Trials are opportunities for spiritual growth and maturity, not reasons for despair. The sermon emphasizes that while suffering is inevitable, our response to it is key, and God's faithfulness provides comfort and strength. By embracing trials with joy and seeking wisdom through faith, believers can develop patience, achieve spiritual maturity, and ultimately glorify God. The message encourages trusting God's promises, even amidst affliction, to find peace and completeness.
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Thank you, ladies. That was lovely. It's nice when we can rejoice in that ministry and music to turn our hearts to the Lord Jesus and to who He is. Certainly He's the fairest of the fair. I'd like to say my amen to what Jim has commented on as to the time of family devotion. It's a wonderful thing when in that devotional time you see your own children come to the Lord Jesus. I think that we need to keep that before us to know that it is an opportunity for the Lord to work with our children.
Remember in that particular devotional time when one of my children trusted the Lord, I was telling a story to illustrate something and it was at that time that my daughter Nancy put her trust in the Lord. He broke her, first of all, in a realization of what she was doing, that it was sin, a five-year-old girl. And then her desire was that she should turn and talk to him, confess that, and then put her trust in the Lord Jesus. I remember that night she prayed. We got down on our knees beside a Davenport. A little girl said she wanted to tell the Lord about it. And so she told them that she had sinned and then she said, Lord Jesus, I want to be saved.
And she was quiet and I was wondering what she was going to say next. And she said something that we all certainly ought to say when we've trusted the Lord. Thank you, Lord, for saving me. Never gave me a day from that day to this, to doubt it. It's an important time, I think, that in our home we do open the Word of God. So many times it's... relegated to a Sunday school teacher to train our children and it's all wrong. It ought to begin with every one of us as we open the word to God together with them in a simple way and then as they grow to give them stronger meat. I trust if the young couples who are here have never had a devotional time in your home that you'll take up to do it and continue in it.
It sometimes does get a little bit difficult if when one wants to go this way and another one that way and the other one that way. There aren't any rules, as Jim says, that fits all the occasions, but it's well worth it. Amen. And it'll be to the praise of God's glory for all eternity as we see our own children there with us. You know, I've often thought in traveling so much and speaking to others. And when I first started, my desire was toward my children first. And I asked God, to give me them. You know, to go out and talk to others is wonderful, but my desire was to see my own children, first of all, around the judgment seat of Christ and that I would be able to look at them and say, as Paul did to the Philippians, you are my joy and my crown.
God help us today when the devil is doing everything he can to tear the home apart, that we might heed the words we've heard and bind the home through the Word of God in putting it to our children, giving them a balanced diet, giving them what they need day by day. Well, yesterday for a little while we looked at a verse that said, Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. We were reminded with it as well the armor that He did give to us to fight the spiritual battle. And there is one piece of that armor that's needed. very much by everyone. It's the initial one.
He said, let your loin be girded about with truth. See, the loin is the part of the body between the hip bone and the rib. And there isn't any bone structure there. The only bone part you got is that cushion that's in the spine. And those of you who have back trouble knows what happens when that place gets weak. You're all done. You might have good leg muscles. But if that's given out, those legs aren't going to carry you anywhere. I learned one day I had to walk on all four. It took hands and legs to get me to where I wanted to go. Truth is important. Truth is what we need. It's what we need in building up ourselves and the strength that we have to make ourselves strong.
and then to take that strength that is in the Lord. And we learn that through His word. Now trials are going to come. They come to us all. And James gives to us something of trials in the beginning of his epistle. thought my brother this morning, he took off on that, was going to go with this scripture. But he helped at any rate. I like the way God takes his word. It's line upon line and precept upon precept, and he begins to fit it all together that we might be blessed by it. I'd like you to go to the book of James with me, if you will, please. James, chapter one, verse one. James, a servant of God. and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.
My brethren count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing this, that the testing of your faith worketh patience, but let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and abradeeth not, and it shall be given him. but let him ask in faith nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in all his way.
The book of James is a book that brings us to the testing of faith. It is a book that shows man are justified before men. Martin Luther didn't like the book. He said it was a book of straw because he saw here a truth that seemed to him to be contrary to the Word of God. He saw Paul teaching justification by faith. And when he picks up James, he sees justification by works. And he says in his own mind, how do I put the two together? And he seems to see that this is all wrong. But as I view James, it's a book about men.
And it's a book about men before men, with God working in their lives. Now, when Paul wrote to the Romans, he plainly taught justification by faith before God. God looks into my heart. God sees my heart. God knows whether or not there is faith exercised in my heart. Even if none might be seen on the outside, God knows what's on the inside. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Before God, I am justified by faith. But now, as we go forth before men, men do not see our heart.
Men see what we do. Men hear what we say. So men are going to judge us by what they see. And so then James says, Faith without works is dead, being alone. And that's truth. You know, you may say anything, and that's what James says too, men will say. You may say anything. I've heard many men profess salvation with their lips, but have no evidence of it in their life. So before me a man has a big question mark. What's behind the light? Is there anything there of faith at all? And so as we view, and as James viewed men, it was men before men.
See? And a faith that has no evidence is dead. A faith without profit is dead. There's no investment. Look, we're not nutty enough to go to the bank and... Go to this bank in Atlantic and say, I'd like to draw out fifty dollars. Well, what's your name, Ray Routley? What's your account number? Well, I don't have any account here. Well, then how do you expect to have some investment from account you don't have here? It's the same way in a spiritual sense. Faith is an investment in God for all eternity. And there is a return on that faith. The profit is a fullness of life.
It's an abundant life here and now and forever after. See? That is the blessing of the investment. There is a return. If there's no investment, there's no profit. If there's no faith, there is no evidence of a faith either. And so James, as he writes, He writes to men and is writing of men before men. And if you look in the book, you'll find the word men and man is about twenty-six times in the book. It's an amazing thing that God would put that word, men and man, how many times in this little book. So he's emphasizing something. Now James brings us right at the beginning, my brethren, count it all joy when you enter into different kinds of trials.
There is a diversity of trials. There are different kinds of trials. Some trials come in the home that our brother is speaking of. Some trials come out of our own ignorance in the way that we work. Some trials come by the permissive will of God. Some trials come by the purpose of God's will, that He might strengthen us and bring us along in the way. That He might bring us to a place of maturity. Now, some trials come in affliction. There's a lot of affliction go amongst the people of God. There's a lot of affliction today.
And as we're afflicted, some people will come and say, Oh, God doesn't want a child of God. Say, must be something wrong with you. Call the elders. Let them pray over you. Let them anoint you. And you'll be healed. And if I follow their plan, I see some men come in anointing people and they're not healed. And I have to say, is God a liar? If that scripture meant what you're taking it to mean, then he would have to be. Some people say God does not desire that mankind would be sick. And he heals all of our diseases. And they're quick to quote the hundred and third son.
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all it is within me, bless his holy name. Let's take the context of the psalm. It is in context the soul that is healed. And does he heal our soul? Bless your heart he does. I'm glad he healed this soul of mine. It was sick with a disease of sin, and he healed it at the age of twelve. But this body has had a lot of afflictions since then that comes in different ways. Sometimes it's permitted of God as trial to refine us in the way. Let's take an instance from David, if you will. Would you go to the hundred and nineteen psalms with me?
That word of affliction is the word that is used here, and I'd like to look at it. There are some things of truth that will help us in the trial. Okay? First of all, verse fifty. This is my comfort in my affliction, for thy word hath given me life. Now, child of God, when you enter into an affliction, you can begin with that. With knowing this is my comfort in my affliction, thou hast given me life. I have eternal life, regardless of the trials that are going to come across my path in this life.
My life depends on what Jesus Christ has done. My eternal life. And so does you. It depends on his person and it depends on his work. That is why in Romans ten and nine we're brought to this work. I'm using this because it condenses the point. He says that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, Jesus says, Lord, and believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. It is His Lordship and His work. He is Lord. That is established through the Word of God. I believed Him to be Lord when I received Him as my Savior.
I not only made the admission He is sovereign Lord, but I made the confession He is my Lord. And then that he's risen from the dead. Why did he die? How did he get dead? He went to the cross. He took the penalty for my sin. He was buried. And he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. And that is life given through faith in his person and in his work. So now when I am sick and I am afflicted, I do not lay there with the doubts. Am I really saved? Is that why God has brought this to me? You know, I remember a little guy.
We tell the story to the kids sometime. He'd been laying there sick. And every night in the loneliness of the night, you know, the nighttime brings that voice, doesn't it? Sometimes when you lay there and you feel a little weak and the question mark comes, does he really love you? Look at what you're doing here, laying here. And you have to say, oh, he loves me. He proved his love. He said it here. And that's the way you wired off that fiery dart of Satan. But you know the little guy is laying there in the wee hours of the night. He's here in that sock coming to his mind. If he really loved you, he wouldn't do this to you.
If he really loved you, you wouldn't be laying here day after day after day sick like this. And then the next day that little boy, someone comes to visit him, a brother in the Lord, and he tells them what's on his heart and the doubts that are coming in the night. And then that man opens him to John five, twenty-four. And he reads it to him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that hears my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life. And the little boy looks at that in his testament, and he says, That's pretty good. And so he lays there that day thinking about that. And sure enough, that night when the night is dark and is long and he can't sleep, that voice comes back.
Does he love you? How you're really saved. And finally the little guy can't stand it anymore, so he reaches over and he turns the light on. Light kind of dispels darkness. But you know, he had something else that was light, and he opened his little testament to John five, twenty-four, and he shoved it under the bed, and he said, Here, devil, read this. Ah, you know, beloved, that is what it awarded off. And so when affliction comes, you can say, This is my comfort in mine affliction, for the Lord has given me light. You got the assurance of that? You know the word of truth. Oh, listen. Every child in our home that passes through our home, that professes to be saved.
What to say, honey, have you got the Word of Truth? Are you basing your salvation on the written Word of God? I'm amazed when I find an older person and they tell me they're saved and I say, what do you base it on? And they give me all sorts of reasons because I trusted the Lord and everything else. I say, that's wonderful, but what do you base it on? We got to come to the Word of God. Do you have the word of truth that binds you up and strengthens you? David could say, this is my comfort and my affliction. Now, in verse sixty-seven, David was well aware that affliction comes for some reasons as well. Sometimes affliction comes because of something in our life.
And David said, Before I was afflicted, I went astray. But now have I kept thy word. You see, affliction had something to do with David. He could say, before I was afflicted, I went astray. But now have I kept thy word. David had learned a lesson through truth again. A lesson that restored him to that path. Verse seventy-five. I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hath afflicted me. Child of God in your trial when affliction comes in that trial. Can you say, I know, in faithfulness you have afflicted me.
There isn't any affliction that comes across the path of God that he does not know about and in his faithfulness he lets it come to pass. That it might bring us to his school. And in that school we might learn his lesson. Verse ninety-two. Unless thy law had been my delight, I should have perished in mine affliction. You see, David turned again to the Word of God, and he saw what gave him hope and did not allow him to despair. And he could rest in that hope. And verse seven. Yet there is the sense of hundred and seven.
In our affliction we can say, even if he did, I am afflicted very much. Receive me, O Lord, according to thy word. You know, even as we pass through it, and we're going through that affliction, and we're looking to God for help, we can say, I am afflicted. And no, that God in faithfulness is going to administer to us. Now, God might well permit a trial to come into our life and to use it as a testing in his school, that he might refine us. And yet the devil might take that trial and use it as a temptation.
Let me show you what I mean. God could permit poverty to come into our life as a trial. The devil could take that poverty and use it as a temptation to get us to steal. But if we have the understanding that God is permitting the trial to refine us in the way, and we're going to know that any other voice than that voice is a voice that wants to tempt us or entice us, then we rebuke that voice through the Word of God. and it quiets down and it goes away.
I'm going to ask you, do you hear that voice sometime? Brother told me the other day, and he said, I was standing there, bringing a message at the graveside, and as we were laying the body of this dear brother to rest, and I had just preached that one day there was going to be a voice to say, loose him and let him go. And the grave would have to give up the dead. He said, I know more than got the thoughts of resurrection through my mind. And out of my mouth when I heard a voice that said, Do you really believe that? You know, the devil can come sometimes when we're victorious.
And we're standing in a place of victory. And the devil can come sometimes when we're in a place of weakness. Let's look at that. The Lord Jesus, I'll take him as an example. He had no more than been baptized. And what a glory. The voice from heaven spoke. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. What a voice from the Father. And then the dove descends and lights upon him. As the Holy Spirit. What a place of victory and of glorification of the Son. in the beginning of His ministry.
But now what do I read? Immediately the Spirit drove Him in the wilderness, that He might be tried, that He might be tempted by Satan. And now He goes to the wilderness, He's there forty days. He's hungry and He's thirsty. He's weak. Physically, He's weak. Not spiritually, He was never weak. It was omnipotent God, even though he was in the veil of flesh. And as he's taken that veil of flesh, and he's found wheat there, the devil comes along. You hungry? He says, If thou be the Son of God, command ye stones to be made bread.
Did he yield to it? No. As the eternal Son, he knew the eternal Word. And so he could simply say, Man shall not, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. The devil didn't quit by that. He said, well, I can quote scripture too. He said, come on up here to the pinnacle of the temple. Now I stood on the wall of that. I don't know if I was at the pinnacle of the temple, but I was on the temple wall. And I looked down, I was a long way down. And he said, Go ahead, cast yourself down. It's written, He'll give the angels charge over thee, lest thou cast thy foot or dash thy foot against the stone.
He left something out, didn't he? I had given the angels charge over him to lead him, direct him, guide him in all his ways. But you know the Lord Jesus didn't yield to that. He turned around and he said, Thou shalt, it is written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. We don't have to act foolishly because the devil charges us. And the Lord Jesus resisted it. The devil doesn't quit yet one more time. And he takes them to a high mountain. He shows them the kingdoms of the earth in a moment. He said, Bow down and worship me in their year.
And once more the Lord Jesus took the word of God, and he took it again, and he said to him, It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Beloved, do you have some of the word of truth that you're girded about with, and that is in your hand as the sword of the Spirit, that when the temptation comes, Even though it may come in a trial that God is permitted, that you can use it to ward off Satan to drive Adam in a parry in a thrust that he cannot take. And he'll go away and leave you.
And we read that the devil left him for a while. Oh, he didn't go all far off. He was there to take it up again someday. And you know, we need the realization of that. But what James is giving to us here is the trial. He gives us temptation from verse twelve on and what it is. But James is saying now to the believers, count it all joy when you enter into different kinds of trial. What is joy? I'd like to suggest to you it's an attitude of heart. I read through the New Testament, joy came for various reasons.
Paul says, rejoice in the Lord. And again I say rejoice. In other words, there's a grounds for our rejoicing. There's a foundation and a basis for it. How does Christ Himself? I find that they rejoiced in His resurrection. They rejoiced in His witness. They rejoiced as they were able to witness. They rejoiced in fellowship as our brother brought to us this morning. So we'd have to say that joy is an attitude of heart. That's contrary to the tears, isn't it? Because I can be laying there in severe pain with tears streaming down my face and have an attitude inwardly that lifts the soul above the bed and gives it wings to fly.
I visited at the bedside of many of an older brother and sister, and some younger who had the pain, like that little girl I mentioned the other night, twelve years old, tummy rounded out like this, and full of pain. Yet she was rejoicing that heaven was near. And I think that as we take and count it joy, we can count it joy because of the benefit of the trial. But we can count a joy because of the hope of the future. And the hope of the future is going to dispel the gloom of the moment. And it is that that gives us the strength in the trial.
It is that that lifts us up. You know, the story told of a farmer who went through some trials. But you know that he was going through those trials of being hard-pressed. Day by day, when Sunday rolled around and he knew it was the Lord's day, he left his field, he left his tractor, and he went and he sat down with the Lord's people and he worshiped. He listened to the gospel and he encouraged others that day. And his neighbor said, how can you do that? And he could bring his gospel to the neighbor. But then one day, as the neighbor chided them throughout the summer, about his work not being fully done, yet God seemed in time to give him the ability to get it done.
But now comes harvest time. And the harvest wasn't so good. The neighbor comes along and he says to him, Ha! God withheld his hand. The harvest is not so good. Where is your God now? And the man who was in the trial said God doesn't close his books at the end of the harvest. And bless your heart. You may see some trials that bring you to a difficult time. And you might not immediately see that blessing. But remember this. God does not close his book at the end of the trial.
And so it is a look into the future and a hope of the future that begins to dispel of the gloom of the moment. The trial seems to be an external pressure and the joy and internal attitude. Now, there are some blessings that succumb out of that trial. And as we go through it, in the trial there is a working. He said, knowing this, that the testing of your faith work is patience. But he said, let patience have a perfect work. And so when we come in trials sometimes, they are trials that are brought on, sometimes inwardly, sometimes outwardly.
And he wants us to have some patience in them. That means endurance. That means to bear up under them. In James chapter five, James brings the saints to some of the men who have used them for their profit. And he would remind them, Be patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. He was saying, bear up under this severe trial and the persecution. Remember, it was written to the tribes that were scattered abroad. It was written for those twelve tribes, but bless your heart, I think as spiritual children of Abraham, we get a chance to rejoice in that.
And as it was written to them, and they were having severe trials. He said, Be patient under the coming of the Lord. Bear up under it. Can you bear up under the trial? Have you been bearing up under the trial that comes from sometimes from your brethren? Or a sister, and a word comes quickly spoken. Now, I know James in chapter one says, Be quick to hear, and slow to speak, and slow to rat. That's a good admonishment. We need to take it home, to have an ear that listens, and a tongue that's slow to speak, and then a temperament that's gentle, slow to rat.
But you know, sometimes we do hear quick words, and maybe sometimes we take the words wrong. We take them as a slur. We take it as an insult. We take it as a rebuke when it wasn't intended that way. And the natural man is there wanting to make a retort to those words. But if we're able to take them and then in patience, bearing up under it, we can do like somebody has said, mud brushes off better when it's dry. You know, if you let that mud just settle for a while, and it dries off, you can just take and brush it, and it comes right off.
But if you try to take that mud off when it's wet, it just splatters it all around, makes the mess bigger. And you know, that's the way it is with us. If we're quick to retort to those things, we're going to make a situation that could have been easy, we're going to make it worse. But if we just let it dry, and we endure, We have the patience of the trial. Then God's going to be glorified in it, and we're taught something by it. I'd like to suggest to you, if you bring on some of your own trials by a quick tongue, then maybe God could help you with this. I think it's found in the hundred and forty-first Psalm, verse three.
Set a watch, O Lord. on my mouth keep the door of my lips. You see, that's a good prayer. That's a good prayer to pray. And I learned that prayer some years ago. One day when I spoke very rapidly and then was caused to eat my words and from then I began to endeavor to give that mouth and that lip to God and that tongue that he might control it. See, there is patience that comes through the trial.
That's one benefit of it. Now, there's maturity that comes through the trial. That is another benefit of it, that we might reach a goal. He said, let patience have a perfect work. that ye might be perfect and entire, lacking nothing. To be perfect here means to have reached a goal, to be brought to maturity. Do you desire, beloved, spiritual maturity? If you desire spiritual maturity, then we need to endure under the trial. And enduring under the trial, then there's a benefit that comes out of it.
Maturity. Maturity. We should desire that. Now he says, If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask in faith. Now I appreciate that this is a verse we so many times pull out of context, and we apply it to everything. But I think this is applied directly to the trial here. I'm not going to take away that right of yours of applying that verse. But I'm saying as we look at it here, it's directly related to the trial. And if some of you are enduring trial right now, maybe it's a trial in your home with your children.
And maybe you're kicking yourself and you're looking back as we were told the other day not to do. And you see your children going the wrong way. They're grown now and they're going their own path and you're saying, Lord, what did I do wrong? When you do that the first time and you got your answer, even though I think that's almost an impossible thing to answer, because then many times you have done everything you can do. And it's like Mr. Humphrey used to say, I'm sure some of you remember him, he said every tub sits on its own bottom. And you know there's a time when that child becomes responsible to God for his own walk in life.
But if you have taken up what our brother Jim has taught us to do, then you're not going to weep in that day and say, what did I do wrong? You're going to be able to say, Lord, to the best of my ability, I tried in teaching the devotional life and teaching the life of Christ through example in my home. And I'm sure I failed many times, but Lord, I'm going to believe you. You know, that was the day I had to do that. It was a day when I had to do that. And I'll sit and wondering about moving from Lake Geneva to Davenport, wondering what my children would do in a city, wondering when everything is at hand and they had never lived in a city.
And one of them now was away at college, but another one was a teenager in high school, and everything opened and I wonder what he's doing. And I sat there that day when my Bible opened in my lap and praying to God. And, you know, as I finished the prayer and I opened my eyes, my Bible was opened to Isaiah thirteen, and there was a verse underlined there that day. You know, I never knew I underlined that verse. I don't ever remember it, but I had underlined it. You know, that verse said, All thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children. Isaiah fifty-four thirteen. Now, I know he said that to Israel, but you know that day he said that to me.
That day, that verse jumped out of the page, and I could take God at his promise. Have you looked at the promise of the Philippians, you know? And in faith have you reached out and claimed God, no matter what the situation looks like, that in faith you're going to believe God? You see, faith gets tested. And when it's tested, Paul, He says here, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and abradeeth not, it shall be given him. He said, I'll give it to you. He wanted to wisdom, and I like the way he described it here.
He said, he gives to all men liberally. Liberally. And he said, I won't give you a bunch of stinging words. That means, that's what it means to abrade. You know, sometimes our children ask us for things and sometimes they might get a few stinging words even though they may have gotten their way. God doesn't do that. God doesn't do that. He gives faith. He gives it liberally. And He gives it without stinging words when we in our weakness come and come and come and come and come and come again.
There is the promise of patience, of maturity, of an entirety, of completeness, and wisdom. My, what a God. If you can view those things, beloved, then you can say, hey, there is something in a trial. There is an outcoming of it. There is patience, maturity, completeness, faith, tried, tested, proven. There is joy in the trial. God, I will rejoice. I will rejoice. I trust, beloved, that these few words today might encourage your hearts.
You know, I'm reminded that God told Isaiah in a time that was difficult. He said, comfort ye, comfort ye, my people. I trust to some of you who know some trials today that are rather severe for you. that God would comfort you in them. And to some of you who still may contemplate some in the days ahead, that you might be encouraged to go on and pass through. He is there. He said, I'll never leave you, nor forsake you.