An Intimate Look At Adversity

When uncertainty, pain, and trials come our way, we usually react with blame, denial, or self-pity. Since we are guaranteed adversity, we need to know the best way to respond. Dr. Stanley looks at the causes of adversity and explains how we should view it.

God’s Messages 💌

Today…….I am asking all my prayer warriors to say a prayer that may help others. So many people are hurting right now. Many are struggling with finances and need jobs. Some are facing foreclosure and don’t even know how they are going to make it from week to week..

Many are lonely. . Many are heartbroken. . Many are facing sickness and health is fading. . Some are dealing with difficult family members. Many have lost HOPE.. Tonight, let us put our prayers and faith together decree and declare breakthrough over our families. Financial miracles WILL take place. Jobs WILL be found. Our Bodies WILL be made whole & sickness WILL flee. Marriages and relationships WILL be restored. Family members WILL find Jesus. Heartbreaks WILL be healed. JOY WILL be restored and HOPE WILL be found. In Jesus Name. Amen!!!!!! Keep God First…….

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In touch, the teaching ministry of Doctor.
Charles Stanley, reaching the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Next on in touch, an intimate look at adversity.
Adversity.
A word that describes the world in which you and I live.
Think about it for a moment.
When you think in terms of adversity, we can come up with all kinds of words that describe it, a time of difficulty,
a time of distress,
a time of disaster,
a time of tragedy, of trauma, of crisis, of trials, time of misery, affliction, suffering, pain, sorrow, loss.
Everywhere you look, this is what we see happening.
This is a terrible time of adversity. For the whole world.
Anywhere you put your finger on the map, you’ll find all kinds of trials that people are facing.
Now when you go through a trial and when you face adversity, how do you respond?
You complain? Do you ask god what’s going on? Why are you treating me this way?
How do you respond when adversity comes your way?
Those times of trial and hardship and heartache and burden that really we can’t fully explain.
And when you try to tell somebody else what you’re going through, you can only tell them struggling, but it’s in adversity in your life.
It’s a time of great trial and hardship and you desperately need somebody to pray with you to hold your hand to cry with you.
To encourage you in some way. Would that be true of you today?
Would all of these words seem to explain what you’re going through? How are you responding?
And so I want you to
turn if you will to
a second Corinthians chapter 11 beginning in verse 23.
And if you’ll turn there for
a moment, and I just want to read a portion of this because Uh, this passage of scripture describes the apostle Paul’s time of great adversity in his life.
And he lays the foundation for it before the verses I’m gonna read But I’ll just start down here with his description of what’s going on in his life.
And he says beginning in verse 23 of the eleventh chapter.
Are they servants of Christ?
I speak as if insane.
I more so in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death, explaining all the things and all the adversities he’s been through.
And then he says, 5 times I received from the Jews, 39 lashes.
And that the end of those lashes were these bones that cut through the flesh.
3 times I was beaten with rods.
Once I was stoned and remember this, he was stoned and left for dead in Lister, He says, 3 times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep trying to survive.
I’ve been on frequent journeys in dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren.
I’ve been in labor and hardship through many sleepless nights in hunger and thirst often without food in cold and exposure.
And apart from such external things, There is the daily pressure on me and concern that I have for all the churches.
Now the next time you have a pity party and think Oh, poor me.
I just just read this eleventh chapter and be reminded of the apostle Paul.
He knew what real adversity was like. And you know, he’s been years in prison.
And finally, Nero, uh, the emperor of Rome had him beheaded.
You’d think that that wasn’t fair, and that was terrible.
I can’t imagine why god would do such a thing. You want me to tell
you why? Here’s the reason why.
Because if the apostle Paul had continued to travel all of those years continuously making journeys in the Mediterranean area and preaching and teaching the gospel to the last day he died.
You know what you wouldn’t have?
You wouldn’t have ephesians and colossians and and and the on and on we go.
God, used the most difficult trying times of his life to bless us and bless us and bless us all the days of our life and all the generations following the apostle Paul, which leads me to say this, All adversity is not bad.
It’s a matter of how you look at it. It’s a matter of how you respond to it.
He could have sat in prison and mooped and groaned and asked god why am I here?
Why don’t you get me out of here?
God, if you’re who I say you are, Why don’t you get me out of this Roman prison?
And you read the book of Philipp?
And you know what the theme of the book of Philipp is while he’s in jail? Joy.
And how many people do you know going through difficult times have joy?
The difference is between the people who understand and believe that god can take anything and everything and turn it into something good if we respond the correct way.
But if I respond the wrong way, I’m gonna suffer hurt pain, sovereign, all these other things, that may come our way and glean and gain nothing from it.
And when people do, here’s what happens. They get bitter.
Now the 1 thing you don’t want is a bit of friend because they’re always spewing it.
It’s like pumping out. He did this. They did that. Mhmm.
On and on and on they go, or you can have
the kind of person that understands what adversity is all about. And so what I wanna
do in this message, I want you to I want you to just take a good look at what adversity is all about.
Applying it to your heart. And I wanna begin by simply saying this.
We need we need to look at it virtually all the however it affects your life.
Whether it’s sickness, trial, financial loss, divorce, name it. You lose your children. It lost job.
Whatever’s going your way, think about it
in this light. Adversity is universal. That is it plays no favorites. It’s everywhere.
You face it on your job. You face it in your family. You face it among friends.
You face it in your schools in in other words, adversity, difficult times, hard times, tough times everywhere.
Secondly, it’s impartial. Doesn’t make any difference how much money you have, how how poor you may be, how educated, uneducated, believers and unbelievers.
That is adversity reaches every single aspect of life.
It’s because we live in a fallen world.
And as a result of that, we’re going to we’re going to suffer hardship.
And, of course, uh, it’s painful. It’s emotionally painful. It’s physically painful.
Great hurt comes from the adversity of how people treat each other. Sometimes it’s sudden.
You get in your car to go to work on Monday morning, and you don’t get 5 miles from home until what?
You have an accident, bad accident.
Or you go to the doctor, and you’re feeling fantastic, and you can’t wait to tell him how good you feel, and he tells you, uh, let me tell you what you have.
And you’ll walk away full of feelings of adversity and wonder why god’s doing what he’s doing.
And so sometimes it’s prolonged. It goes on for years and years and years.
And I think the people with the hardest time with adversity of people who have been sick for years and years and years or they have gone through something, for example, in their marriage, they stick together.
They hang in there, but 20, 30, 40 years, and they wish they’d never seen each other, but they’re still there.
But it’s a miserable marriage and they feel like that they should not separate a divorce and so there they are.
And sometimes it’s very intense.
And once in a while I’ve talked to people who hurt so badly, In listening to them, I started hurting.
In other words, there is pain. There is hurt.
That is so deep that when it’s shared, you cannot help but share the burden of what they’re feeling in life.
And then of course, it’s beyond our control. There’s some things that we have no simple answer for.
And if you ask me, well, do you have an answer for all adversity?
The answer is absolutely not.
But on the other hand, yes, I do.
Can I tell you why god allows certain people to suffer the way they do? No, I can’t.
If you ask me, will god turn even the most difficult things into some good? Yes. Yes.
He will. If you and I respond in the right way.
Now the 2 primary questions that people ask about difficult times And the first 1, of course, is god, why do you allow this to happen in my life?
Why? And somebody says, well, if you’re a real christian, you won’t ask why?
Well, you and I know somebody who asked that question, don’t we?
Jesus said my god, my god, why?
Has thou forsaken me when he was bearing and the reason he was saying that because he was bearing the total blunt and total guilt of all mankind for all ages in those moments in his body, his mind, his will, his emotion, my god, my god, why have self forsaken me?
Even though he had a oneness of relationship unequal by anything you and I
could enjoy in life, He was feeling it. He was bearing it.
And he was asking my god, my god, why have you forsaken me? And I’m grateful he did.
Because there are people today who ask the same question. My god, my god.
Why do you let why do you let me continue in this Just take me home, god.
Or why have you allowed this to happen? So the question of why is a relevant question.
And let me just say this to you. God doesn’t get upset because you ask him why.
He knows why you ask him why.
And he understands your lack of understanding and your lack of knowledge, because you see, you and I look at today, and god looks today, but he’s also already seen tomorrow.
And that’s why god can do the most awesome work in our hearts and changing our attitude and lifting the burden, doing all kind of things in our life because he not only hears our ache and our pain.
But he also knows what he’s up to and what he intends to do as a result of it.
And so when when the question, why comes, It reminds me of that song, um, um,
it goes like this, trials dark on every hand, and I cannot understand.
All the ways that god would lead me to the blessed promised land.
But I’ll he’ll guide me with his eye, and I’ll follow till I die, and I’ll understand it better, bind by.
And then the chorus goes, uh, something like this, bind by when the morning comes.
When the saints of god are gathered home, we’ll tell the story of how we’ve overcome,
and we’ll understand it better by and by.
Whoever wrote that song had to have known what adversity was all about because the truth is There’s some things you and I will never fully understand till we get on the other side of life.
So the question is, why does god allow these things?
There are some situations in which god and god only. Will know.
But I believe that for most part, he will show us why.
If we approach him in the right way and for the right reason, the right motive.
Then, of course, there’s a second question, though, and that’s who? That’s who’s behind this?
Well, 1 of, for example, 1 of the reasons people, uh, suffered adversity, the who is themselves.
It’s actions that they’ve done, things that they’ve done, sins that they’ve committed, the way they’ve treated people, and how they’ve responded to the gospel how they responded to others and in their selfishness and and their pride and egotism and and all the rest.
So 1 of the reasons of when it comes to who, well, who can be me, that is if I sin against god, sinned against my fellow man.
And so what happens? We’re just we’re just following what god said in the warning He said, we’ll reap what we sow.
So think about this. If you live a life of disobedience to god, indifference to the word of god, mistreat your fellow man, or whatever it might be, and then you wonder why there is it
versed in your life? No, you don’t.
And I was talking to someone not long ago and
and I thought I was gonna have to convince this person of why they were going through the difficulty they were going through.
And all of a sudden, the person said, I know why I’m here. It’s decisions that I’ve made
in my life, and I look back and realize I’ve made decisions that got me where I am. I was I was blessed but but grieved at the same time that
at least they understood why they were going through
the adversity they’re facing. Our sin brings on adversity for 1 thing and secondly, Satan He is behind it.
Satan hates godly people. And when you look in the scripture, for example, you read the book of Job.
What happened and how god allowed Job to suffer, but how he how he blessed him in the end.
And then, of course, uh, god is the ultimate cause of some of
our adversities. I mean, no, no, no, no, wait a minute.
You mean that god loves me and has the best for me and will allow me to go through pain and suffering and heartache and loss, and the answer is yes.
Yes, he will. We don’t even need
to read any more scripture. Look at what Paul wrote to
the Corinthians. He He says all of these things I’ve suffered through and have survived besides the weight and the burden of all the churches in those days.
Remember, these these weren’t churches like this. They were groups of people meeting together, uh, separately.
And they did not have a Bible as you and I have.
And imagine the kind of things that they had to deal with when it comes to their doctrine and what they believed in the middle of
a Roman empire that it was
absolutely saturated with wickedness and violence and immorality And he has a group of believers.
He had a group of believers there, and he felt responsible. And so, uh, does god allow adversity?
Does he even send it? Yes, he does. Second Corinthians in the next chapter.
Listen carefully. The question is does.
In other words, we know it’s because of our sin, and we know, uh, it’s because of the of the devil.
But listen to this. Because of his surpassing greatness of the revelations.
For this reason, to keep me from exalting myself there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me.
To keep me from exalting myself. Concerning this, I implored, I prayed.
The lord 3 times that it might leave me. God deliver me from this.
And he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.
Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weakness so that the power of praise may dwell in me.
Therefore, I am well content with weakness.
With insults, with distresses, persecutions, difficulties for Christ’s sake for when I am weak, then I am strong.
So does god allow it? Yes. Can god be behind it? Yes.
But for the most part, people disobey god and they begin to suffer the consequence.
And of course, satan’s always behind all kind of suffering and difficulties.
But what you and I have to deal with
is this. We have to look at
our lives and be honest and say, did I bring this on myself?
Because this is this is the law of god. It’s the law we live by.
We reap what we sow more than we sow later than we sow And either I do it to myself, so or Satan attacks us, and we have god’s help and strength to see us through that.
Or it may be something that god wants to do in your life. An adversity can be dealt with properly.
If we’re willing to eliminate all the excuses and say, okay, god. What’s your purpose?
You see, if you remember that whole list of of Paul’s adversities, all the things he went through, and and god didn’t remove it.
But he yielded himself to god till he till the lord showed him.
I’m doing something in your life to protect you. Listen. I’m gonna protect you from ruining your testimony.
I’m gonna protect you from wasting your life by doing it some of the way than the way I’ve said do it.
And when the apostle Paul settled in to god’s perfect will for whatever god was doing at that particular time.
Look how god used him. Thank god for those jail terms.
Because while he was in jail, he was writing out a prescription for you and me how to live a godly life.
And he suffered as no 1 has ever suffered for the lord Jesus Christ.
And look what it’s done for all
of us. And so when
I look at all that and think about how god works and I I wanna just mention 4 principles that we need to remember when we go into adversity in our life.
And the first 1 is this.
Adversity is 1 of god’s most effective tools for strengthening our faith.
Because our faith gets tested in times of trial and adversity.
And if I trust him, what happens?
And nothing and nothing changes, and I trust them and nothing changes, and I trust them and nothing seems to change, but what’s happening?
It looks like it’s not changing, but my faith is growing. I’m trusting him and watching him help me.
And strengthen me and enabling me to live through this pain and heartache and whatever it may be.
And so it’s a time for strengthening of our faith.
Secondly, remember this principle, when god sins adverse in their life, He never sends it to hurt us, but to help us.
God always allows it to help us not to hurt us.
That we may feel the pain and a physical pain, but ultimately he’s in the process of helping us in some way.
And god helped the apostle Paul and
said, wait wait. Don’t give
me the apostle Paul business. I’m not the apostle Paul. I’m not a preacher. I’m not a missionary.
And old people go, say, wait a minute. He was just a man.
He was a man given a task, unequal, like any task god ever put on anybody.
And he had to learn just like you and I have to learn how to respond to the most difficult towns.
God’ll do something good in your life if you’ll let him.
But you have to remember that he’s not here to hurt us. And then the third principle is this.
And 1 of the 1 of the most important ones, we are never alone in our adversity. Thank god.
He’s always there. Sometimes you don’t feel he’s there.
Sometimes you wonder where in the world are god are you? He’s always there. You remember that verse?
I will never leave you nor forsake you period. You cannot face any adversity.
If you’re a believer, you follow Jesus as your savior. Listen to this. Not may not, not might not, cannot.
You cannot walk through 1 moment of adversity as a child of god without his presence.
I will never leave you nor forsake you. Period. Not except if what? No.
A child of god is always in the company, in the presence of almighty god through his son Jesus Christ, who lives on the inside of us.
What an awesome assurance And then the last thing I would say here is this.
Adversity can be a precious gift from god.
And the that’s the way he intends for it to turn out.
A precious gift from god. Anything that turns me around from the wrong direction.
Anything that takes my hands out
of where they should not be.
Anything that guides my step in the right way, anything that changes my mind and my thinking and thinking about god is always good.
So if you remember those 4 things, That puts a whole different tone, adversity.
Does it make it less painful? Not necessarily, but there’s some listen.
If you feel all alone, what do you need companionship?
You have it in the person of Jesus Christ.
So whatever you’re going through, it’s like this. It’s like sometimes I think lord, Here we go.
So hold my hand, lord, here we go. I see it coming.
And so when we are willing to respond correctly, by trusting him.
He will see us through that adversity, and we’ll profit from it.
That is if you’re a believer, I trust if you’ve never trusted Jesus Christ as your savior, you will be wise enough.
To ask the lord Jesus Christ to forgive you of your sins, not because you deserve it, but because he loved you enough to send his son Jesus to the cross, And what that’s all about is Jesus, the son of god dying on the cross shedding his blood, which was the payment for all of your sins, mine, and the sins of the whole world.
And if you’re willing to ask him to forgive you on the basis of Christ’s death.
On the basis of the testimony of his word in all these pages of the word of god, He’ll forgive your sin.
He’ll give you a new beginning.
Begin to live his life in you on the inside of you so you you can think the way he thinks is what we’ve been talking about.
This is the way god thinks. And I would just encourage you
if you’ve never trusted Christ as your savior. Listen. You’re headed for you’re headed for
a mess. There is no way to live in this world and survive and have any peace or joy or happiness.
That’s prolonged and continuous. Doesn’t mean you all have up and downs.
But the peace that you’re looking for and the joy that you’re looking for, it begins with Jesus.
It continues with Jesus, and it ends with Jesus.
And without him, you don’t have a chance.
And father we thank you this morning for the awesome assurance of your word.
And thank you for all the years that you’ve proven over and over and over again, the truthfulness of your word.
I pray that you’ll speak to that somebody strongly who desperately needs to get saved today.
Speak to their heart and give them the wisdom to make that decision today in Jesus’ name.
Amen.