When Troubles Come and Stay, Part 1

Problems seem to come in just one shot. It's often several at a time, and few are resolved quickly today on inside promoting Chuck Swindoll begins a brand-new teaching series called clinging to hope. It's designed to bring comfort to anyone who feels there under the crushing pressure of problems, whether it's illness broken relationship or financial crisis. This comforting study will offer relief. Chuck titled his opening message of this series when troubles come and stay in we began just after the congregation had sung a familiar hymn piece great is thy faithfulness finds its origin in the little often overlooked book between Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

The little book of Lamentations where the prophet Jeremiah laments the destruction of the city he loved, and the loss of home and and possessions. There is grief, sadness so much of the of the book is in a minor key is the is the writer Jeremiah known as the weeping prophet out weeps over the city that has gone through destruction and loss. But there is one bright spot in the book and that's right there in the center part of chapter 3, where he reminds the reader. Nevertheless, God's mercies are always there is his faithfulness is always true. We can count on it. Great is his faithfulness unto us is good that we remember that in this day been so little is set up it anywhere else outside the church.

You hear nothing of it on the news the media is not a place to find encouragement and divine direction that's always been true, it's not just true now. It's always been so. So how valuable it is that we gather to be reminded of such things as God's faithfulness to God's provisions, meeting our needs. The people in the day of James needed to hear that because they were scattered like you would throw sand across the field that the people of of James day word were Jewish converts who would come to know the Messiah and they were therefore outcasts among their own people. The Roman Emperor had no place for them. So persecution marked their lives. The children were mocked and thrown out of schools, their businesses were boycotted and life was terrible, just humanly speaking trials were regular and so, not surprisingly, James addresses those dear people, at the very beginning of his letter saying to them their purposes beyond the. The immediate that I do want you to miss. That's why he writes what he does in these first early versus I'm going to read for you from James one beginning in verse two, down through a verse 12. In this passage that talks about those times when troubles come and stay they don't come and leave the common and they they multiply, and they don't go away will read of that here. James one beginning adverse to be reading from the new living translation dear brothers and sisters when troubles come your way. Consider it an opportunity for great joy for you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow so let it grow for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be mature and complete, needing nothing if you need wisdom, ask our generous God and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.

But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone do not waiver or person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind.

Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world and they are unstable in everything they do. Believers who are poor have something to boast about, for God is has honored them and those who are rich should boast that God has humbled them. They will fade away like a little flour in the field.

The hot sun rises and the grass withers, the little flour drew's and faults and this beauty fades away in the same way the rich will fade away with all of their achievement. God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward, they will receive the crown of life. But God has promised those who love the beautiful thing about Scripture is that it addresses the now, but helps us realize now is a very small part of the plan of God's plan reaches into the past and certainly stretches into the future all the way into eternity for there are rewards such as he names the crown of life for those who would do a test and now the message from Chuck titled when troubles come and stay problems can be really weird.

I mean, they think it happens so unexpectedly. And when you get in the middle of them trying to fix some they sometimes get worse. And no matter what you do. They just stay around that they don't go away.

Edith was a middle-aged mother of eight and it was a Saturday afternoon is you need the little break and so she went to neighbors house to enjoy an hour or so of great visit together and around supper time to realize you need to get back home and start that often, so she got up on the porch of her home and she noticed that things were unusually quiet to quiet.

Curiously, she peered through the screened in porch door and and in she noticed her five of her children were in a circle on the floor so she opened the door surreptitiously, very, very silently in and closed it behind her and crept up near the circle and looked over and she could not believe her eyes to her amazement smack dab in the middle of the circle were five baby scum's it either panicked. She screamed quick children run and each child grabbed the skunk and ran some days are like that thing but not exactly like that but there's similar troubles though. Just commonly they they get complicated.

And even when the product fix some. They often backfire on us, but which came to my mind when I read the, the actual account that appeared on the company accident form filled out by a bricklayer who was bandaged and bruised as he filed this report, and I quote when I got to the building I found that the hurricane had blocked off some bricks around the top so I rigged up a beam with a pulley at the top of the building and hoisted up a barrel full of bricks. When I'd fix the damaged area.

There were a lot of bricks left over. I didn't went down the ladder to the bottom and began releasing the lion I'm forced to leave the barrel of bricks that I had put back in the barrel, the leftover barrel of bricks are much heavier than I was at the time and the barrel started coming down fast, and it jerked me up.

I decided to hang on to the line since I was now off the ground to Florida job and halfway up.

I met the barrel of bricks coming down fast, received a hard blow on my shoulder then continue to the top banging my head against the beam and getting my fingers tensed and jammed in the pulling out with when the barrel hit the ground hard. It burst its bottom allowing all the bricks to spill out but it was now. I was now heavier than the barrel. And so I sorted down at a high speed halfway down. I met the barrel coming up fast and it received several injuries to my to my feet and shins when I hit the ground. I landed on the pile of spill bricks getting several painful cuts and bruises. At this point I must've lost my presence of mind because I let go of my grip on the line.

The barrel came down fast, giving me another blow on my head and putting me in the hospital.

I respectfully request sick leave. I would imagine while other experiences may not have been anywhere like the regulators we have all known days when particular troubles happen. And even though we have the best of motives to fix things that big Dick convoluted and they met.

They seem to multiply and get worse. Maybe it's the kind of person.

Shakespeare had in mind.

In his work, the comedy of errors, for he refers to a wretched soul bruise with adversity goes bruises of adversity.

By the way, I don't always show up on our skin.

Sometime those bruises are deep down inside our hearts are residing within our emotions. The Bible doesn't overlook either physical or emotional bruises.

Job rights man is short-lived and full of turmoil, like a flower. He comes forth and withers of the living Bible renders that beautifully how frail his man how few. His days. How full of trouble, Paul writes to the Corinthians.

We are afflicted in every way we are perplexed, the word means at a loss confused. We don't know which way to turn. We are persecuted we are struck down, but were not knocked out David writes of the songs.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous.

The Bible speaks often of the bruises of the University of life back in the Victorian era, Joseph Parker ministered for 33 years at the city Temple during those years, he often counseled them in and mentor younger men entering the ministry. I love his counsel to them, which I read in more than one place he would tell them Priester broken hearts, and you'll never lacked for a congregation that there is one in every pew that is not only true in the Victorian era that that's true in this era as I looked from road to rollover the seats of this great house of worship.

II look into the faces of you who who are worshipers and I know that in many a heart there is a brokenness that there is sadness there is a trial that is lingering. That isn't yet resolved your living with it and some of you are are plagued by most of us who read the letter of James, I do not pause to realize that people in the first century were also such individuals they they were in a no man's land. These converted Jews their own people had nothing to do with them because they that they believe the Messiah and they were greatly outnumbered by those who did not. The Roman Emperor despise them in standard as a somatic's attitude and and therefore persecution arose against them and their businesses were boycotted and the children of these converted Jews were thrown out of their schools and their homes were confiscated. They were is James writes they were scattered abroad like you would throw sand across the field. They were away from the city they loved Jerusalem and out of a homeland for they had been reared and they were in the Roman world, with hearts that long for relief from the trials of life. One wag his said that of following the first century Christians would be like trekking a wounded stag and frozen snow. Just follow the ability pathway because it will lead to where the carcass is lying easy to forget that when we come to the letter of Jane, but James remembered. He wrote to first century.

Wretched souls, bruised by adversity. When James writes to us and to them all who work suffering. He he he answers three questions as he talks about trials he he he he deals first with what's true about troubles. What do we say about troubles when they come. And secondly, he writes about how can we rise above them rather than live under the weight of them and then thirdly, when when we have handled them as we should. What can we anticipate what then, so let's take these questions in that order, and will work our way through these verses two through 12 of James chapter. Chapter 1 verse what's true about all trials. Now let me pause in and remind you who have your Bibles pay attention to words. Don't just listen to me as I give you thoughts to think on look at the words become a on it. If you will a word vulture pay attention to terms that in a hurried moment you look past.

For example, when you got to burst to the word when stands out it. It's the answer to the first part of the question what is true about trials, but they are inevitable, known as the term is not if, dear brothers and sisters. If troubles come here with no no no no no, not if, because your brothers and sisters because you were in the family of God.

Trials are inevitable, their inescapable their unavoidable. Interestingly, one of the characteristics of human nature. As we trotted we would try to go around them are on or get away from them or are drink ourselves into a lot of a place of being able to ignore them or maybe travel will get us away from them and there they are, will become back home waiting for you can't get away from trials. That's why he says, dear brothers and sisters when they come your way and let me let me mention here of word that that the new living translation. For some reason doesn't include and it should because the original Greek text has the word.

It's a word various maybe your version that you are using includes it various trials, interesting little Greek quite Greek term for Telos PO RTI LOS point Telos. One person suggested we get our word polkadot from think of the polkadot on the fabric or or on a piece of paper all kinds of of of dots all kinds of trials, summer irksome in irritable and that they sort of coming going more common in their place summer deep and life-threatening summer outward trials that are happening to us, and summer inward that happen within us made a quick list of those outward trials in my list is short. I could fill five pages with hardship, grief, disappointments, financial difficulties, loss of job, flat tires, get batteries, broken arms and hips and on and on. The list goes the inward trials sometime hit was much harder than those, because they happen within uneasy feeling some of you right now were living with unresolved conflict's you once were close to so and so and now there's a distant at the trial. You once were good friends and now you you hardly are in touch with each other and you're not really sure what happened but there's that distant uneasy feet and there are strained relationships that follow feelings of rejection being misunderstood.

Feeling insecure battles of the flesh, greed, lust, anger to the point of rage imaginations and and dozens of other various kinds of point Telos trials that come their inevitable those things that occur to us are all part of his plan.

Please observe as you read through these verses when troubles come your way. It is an opportunity for you to review them with positive spirit called here considering it a great joy for you know that your faith is tested. Trial is a faith's and your endurance is given a chance to grow and as a result, our maturity is developed. What to do when troubles come and stay.

That's the issue the checks when dollars addressing today on Insight for living it's message number one in a brand-new 12 part series called clinging to hope to learn more about this ministry, we invite you to visit us online@insightworld.org will behind-the-scenes. Chuck is been working on another resource to share with you and with this brand-new teaching series. I'm thrilled to let you know the check is written. A brand-new book as well. It's also called clinging to hope. The subtitle is what Scripture says about weathering times of trouble, chaos and calamity in his book, Chuck will help you answer questions such as why is there so much suffering. Why is there so much conflict in the world where can I find hope when there is none to be found. Look when were suffering were worried or confused. We don't need platitudes. We don't need pie-in-the-sky, wishful thinking. Instead, we need absolute confidence that God is in control and that's what Chuck's new book is all about clinging to hope you can be among the very first to own a copy by getting in touch with us today. If you're listening in the United States, call 800-772-8888 or purchase a copy directly from our website by going to Insight.org/store. In closing, let me take a moment to thank those who give generously and sometimes sacrificially to Insight for living. Perhaps you have no idea of the impact of your gesture, but we should a day never passes without hearing from someone whose life has been touched because of the Bible teaching they received through Insight for living. We read each and every comment comes to our attention, and each one represents a sacred moment that was made possible through the voluntary gifts from people like you. So thank you so much to give a donation today. Call us if you're listening in the United States, call 800-772-8880 or you can give online@insight.org/don't want is when Chuck's Windows brand-new series called Friday on Insight for living. The preceding message when troubles come and stay was copyrighted in 2019 and 2022 and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2022 by Charles porcelain doll. All rights are reserved worldwide.

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