not in the flesh, but he said the flesh is in us. Paul has it in him all that you and I have that is for us or any usefulness for God. And the sad part of it is that just about the time God begins to use us to get all stuck out about us. The fellow told me out at Crescent and he says, you know, I can understand now why that when I first started to preach, I always preach real well every other time. Because I just preached real well. The next time I make an absolute flop. The next time I do fine again. Then he said, I realized every time I preached well, I got all stuck up about it. I felt so proud of myself. Well, the last I did it, I preached the perfect sermon. The next time I had to reach up to touch Bob. Then he said, I get so down about it, and I humble myself before the Lord and tell him that I Oh, Lord, I can't go to the very priest anymore at all. And then he said, I grew up with prayer and trembling and the divine again. Now he said, I don't have quite as many swaps because I found out that all I get are getting God anyway. And I don't deserve any credit for it. He got a little ballast in the whole of the ship. See, God's taking a little trouble. I don't know what kind of trouble he'll send to you. I don't know what kind of trouble he'll send to Paul. I'm glad I don't. Because I can read into this verse the very same things that I had. And I can establish a good rapport. I can identify myself with Paul and say, I know what you're talking about, Paul. But faith doesn't happen to me. If the Lord wants to use me, usually put a little extra to shrink the plinthal iron down so I won't get too top-heavy over this thing. And it also happened. It's preventive medicine. Grandma had the idea that every spring we should have our blood painted out. I don't know why, but she thought we should because she gave us, oh, almost as much as bruised and everything. Something made out of molasses, sulfur, and then there was a cut of a tea that made out of a pacifist bark. to really think about it. We used to have to take a load of that stuff every spring. Now that's supposed to keep away the spring diseases. Well, maybe it worked. I'm still here. We've left with her idea of premeditated medicine. Now we've attained a little more refinement of that now. We have our own little hospital at the children's home, Colorado Springs. We have a nurse on duty all the time. And Aunt Clara, as the children call her, spends far more time keeping the children well than she does getting well. She weighs them regularly, months and months. She measures and weighs them to keep a check on what progress they're making physically. She sees to it that they get whatever shock they're supposed to have. She sees to it that they have a regular visit to the dentist, make sure their cavities are developing. What's all this for? Why should a kid be forced to take a shot when he isn't sick? Well, to keep him from getting sick. Why should you have some suffering in your life to keep you from making the fool out of yourself? To keep from getting away from God. How do you know that that day that the Lord put you down in bed and you were sick and you're wondering, why did God let this happen to me on this day when I was just about to make a big deal? How do you know that if you've made that deal, you might be so far away from God now, nobody could catch you? I believe when he says in the very second song, be not as the horse and the mule, which must be held in with bit and bridle, I believe that God has used that very thing, the bit and bridle of poverty to keep me close to himself. I don't believe God could trust me with a million dollars. or even a small part of that for myself. But I believe that I have had that in order that I might be kept from something. It isn't that my father loves me any less than he loves you. Don't you get any such conceited notion? My father loves me just as much as he loves his own dear son, the Lord Jesus. But he knows what I can say. He knows what you can say. And so he holds back on these things and holds down so that we won't get into trouble. That's preventiveness. But now you think about that yourself. Let me turn you to another. Back in the second chapter, Luke, I think it is, Luke chapter twenty-two and thirty-first, thirty-one. And the Lord says, Simon, Simon, isn't there a lot of tenderness from that? The Lord felt so concerned about Peter. Poor, conceited Peter. Why, he said, if everybody denies you, I alone. Have you heard people say that? I heard people say, well, I'm a candlestick. Now, he would do anything like that. I wouldn't say you're doing that. When you say that, you expose your ignorance. Amen. You don't know your own rotten heart. You do anything. And God took his hands off you and let you go. Have you ever read the story of George Goodman, one of God's choice faints in England, a man who had a very wonderful life, a useful life, when he was sixty-five years of age, that man went into a period of darkness that lasted for two years. any explanation for it. He wrote a little poem close of that which he told about how he felt he was in this terrible darkness and he wondered if God loved him at all and he wondered sometimes if there even was a God. After he served him favorably for those many years he went through that terrible trial. In this poem he said I reached out in the dark, and I found that God was there all the time. When the light came, I thought that his footsteps had followed me all the way. Why did God allow that to happen to it? Some lessons you can't learn any other way. Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to have you. The U here is the plural. You know that in our King James Version, ye is singular, meaning one person, and U is plural. We don't have anything in English. The Irish have nothing, aren't they? U and U's? We ought to have, we ought to have plural for the U. We do have in the old King James Version. Whenever you read U, he's talking about U's. All of U's. Or they've got it in Texas. I just came up from there. They say, y'all. That's what he's saying here. Satan has desired to have y'all. That he may shift you's weak. But I have prayed for thee, Peter. You're the man that needs it. You don't know it, but you need it. Oh, how you need my prayers. I've prayed for thee, Peter, that thy faith fail not. By the way, that's the only thing that didn't fail. Everything else about Peter broke down, but his faith never failed. God saw to that. I pray for thee that thy faith failed not, and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. Now what's God doing to Peter? Why is the Lord allowing me? Why is Satan wanting me? Oh, but Satan can't have him unless the Lord says he can have him. You get that in the book of Job. Job said, the only reason that, or Satan said, the only reason that Job serves you is because you pay him well for it. You put a hedge around him. And you know how he knew there was a hedge around him. He could all the way around looking for a hole in that hedge. He'd have gotten that joke long before that if he'd had any way of doing it. But the Lord did put a hedge around him. He could have hedged around you too, and you ought to pay him for it. You ought to be satisfied with God's haste. Don't go build any of your own hastes. That's the trouble with Americans today. We've got every kind of security under the sun. Amen. And we don't need God at all anymore. Amen. I heard about a man the other day that took out insurance on his social security. That's giving a double hedge around yourself. You're not supposed to be God when you think you've got to have all these. All these things, you've got to have this laid up, that laid up, and when you get everything all fixed. Then the Lord says, well, I guess the time just quite got a little heads down and let the devil act on his life. When he did the truth, when he did the devil. In fact, the matter is he invited the devil to come in. In Job's case, he said, have you taken a look at my term of Job? And he let him do it. And in this case, Satan has the idea, the Lord says. Now what does Satan have to do? Satan's idea was breaking down and spoiling for God. Satan was looking for chess, but the Lord was looking for wheat, and he just let Satan handle the sieve for him. That's all. Faith in faith he's winning in this battle against God. He only could see what's happening. God's actually letting the devil do some work for it. He says, go right ahead, sister. When you get through, I'll gather up all the week. I don't want the chap anyway. That's all you ever take out of my servant by him is the chap. That's all the Lord ever lets the devil take out of you and me. trouble is we lose much weight and we think we're losing everything. It was a good old chap, I thought. It's an awful lot of chap. Or to change the figure. Back in the Old Testament, you remember, when Solomon's temple was built, there wasn't a fan of a tool when that temple went together. Now, don't you think for a minute that if you take a lot of fan of tools, you get those stones ready to go into the building. But that took place at the quarry. One of these days there's going to be a shout. That's all you'll hear. And every stone we're out into this place. And we'll all fit. And we'll all be polished. We'll all be right. But now, the work's going on in Christ. And you know, when you marry out a stone, you lose a lot of it. But all you lose is the rough coins. The roughest. I'm kind of rocked out. gave me a tumbler and I had a lot of fun putting pieces of rock in there and running it for about a month and all of them coming over each other and smoothing them up. You know, it's just nothing like bumping against each other and smooth it up. I know you'd like to move to a different assembly. You take all the folks from your meeting here and run on it. But don't forget that a lot of those rough corners are yours. And bumping against each other is part of God's prophet. He's a great publisher of snow. He's also a great refiner of gold. But I'll tell you an encouraging thing, brother and sister. When the gold is on the fire, the refiner is never very far away. Amen. I've been on the fire. I know what I'm talking about. But I know that my father is just simply trying to get rid of the little rocks. Amen. He's the prudent of mine. Don't you hate to be trimmed back? Don't you hate the idea that you've done so much to grow yourself up to this size that the Lord trims you back down to the size that he had in mind? They don't like that. But it's part of this plan. So you see, this is a refining process. Don't think about second causes. Don't think what these Christians are doing to me or what the devil is doing to me. But just think what God is doing to me. He's doing this. Not because I've seen. Job hadn't seen. Job was a good man. But Job was full of Job. He appreciated nobody quite like Job. In three chapters, approximately a hundred and twenty verses, that man talked about himself about a hundred and twenty-six times. You've got to be pretty full of your subject, and you can mention it that often. For that long, Job was very pleased with Job. Now, Job was a good thing, but pride is the descending sea of the good people. This is not a matter of doing wrong. It's a matter of the Lord needs to refine us and get rid of some things that are not like the Lord Jesus. Are you educated? I mean, in God's school, St. Mary's, you know, that's the foot of Jesus, the feet of Jesus. That's where Mary got her education. That's the school that all the others thought to be in. Look at Romans chapter five. Romans five, verses three to five. You know what I think? Not all children are well educated. That sounds hard. Well, I really believe that. I remember a boy that grew up at the home. It wasn't his fault. His father had fractured his skull when he was nine years of age. In a drunken rage, he had beaten that boy because his hand had shipped him off to him and the father didn't want him. When the boy got off the bus, the father was drunk with him. He put the boy in the hospital for several weeks. The father had served a term in the Utah Penitentiary as a result of that terrible beating. And that boy is a man now. He's earning a living. So while back he came back and said, he's earning a living, but He had an awful hard time after he got passed by the fourth and fifth grade. They just kept passing him along. When he got old enough to earn his old living, we took him out of school and gave him an opportunity to learn trade. We didn't feel it was worthwhile to even send him the minimum time to high school. And the teachers, of course, helped us make that decision. When we had another boy at the home, he wasn't nearly as nice a boy. He was a great big picture, in fact. He wasn't nearly as easy to get along with, but he had a brain that was really sharp. And although he didn't have the money to send you to school, we found that he often had an education, and we were very happy when, after he came back from the Marines, the government on the GI Bill, sent him to college. teaching high school in Colorado Springs now in our assembly. I'm a homeowner. He's getting along nice with a little orange and very sweet. Now, if I had to add the money to do it personally, I would have set the range for the college, I think, and the other one I would. I don't know why I didn't spend a ton of time because going to college and hard work. It takes a lot of effort. You've got to play this pretty long hours. You've got to burn the candle late hours. But I believe in the way so, but we glory in tribulations. It doesn't say we ought to. It says we do. Well, do we? Not me, he's saying. Well, we do if we know it. We glory in tribulations knowing that tribulation weren't a patient. patients experience and experience hope and hope make us not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. You and I have not learned God except in the school of trouble. That's how it's hard. Well, alright, you look back over your old life. Now you tell me, when did you have a good day that you learned anything? When did you have a good year that you learned anything? Some of you are old enough to remember the depression. Was it easier to keep close to God during the depression or when you've been making big money? Let's face these things, brothers and sisters, and be honest in the sight of God, and we know, if we're honest, that we learn God's some trouble. That is, we're exercising love these things. As you say, I thought the trouble was because, no, not because of sin. Not necessarily because he's going to refine anything out of you. Because he's going to put something into you. And you're not going to have to take some things out of people. He has to put some things into people. And God wanted to get that pride out of Job. But he wants to put something into some of you. He wants to make you more like the Lord Jesus. And you'll be more like him. When you're going to see what he will suffer. Now, in first Peter... I love all of verse Peter for that matter, but I'll just read one verse there. This is the subject in itself, but I want you to understand that some Christians suffer simply because God has been pleased to allow us to do it for his sake. First Peter chapter two. We'll break in in verse nineteen. So this is thankworthy. This is something the Lord can thank you for. Wouldn't you like the Lord to thank you for something? You've got so much to thank him for. Wouldn't you be glad now? If at the judgment seat of Christ, the Lord would thank you for something. Well, here's something he's going to thank people for. If a man for conscience toward God endured grief, suffering wrongfully. what glory is that if when you be buffeted for your faults, you shall take it patiently. But if when you do well and suffer for it, you take it patiently, this is a sensible job. Chapter four, verse fifteen. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, as a thief, or as an evil murderer, or as a vision body, and other men's matters. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, Let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God on this behalf. Do you remember that the Christians in the early part of the Acts went out of the presence of the magistrate as it had been beaten, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer reproach for his name's sake? Amen. Did you ever suffer any reproach for Christ? He did this because we've gone wrong. a brother in China suffering. I had a letter from a friend down in Vietnam, the Indo-China country out there. He said that some of the native Christians were escaping over the border from the communists. They were coming there with their ears and nose to cut off. Some of them have nearly bled to death. had no way of taking care of her wounds. And suffer these indignities, not because they've been bad people, but because we're Christians. I'd like to vaccinate you, brothers and sisters. You and I know what we're going to have to go through. We think that America will win every war. We think that America will be at war in violence. Nobody will ever go to a battle of America. America will always be on top. America will always have everything. How much longer is God going to put up with our country, our beloved country, for which I hope you pray every day? How much longer is he going to put up there? How soon will it be when you and I are denied the liberties that we have as Christians? Will we be permitted if the Lord hasn't come to have an open conference like this another year? I can't tell you. I know one thing. God would never ask you to go through anything like that world. When the three Hebrew children were thrown into the fire before you, the fire only burned one thing. That's what kept them from walking with the Son of God. Just burned the ropes off. That's all. Didn't do any other harm at all. And persecution never hurt anybody. It doesn't help you to appreciate the Lord Jesus more. Now look at Second Corinthians chapter one. However, I think Christians do know how important this is. The importance of suffering in order to help others. Our Second Corinthians one, verse three. Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comforts, who comforted us in all our tribulations that we may be comforted of? Of course not. But we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort where living we ourselves are comforted of God. Chapter four. Verse twelve. Glory to death. Work of death. Of life. And you. We have in the same spirit of faith, according to the script, and I believe, and therefore have I spoken. We also believe, and therefore speak. knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus and shall present us with you for all things are for your sake that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound in the glory of God for which cause we face not but though our outward man perish yet the inward man is renewed day by day might as Paul suffer him all the way he was suffering in order that he might be able to be a sympathetic helper of other Christians Let me ask you this. When you are in serious trouble, who do you want to come to you and offer their sympathy? Somebody who's always been on top. Somebody who's always had it. Somebody who's just happy, happy, happy all the time. You want them to slap you on the shoulder and say, well, it's going to cheer up, blood. It's going to be worse. So you cheer up and it gets worse. Does that become the problem you want? You want somebody to put one around your shoulder and say, you know, I went through this last year. You did. Yes, I did. And this is what God gave his word. In God's school, Mr. Harrison has said, there's one degree all of us ought to strive for. That's the degree of U.S. understanding sympathizing. Mm-hmm. the world needs to solve that. Now my time is up. The last one, James chapter five, verse seven. He tells about all the trouble that Christians have had, and he says, be patient, therefore, brethren, under the coming of the Lord. In all the husbands who waited for the precious fruit of the earth, and have long patience for it until he received the early and latter rain. Be also patient. Establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord. Amen. Why would God send me suffering sorrow and trouble? Well, he might be saying it just to weep. You never notice this, that a Christian who has been through some sorrow is more concerned about the coming of the Lord than he was before. Have you ever noticed he's less concerned about making him into his life? I remember a family in Colorado Springs. They were nice Christian people. They were building a new house. There was nothing wrong with building a new house if you need one. But too many of God's people are suffering from better homes and gardens. And I'm afraid they were. Oh, they were so interested in getting the drinks to match the rugs and have everything just right and up to date. They studied all the magazines. One morning she couldn't get out of bed. She said, I've got a pain in here. He called the doctor. The doctor said, get her to the hospital right away. I'm afraid she hadn't been moved. They got her to the hospital and checked. They said, terrible trouble. TV had come back. probably will not live more than a month. They took her home as soon as the pneumonia was cleared up. She didn't die. She lived for several years after that. But then they expected that she would be gone in a month. I went to see them. They didn't have any grapes on the windows. And you came by the bedside reading the Bible to them. And their faces glowed with the glow of him. And he said, you know, John, somehow, or other, it doesn't take the matter. Whether it's grace, man, it's already happening. Grace, when we're getting ready to move. Amen. God is the new house. In the real house. But that's the reason why some of us have trouble. Would God like to wean you? And would you say his name? Would you tell him you don't need to be weaned? or when you accept from his loving name, trusting him, whatever he wants to give. Amen. That's correct. Lord, we know these things are true, but we're so dull, and we're so self-centered, and we're so world-anchored, we pray, Lord, that thou would free us from some of this, and help us to accept from the that what the loving Father would give, that he might make us more like his own son. We thank the Father that thou hast taken time to educate us. We wonder if we're worth educating. Yes, Lord, now it's been good to us. Thou hast brought difficulties and trials into our lives, which have spared us from a great need. Amen. Which have helped to win the world some of the chants, at least, and have helped to put into us lightness, help us to long for war. Bless God, dear people. Comfort those who are in any distress with the comfort of God. We ask in our Savior's presence now. Amen. Amen.