Walking Through Dark Times With God | Timeless Truths

There are dark times each one of us experiences when we’re overwhelmed and don’t know what to do. We want to give up—quit—because the pain is so intense and we can’t see a way out of it. Are you in such a dark time right now? God will comfort your hurts, calm your fears, and give you great hope if you will trust in Him. For more messages from Charles Stanley.

Timeless truths, a collection of classic sermons from Doctor Charles Stanley.
Today’s selection recorded in 1998. Walking through dark times, with god.
When you go through dark moments in your life and you don’t understand exactly what’s going on, You can’t figure out why things are happening the way they are.
You look around here. You don’t see any real reason or purpose for it.
or you may even look for somebody to blame or feel somebody’s responsible, or it just might be that you come to the place you think.
God, where are you? You don’t sense his presence anymore, and how could god possibly love you and allow you to walk through such awesome darkness as you feel?
And somehow, no matter what you do and how spiritual you may feel like you have been, you’re going through a period of time in your life, and you have absolutely no understanding of what is going on and how long is this going to last, and why do I feel this pain Why do I feel the hurt?
What did I do to deserve this?
How do you respond when you’ve had those feelings in those moments of darkness.
Well, that’s what I wanna talk about in this message entitled walking with god through dark times.
I want you to turn, if you will, to Genesis first book in the Bible.
Want us to look, if you will, beginning in this 37th chapter.
because in this 37th chapter begins, the story of the life of Joseph, all the way to the end of the book of Genesis 50, chapter 50.
And you said, well, why would you choose someone like Josie?
Because here’s a young man who walked through the darkness, for 13 years before the light absolutely broke in awesome radiance upon him.
And the reason god has placed the lives of the men in the scripture is because it is through their lives.
He likens helps us to liken our experiences to them. Maybe not the same thing.
with the same kind of experience.
And likewise, and the most important is this, that the principles that god wants to teach us, he teaches us by unfolding them in the way he operates in the lives of other people.
And so the life of Joseph, this is a perfect example of how god works in our life when you and I walk through the darkness.
So you said, well, now what do you mean by darkness?
I mean, simply this, those difficult hard trying times, temptation, difficulty, trials, persecutions that you and I go through that sometimes we just can’t understand why or what is happening.
It may be financial. It may be in your family, it may be your relationships, whatever it might be, but we all have those times we go through.
So I want you to look, if you will, in this verse, verse of chapter 37.
Now Jacob lived in the land where his father had sojourned in the land of Kanan, These are the records of the generations of Jacob.
Joseph, when seventeen years of age, was pastoring the flock with his brothers while he was still a youth along with the sons of Bill High and the sons of Zilpa, his father’s wives.
And Joseph brought back a bad report about them to their father.
Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a very calatonic.
And his brother saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, and so they hated him and could not speak to him on friendly terms.
Now imagine having 11 brothers, and none of them like you. But, listen, this gets worse. Verse 11.
And his brothers were jealous of him but his father kept the saying in mind. He told about a dream.
Now, this is the beginning of a long period of darkness.
So let me recount the darkness for a moment.
His brothers didn’t like him, They hated him, and they were jealous of him.
And, of course, he felt this living in a family of those kind of close ties and seemingly nobody likes you.
And if you’ll recall that he also told his entire family about this dream he had, that he had, these sheaves were in the field, and his sheep was in the middle, and everybody else’s was around his, and they all bowed down to his sheep.
Well, uh, you can imagine how that stirred up uh, good, hard, good feelings.
And, of course, that just made them that much more anger. Even his parents didn’t understand all this.
Well, one day he went to find his brothers for his father, and they saw him coming.
They said, It’s about time we settle this issue. Let’s kill him.
And so they decide to kill him. Well, Rubin, of course, did not want that to happen.
And so finally decided to throw him in a pit.
There was no water in the pit, so they figured, ultimately, something would happen.
And finally, his the lights came along, and they were on their way to Egypt.
And so they decided to sell him. So they sold him for 20 pieces of silver. What a bargain.
sold him for 20 pieces of silver. So he goes to Egypt, and he goes down to Egypt.
He gets sold in the block somewhere, and so he’s a slave.
And so he becomes a slave in potipa’s household.
potipa is one of the, uh, folks who works close to pharaoh, and so he’s a slave in potipa’s household.
Well, he gets a glimmer of hope here because, uh, he proves himself and, but, finally, puts all of his belongings into the hand of Joseph.
He trust him that much. He says Joseph’s over everything that I own.
Well, he did such a good job that, Potupa’s wife was attracted to him.
And so, uh, she tried to get him to go to bed with her, and he would not do it.
And so she framed him and had him thrown in prison. So the darkness is getting darker.
And so in prison, for example, he’s there for some time.
We don’t know how long, but, before he’s recognized by the chief jail, and chief jailer recognizes something different about Joseph.
Before long, this man’s in charge of the jail.
And so from the age of thir from the age of seventeen to the age of thirty, thirteen years, we fund young Joseph walking through a period of almost uninterrupted darkness in his life.
Now as we said before, god uses people to teach people.
And, therefore, if you and I wanna learn the ways of god and how he operates and how we’re to respond, Then we look to see how did god operate in the life of a person like Joseph.
You said, well, now wait a minute now, but my life’s not like Joseph.
He was over in Egypt, and I’m here in the United States. And all these things.
That’s not even the issue. The issue is this. What’s the principle god works by? God is still listen.
God has not changed his principles over these years.
The principles he used in the life of Joseph and Moses, David, and Daniel, and Paul, and Pete and all the rest, he’s still offering the same basis because god doesn’t change.
He operated on the basis of perfection then.
He operated on the basis of the same purposes then as he has today.
So god is going to operate in the same principles in your life and my life no matter who we are and what we do.
Now the first thing I want you to jot down is this.
when you and I are walking through dark times, the first thing to remember is this. God is with us.
This young man went through 13 years a very, very dark time.
Joseph began to learn very early in his life. god was with him.
He gave him favor to the man who bought him as a slave.
He gave him favor to a man who, no doubt, was rather a rough, uh, crude probably account of man because he was overseeing all those Egyptian prisoners.
and those kind of people aren’t used with a kind gentle type.
He saw in Joseph some qualities that finally just turned it all over to him.
One thing that he knew, god was with him.
You and I are quick to quote the 23rd Psalm when we go through those dark periods in our life, And you remember the phrase that we probably like the best of all?
And that is, even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, the dark times He says, I will fear no evil for what, thou what?
Art with me. It is the fact and the assurance that god is with us that makes all the difference.
He says, I will never leave you nor forsake you.
Turn if you will to the 139th Psalm, because oftentimes, it’s difficult for us to believe that god is with us when we are hurting, we are feeling pain, And, um, we’re asking god, where are you?
Why don’t you change my circumstances?
Uh, we’ve got lots of questions for them and somehow he doesn’t seem to get upset with our questions.
And I want you to notice in this 139th Psalm, which deals with the whole idea of our running from him or escaping from him.
And listen to what he says, just in 11th 12th verses.
David says, if I say, should the darkness shall overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night.
Even the darkness is not dark to thee, And the night is as bright as the day.
Darkness and light are alike to thee. And here’s what it should say to us.
When you and I walking through those dark times and We want the god where in the world are, you know, what’s going on is what you can remember.
That almighty god who saved us, who lives on the inside of us, is with us.
I will never leave you not forsake you. Now here’s the difference.
It is easier for us to believe in the presence of god.
or since the presence of god and in life when when things are going our way.
It’s sort of easy to believe. Yes. I I do believe god’s with me.
But what about when the light’s taken away. And everything looks dark and gloomy.
I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel out there anywhere.
Then can I still believe that my god who promise to be with me, who will never forsake me, am I willing to believe that he’s with me now when I don’t feel his presence?
I don’t see his presence. and somehow I can’t conceive that he could allow me to go through this.
Do I still believe he’s with me? Yes. Yes. He is. God is with me. No. matter what?
Principal number 2. God always has a purpose for the darkness he allows us to walk through.
God always has a purpose for the darkness he allows us to walk through.
Now if I understand, listen carefully, what I’m gonna say now, If I understand what that purpose is, somehow, no matter how dark it is, I can manage better.
But most of the time, we don’t understand what the purpose is.
Most of the time, we don’t discover what that purpose is until after we are out of the darkness.
But oftentimes, god is willing to reveal to us what it is. Now, Joseph, I don’t think Joseph understood.
what god’s purpose was.
I don’t think he ever forgot that dream he had, uh, when all the other sheaves in his family bowed down before his, I don’t think he understood that more than likely, it kept coming back to me.
He’d probably think, well, god, what in the world did that dream mean?
It certainly doesn’t seem that it meant much.
I, you know, here I got framed by a pot of his wife now. My prisoner. I’m here in prison.
Even though I’m in charge, I’m still I’m still an Egyptian prisoner. I’m still in prison.
You see, god has done no obligation to show you and me what his purpose is, but what I want you to notice is this.
God never operates without a purpose. God does not allow you and me.
Now, does he send us through the dark moments of our life without a purpose?
He always has a specific purpose in mind because he predestined you and me to be conformed to the likeness of his son.
God doesn’t do things haphazardly. and he does not allow things just to happen to us.
Now listen, when you hear a Christians talk about, well, let me tell you what happened.
I mean, all of us say that. What I want you to remember is this.
Whenever you say this just happened and that just happened, it could only happen under the divine all knowing supervision of a sovereign god who has every single thing in life under his control, who has a definite purpose in your life and who is allowing these things that happen about definite purpose.
Now you say, well, why in the world would god allow young men like like, uh, Joseph, whom the Bible says nothing negative about, why allow him 13 years of of of walking through this darkness?
god had a very specific purpose preserving the nation of Egypt, preserving, listen, not only the nation of Egypt, but the nation of Israel, Jacob and his family.
Remember, one of remember his sons, one of whom was Judah through whom.
That was the line through whom the redeemer, the Messiah of the lord Jesus Christ came.
friend, god is always ahead of us. He’s got everything under control. He’s working everything in his absolute perfect timing.
He has a purpose for every single solitary thing.
It took 13 years to train up this young Hebrew to become the prime minister of the entire nation of Egypt, and it would be Joseph himself as young Hebrew who grew up in Egyptian bondage who would ultimately second only the pharaoh rule the economy of the whole nation.
God had a specific purpose. Third thing I want you to remember, he will only keep us in the darkness until he has accomplished that purpose.
He’s only keep gonna keep us there until he’s accomplished that purpose, whatever it is.
Now with Joseph, it took from the age of seventeen to thirty.
when god’s timing was right, when it fit into god’s plan for what he was gonna do in the world at that particular time, god will only keep you in me in those times of darkness until he’s accomplished his purpose in their life.
Now if I don’t know what the purpose is, it’s a lot more difficult to walk through the darkness and especially when the time goes.
And it’s on and on in his days weeks months years, it more difficult oftentimes for us to put up with that.
And we said, lord, now wait a minute. It’s something you’ve not forgotten. No.
And once a while I find myself arguing with him a little bit, And then, you know, the truth is, utilize what his face is.
You can’t argue with the god. I mean, you can’t out argue god.
You can tell him everything you wanna tell him, and he’s probably saying, mhmm. I’ve heard that before. Yes. Yeah.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Name when we finish, he will tell us what he wants us to know, or he’ll be quiet.
And let us listen. Let us get under his will and his discipline and do what he calls us to do until he decides he didn’t change that circumstance or whatever it might be.
He will only keep us there as long as it’s necessary to do what?
In order for us to learn what he wants us to learn, offer him to what he wants us to accomplish now.
Next principle. We are always walking toward the dawn of a new day.
when you and I walking through the darkness, we’re always walking till the dawn of a new day.
Now at the age of seventeen, it was dark. in that pit.
It was dark on their way to Egypt as a slave.
It was it was dark on the slave block in Egypt.
It was dark in that prison for a long time, and it was dark probably most all the time.
But you know what? The day someone said to Joseph Joseph, you to stand before pharaoh. What?
you to stand before pharaoh. And pharaoh said to him, you interpret this dream.
He interpret the dream to pharaoh, and you know what happened?
All the darkness of 13 years absolutely disappeared, and the absolute total glory of god was all over him.
And he lived to be a hundred and ten years of age.
That meant for 80 years, he lived in Egypt with pomp and glory and honor and wealth second only to the pharaoh.
Now let me ask you a question.
do you think it was even a question in his mind when somebody says, Josie was These 80 years of living in Egypt, saving your family, helping to save the world, was it was it worth 13 years in prison?
Yes. Yes.
I believe everybody who walks through darkness and comes out the other side and has kept their focus on the lord god would turn around and say, yes.
Dark, yes. Painful, hurtful, trying, difficult, misunderstood. Yes. Why? Because my friend, god, loves us.
He’s always he’s always moving us toward the dawn.
And no matter where you are and what you’re going through today, There is light. Listen. There is a dawn.
There is gonna be a new day. God’s gonna bring you through it no matter what.
It may be tough right now. You think, god, how am I gonna be able to stand this?
He’s gonna enable you. He will enable us And sometimes, it’s a day at a time.
And somebody may say, well, how do you stand this one day at a time?
How do we live one day at a time?
The just you live by faith, how one day at a time?
And sometimes, we get lots of hopes, and we can see the future gets brighter.
And yet oftentimes, in those dark times, it’s one day at a time.
We learn more in the darkness, but we’re always moving toward the light.
You see, that’s why you and I will ever have to give up.
If god has said, here’s what I’m gonna do, you can rest your eternal life on the fact that god, in all of his sovereign power, everything in heaven, is behind the promise of god.
He will make it a living reality no matter what. You cannot stop god.
When god says, here’s what I’m gonna do.
Now a conditional promise is here’s what I’ll do if you do thus and so.
when god says, here’s what I’m gonna do? Yes. There’s no question about it.
That is an unconditional promise of god that cannot be de conditioned to altered by anything.
And I could give you a number of very personal experiences when god says, here’s what I’m gonna do.
It was totally irrational to me. didn’t fit anything.
It was a struggle for me, a big battle for me to believe what I’d heard, but I’ll never forget getting in the prayer room one day when I was really struggling about something It’s like the lord said to me now, are you gonna believe what you see, what you feel, what you hear, or what I said.
And when I finally could come to the conclusion to say, god, I’m gonna believe what you said.
I can remember all hell broke loose. Everything around me said, you can’t believe it.
What I heard, what I saw, what I felt.
It’s like the lord would say to me, you’re gonna believe what I said?
Are you gonna believe what you feel, what you see, what you hear?
That’s why we must learned to listen to god and not question the word of the father.
He will do what he promised to do. And you know what?
That means that no matter what’s going on, how much darkness we walk through, there’s always light. Always light.
out there somewhere, god will bring us through all of that.
One last thing and one last principle here, and that’s simply this.
And that is those things we learn in the darkness we are to share in the light.
those things we learn in the darkness with to share in the light.
Remember what Jesus said in that 10th chapter of Matthew?
10th chapter of Matthew, listen to what he said, speaking to his disciples and certainly a message for all of us.
He said in, um, verse 27, what I tell you in the darkness speak in the light.
What you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the house tops.
God wants us to share what he teaches us in the darkness, those difficult times.
Listen, if you listen carefully, that you know that one of the ways that it establishes the truth and you understand even better what god has done in your life is when you share it with someone else.
When you are able to share with someone else what god has taught you or what he’s in the process of teaching you, It’s like god just entrenches it a little deeper and a little deeper and a little deeper.
God is working in your life. God is doing a mighty work.
And so he says what you’ll he says what you learned, what I tell you in the darkness, that is what that when I tell you when you’re alone, you don’t understand what’s going on, and you can’t quite conceive of all the things that happen.
What I tell you then, what I teach you then, what I show you then, He says, you’re to speak in the light.
I don’t know where you are in your walk with the lord.
I don’t know what kind of darkness is covering you, maybe financial darkness, relational dark family, darkness, all kinds of darkness that we all have to deal with in life.
I don’t know what it is, but this much I know.
If you’re a child of god, he’s with you in it. He has a purpose.
He’s only gonna allow you in that darkness to accomplish his purpose.
When it’s accomplished, he’ll bring you out of it.
If you will listen carefully and act wisely, you’ll learn things in the darkness.
You’re not gonna learn any other way. There is a light. There is a dawn. There is a new day.
You come you can come out of it, and you will come out of it.
And not only that, when you come out, you should come out praising him.
thanking him, declaring to others the greatness of god, the dependability of god, the faithfulness of god, the love of god to provide for you so abundantly.
You say, well, but suppose I’m not a Christian, then my friends, you’re walking in darkness.
This is something entirely different. If you’re not a believer you’re walking in darkness, not only that, Your heart’s dark.
You say, well, how do I get light in my soul? How do I get light in my life?
Here’s the way you do it. Jesus said, I am the light of the world.
Therefore, if you want the light of truth in your life, you ask the lord Jesus Christ to forgive you of your sins.
And you tell him that you believe in in his forgiveness on the basis that he went to Calvin paid your sin debt in full and that you’re receiving him as your personal savior.
and surrender your life to him.
In that moment, the light of the world, the eternal light of god, what happens, it lights up in your heart.
the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in you and to live through the year of life of Christ.
And then you have the privilege of doing what.
You have the privilege of trusting him walking through the difficult times, you say, well, now and once I get saved, when everything change, your your whole eternal destiny is gonna change.
your circumstances may remain the same. Well, now becoming a Christian, does that mean that god’s gonna change everything?
No. You may have to walk through some very, very dark days, even after you’re saved.
Let’s say that you’re married to person who’s an unbeliever, hates god, doesn’t want them to do it.
Bible Jesus god, there’s gonna be some dark days.
your parents may not be Christian, and they don’t want you to even think about being called in the lord’s service, dark days.
you may have been deeply, deeply, in debt.
And just because you say it doesn’t mean god’s gonna get you out of it.
He will, but not that quick, maybe some dark days.
just because you become a believer does not mean that all the dark days are over, but here’s what it means.
Before in the darkness, you are there alone. You weren’t learning anything. You weren’t going anywhere. You weren’t prospering.
You weren’t learning the great principles of god. You were floundering in darkness.
Now god will take your same old circumstance, the same old difficult in hardships and trials.
Now he puts purpose in them. Now god begins to work in your life.
Now he begins to grow you up.
Now he heads you in the direction of the dawn of a new day. He will bring you through it.
but it begins with trusting him as your personal saving.
I want to encourage you wherever you are, whatever you’re going through, no matter what, if you’ve never trusted him just to say lord Jesus, I’ve blown it.
I’m walking in darkness. My life is full of sin. I am full of rebellion.
I’ve been trying to have it my way. I confessed my sin to you. I you to forgive me.
I’m trusting you as my savior. I want the light of Christ in my life.
I want to walk in your way.
Even if it’s through dark periods, I must know that you’re there with me and you have a purpose in it, and he will.
Or you may be a believer in you’re walking through a very dark time.
after the first service, several people said to me, you talked right to me this morning.
I’m walking through one of those dark times. Well, my friend, listen.
If you’ll just take these simple principles, they’re so simple, but they’re all powerful.
He’s with you, has a purpose. The purpose is over, he brings you out.
You learn a whole lot more in the dark. than you do in the light.
God and his wonder, what will he do?
Head you in the direction of the dawn of a new day. And you know what will happen?
He’ll give you the privilege of sharing in the light. These awesome things he teaches you in the dark.
And, father, how grateful we are, that you love us, and that you love for us is unconditional, and that you don’t react to us You understand our weakness and our frailties, now doubts, and our fears in the darkness.
You’re still there. And I pray that those who have heard this message, that the spirit of god will sink it so deep, wrap it around their heart tightly, that it may begin to work in their soul, their spirit, in their heart so that Jesus, who is the light of the world, becomes the light of their life.
And, father, for all of your saints, who are going through darkness, just bring them to the realization that you are a loving, gentle father.
They don’t even realize it. You have them by the hand. You’re leading them through the darkness.
We love you and praise you for being the account of the father in Jesus name.
Amen.