Classic Sermon 6049: How to win in trials

The word of the Lord says, Genesis, 22: “It happened after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him: Abraham. And he answered: Here I am. And he said: Take now your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a holocaust on one of the mountains that I will tell you about. And Abraham rose early in the morning, and saddled his donkey, and took with him two of his servants, and Isaac his son; and he cut wood for the burnt offering, and got up, and went to the place that God had told him.

“On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his servants, Wait here with the donkey, and I and the boy will go there, and worship, and return to you. And Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering, and put it on Isaac his son; and he took in his hand the fire and the knife; and they both went together. Then Isaac spoke to Abraham his father, and said: My father. And he answered: Here I am, my son. And he said: Behold the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for the holocaust? And Abraham answered: God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering, my son. And they went together.

“And when they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built an altar there, and arranged the wood, and bound Isaac his son, and placed him on the altar on the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand, and took the knife, to slay his son. Then the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he answered: Here I am. And he said: Do not stretch out your hand on the boy, nor do anything to him; because I know, I already know that you fear God, because you did not deny me your son, your only one; then Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, behind him a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns; and Abraham went, and took the ram, and offered it as a burnt offering instead of his son.

“And Abraham called the name of that place, Jehovah will provide. Therefore it is said today: On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided. And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, By myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son; I will certainly bless you, and I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and as the sand that is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gates of their enemies: in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”

May the Lord bless his Holy Word. Last Sunday we began with the passage that I consider the theme passage of these meditations, Romans 8, verses 28 to 39. And there we recounted some basic ideas that will serve as a background for these studies that we are going to do, and the Apostle Paul, you will remember there, is that he says, “and we know that to those who love God, all things work together for good. This is those who are called according to his purpose.”

Also the Apostle Paul says, “who can separate us from the love of Christ?” And he lists a series of possible difficulties that the Christian could encounter, and to that series of difficulties we could add countless other difficult situations in which we could find ourselves. Our lives are continually challenged by all kinds of negative situations and we are always going to find difficulties because Christ himself said, in the world you will find affliction. But the Apostle Paul said, after numbering that series of crises in which a child of God can be found, he said, "before, in all these things, we are more than conquerors."

And that, I want brothers, that is shaped and fixed in our sensitivity. We live in a world of affliction and difficulties but we have a much more powerful God, and that is why the Lord Jesus Christ said, "in the world you will find affliction, but take heart, I have overcome the world." And Christ defeated him in the flesh, Christ defeated him in the form of a man and he has transferred his powerful spirit to us so that we too can overcome the world in any situation that we may face. So, last Sunday we established that we live in a world of affliction, that we live in a cosmos -in a fallen universe, which longs for the day of its liberation, says the Apostle Paul.

As we also long to put on the glory that God has for us, but while we are in this world we will have to battle with the negative conditions that confront every human being, in addition to the fact that we have an accuser and an attacker, an enemy, which is Satan. and its dark powers that are also sworn against our welfare. And that they are going to do everything possible to undo our lives. But, we were also saying that God has provided a detailed plan. God has called, God has touched hearts, God promises to preserve those who receive His call. God has provided His Son Jesus Christ, who died and rose again, and who is now at the right hand of the Father, says the Apostle Paul. - and who intercedes for us.

It is a very elaborate plan that God has prepared with a very clear structure, whose goal is to preserve and redeem us in every possible situation, be it here in the world of time and space and history, or in the coming age of eternity. But, in all possible circumstances, the Christian is completely covered and safe. That is the security that the son or daughter of God has. And, therefore, we can get out... the third truth is that, first, a world in affliction, second, a God who has provided a detailed plan, third, redeemed men and women who can get out of every negative situation, due to that fierce love of God.

Romans 8 brings all these ideas into a theoretical form, there are some statements in there that the Apostle Paul makes. But now I would like to go into detail and study the lives of some men and women in scripture, and study some texts that are going to teach us how that wonderful and comprehensive statement of the Apostle Paul becomes real in specific conditions, in specific situations, that confronted men and women throughout history - like you and me.

Now, we don't want to stop there, just a historical study of what happened to men and women 2,000-3,000 years ago. Rather, the key is that what God did for them will also be done for us. And that when we study the situations that they confronted, we can extract from that study, fundamental truths and principles that we can use as spiritual laws that will govern our lives in every situation in which we may find ourselves. Because that's why we study the Bible. It is not simply to fill us with theory, but to extract from it those timeless principles that apply throughout history. The Word of the Lord says, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, for all the centuries.

God's methodology to deal with humanity is the same, be it in Genesis or in Revelation. And, we simply want to anchor ourselves and get into those universal principles that govern the life of humanity throughout history and that is why I want to go into that detail and see those ideas how they materialize.

There are two things that we have to keep in mind, brothers, we have to have God on the one hand and the individual on the other, because this is a combination. They are like two pieces of a coin that when put together make a whole. God has purposes for our lives, God has plans. God has a methodology, a way for Him to work and He has guaranteed victory in every situation that we may face. But the thing does not stop there, because we are not passive elements. I am not a parasite that God simply does what he wants with him and has no value, has nothing to contribute to God's dealings with humanity.

No, God sees me as a being –and you too,– as a being, as an individual, as an entity... free and God's purpose has to unite with your faith and your reaction and your attitude to that that divine purpose of God can then be fulfilled in your life. It is of no use to God to have great purposes for you and good will and good wishes and good plans if you do not activate that good mind of God through your faith and your knowledge of the word of God.

I believe that in the world there are millions and millions of people that God wants to bless, God wants to prosper and that God wants to make them great winners, but their faith does not give them. And then God sends his rays of blessing, but when the rays come there is no one to receive them. And, then we have to meditate on how we play an important role so that God's blessings are fulfilled in our lives. And, Abraham is an example of that dynamic of God having firm motives and purposes and of the man who by faith affirms and believes in what God has and then can successfully pass the test.

Trials will come into our lives as in the case of Abraham. In this case the affliction comes to Abraham from a totally unexpected source, from God himself. Abraham at the age of 75 receives the promise from God that he will have a son, until then his wife Sara had been barren. At 75, already an old man, God tells him, I am going to give you a son. And your offspring that will come through that son will be more numerous than the stars in the sky and more than the sands of the sea.

Another time, he tells her. And at 75 years, Abraham receives that promise, and at 100 years the promise is fulfilled - 25 years after receiving the promise. Some 20, 25 years later God says to Abraham, "Abraham... now...," essentially what he's saying is, that promise I made to you, annul it... forget about it and that precious son you've cherished for so many years and that your hope of descendants is all poured into that son. And all the promises I made to you… forget about that, throw all that away, and take your son and sacrifice it to me, kill him. You yourself take a knife and slit his throat, and God does not even have the delicacy or courtesy to even tell Abraham where he has to sacrifice his son, but He tells him, in the place that I will tell you, and when I tell you to do it.

So, he puts it there to simmer in its own juice and sends him away so that he can look for the place where he has to sacrifice his son. In this case, Abraham has at least the advantage of knowing that the crisis comes from God. But many of us suffer and do not know where the crisis comes from. Sometimes we ask ourselves, could it be that God is upset with me, could it be that God is punishing me, could it be that God is preparing me for something... could it be that Satan... you know that in the Church of Jesus Christ there is a lot of confusion, there are many people who believe that the bad things that happen in your life only come from Satan. And they blame everything on Satan, Satan, Satan.

But, brothers, do you know that many times God can send affliction into your life in a sovereign way? That God can through an inscrutable will make difficult situations come into your life? The word of God says so, but many times we live in agony wondering, what purpose will this have, where will it come from? What can I do to face this crisis that I am going through?

But I want to underline one of the possible sources and on other occasions we will see other possibilities. In this case, and on many occasions in our lives, God will be testing us and working with us through affliction. Turn to Lamentations, chapter 3, and you'll see there that sometimes God could be kind of cruel, one might say, in his way of bringing affliction into our lives.

Look how Jeremiah, the prophet Jeremiah, sees a crisis that he's going through, he says in chapter 3, “I am the man who has seen affliction, under the whip of his anger. He guided me and led me into darkness and not into light. He has certainly turned against me and turned his hand all day long.” He says further on, in verse 10, he was to me, “like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in hiding. He twisted my ways and tore me to pieces; left me devastated. He bent his bow and set me as a target for the arrow. He made the arrows of his quiver enter my entrails. I was ridiculed by all my people, mock them every day. It filled me with bitterness, it intoxicated me with wormwood. My teeth broke with gravel, covered me in ash. And my soul moved away from peace, I forgot about good.

This is how that man visualizes God's work of trial and affliction in his life. Brothers, I believe that we have to understand, we have to be an understood people and know that not all the negative situations that we are going to experience in our lives necessarily come from Satan. Many times God will have a purpose in that affliction and in that crisis and in that difficulty that you are going through. We evangelicals are the ones who are always apologizing for God, trying to cover for God and defend Him when He doesn't need to be defended. The word of God is very clear that many times God gives himself the freedom to enter into periods of affliction and we will see why and for what.

In that same chapter of Lamentations, chapter 3, verses 37 and 38, the prophet says, “Who will be the one to say that something happened that the Lord did not command? Does not good and bad come out of the mouth of the Most High? Now, brothers, here I want to clarify something. If God allows affliction and suffering and tests your life, it is because God has a positive purpose in it. Remember that always. Satan tempts us to make us fall and to destroy us, to kill, steal and destroy as Jesus Christ says. God tests us to strengthen us and build us up and purify us and fill us with blessing, and we pass the test with Christian integrity. That is the difference.

When God tests us, he has a beautiful purpose in our lives and generally God will be directing his action of affliction towards some area of weakness and need in our spiritual or physical life, in some area that we sometimes do not understand but God will help us. to put in the test oven to extract those impurities from our character, from our mind, from our being so that we can be happy and live productive lives. To equip the fallen walls in our being.

So, in that case, the affliction that God puts us through, that reality is a blessing in disguise. It is a blessing in disguise that comes in a slightly bitter wrapper but inside is sweet like honey. Let's look in First Peter, after the book of Hebrews and James, in one of those small epistles but rich in teachings, the first epistle of Peter, verses from 3 to 7.

In verses 3, 4 and 5, Peter talks about all the blessings, he says that God gave us new birth to a living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. So, he says in verse 6, “in all of which you rejoice, even if now for a little while…” -he says- “if necessary, you have to be afflicted in various trials, you see? It is necessary that you have to be afflicted in various trials while you await the fulfillment of those eternal promises that God has given. “Okay,” he says, “so that your faith, much more precious than gold, which, although perishable, is tested by fire, is tested, so that your faith may be found in praise, glory and honor, when it is manifested. Jesus Christ."

You see? The Apostle Peter here is saying that one of the reasons why God sometimes tests us and puts us in difficult situations is so that one day, already in eternity; when the Kingdom of God is manifested and the people of God are assembled, and the Principalities and the Powers and the wicked and the just, are all gathered there before the throne of God; there the work of the Saints here on earth who suffered in faith, and who emerged victorious from the tests to which God subjected them, be found in praise for Christ Jesus.

And in Glory also for us who will feel proud that we suffered as men and women of God. But when God tests us, brothers, it is always because he has a sublime purpose. And so that is why we can understand what Paul says in Romans, 8: 28, because to those who love God all things help for good, even test situations. Because in those things of affliction, God is either sovereignly Himself bringing the affliction or allowing the affliction to come for a positive purpose in our lives.

Look at the affliction of Abraham, it was a terrible affliction - very, very difficult. First, his biological offspring, for now, is being asked to destroy it himself. Second, his spiritual descent. God had told him that he was going to be the father of a huge nation and that through him, He would bless many people. And Abraham already saw himself as a spiritual patriarch of a great and powerful nation, and now God asks him to throw that away too. Thirdly, his very image of God as a just God, as a God of love, a God coherent in his purposes, is destroyed because the God who gave him his son, now arbitrarily as a dictator, as a despot, tells him Destroy your son.

The image of God... -and many times, brothers, when we are going through difficulties, what brings the most agony to our lives is that doubt that comes to our hearts. Will God be as good and as faithful and as just and as consistent in his purposes, as the Bible says? Those promises that I thought were so unshakable, I can truly believe in them and I will truly have to praise God the way I do if God right now shows himself to be an inconsistent God. Look what I'm going through, look what I'm suffering, where is God?

And that sometimes causes us terrible agony, sometimes greater than the agonies of the trial we are going through. How many of us have asked, 'Lord, heal me.' And the days go by, and the healing does not come, and then we begin to doubt. Is God truly a healing God as the Word says? You read that, haven't they taught me in the church that He is like that? And that agony...

And here we see Abraham, that God is bringing into question, his own justice and his own love, and his own consistency. And above all the terrible pain of him having to sacrifice his own son, and all these things of Abraham's suffering – something terrible. And so we can meet many times, in times of great trials. In that we are attacked in a central area of our life, it may be in our home, our marriages or a rebellious child, or in that job that we had anticipated that we were going to stay there all our lives until we retired and for now we are told that the job is over.

And there are areas like this, sometimes key in our lives, where we go through crisis situations. And there are times when in those moments God's promises to us seem to wane, perhaps we have received an assurance from the Lord that our children will be servants of the Lord and at the moment we see that all that begins to crumble and God's faithfulness seems to begin to fade. suffer before our eyes. And yet, God asks that we be obedient and continue to serve and praise him.

I think we can all identify with Abraham's suffering. Now, what transforms, what makes it possible for this terrible crisis that Abraham is facing to end on a note of victory and a positive note? What enables that future statement to come to pass, in the case of Abraham? From Romans 8:28, "to those who love God all things work together for good."

Let's see two perspectives. From God's perspective and from man's perspective, Abraham. Deuteronomy, chapter 8, that there you will find some ideas. Look how God is working on the people of Israel to test them, and how God had purposes for that test that Abraham was going through. And here in Deuteronomy, chapter 8, verses from 2 to 5, I see at least 5 things that God was trying to deal with the people of Israel with which many times He also deals with us through the test.

It says, Deuteronomy 2, “You shall remember all the way that the Lord your God has brought you, these forty years in the desert, to afflict you, to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep it or not. his commandments.”

And it says here in Deuteronomy, and “He afflicted you, made you hungry, and fed you with manna…” Look further on, we go to verse 2 itself. There we see two things for which God tested the people of Israel in the desert.

He says, to afflict him, to test him, and to know what was in his heart. And further on in verse 3 it says, and “He afflicted you, made you hungry, and fed you with manna, food that neither you nor your fathers had known…” And here is the fourth thing, “…to let you know that Man shall live by bread alone, but man shall live by all that comes out of the mouth of the Lord.” And then in verse 5, it says, “Know also in your heart, that as a man punishes his son, so Jehovah your God punishes you.” A fifth thing.

You see, brothers, testing Israel so that certain truths and certain processes occur in the sensitivity of the people of Israel. God again, we stress, is testing Abraham but with a positive purpose to bring certain things to light. I believe that God wanted to bring to light what was in Abraham's heart, perhaps

Abraham had idolized Isaac and had made Isaac an idol because it was his hope.

And God wanted Abraham to become aware that God had to be the main thing in his life. And He wanted to bring Abraham to that crisis point where Abraham was willing to even sacrifice his own son so that God would be the only one worthy of praise and worship that Abraham could have.

Hello, God bless you, this is Pastor Roberto Miranda speaking. Thank you for listening to our messages and it gives us great joy to know that this program is being a blessing to your life. I want to leave you with the blessing words of Moses to the people of Israel, “The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face shine before you and have mercy. Jehovah lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” It is a privilege for me to be part of your life, I hope you stay tuned to our program "A Date with Christ." I bless you in the name of Jesus.

And how many times have we deified without realizing it, a child, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a wife, a job, a career, our physical health, the bank account or something in particular and we do not realize that we have Put that above everything else. Or, how many times in our life of Christian service has pride grown in our hearts? And we are so confident in our gifts, so sure of what we are doing that we forget who made that work possible; and God, then, allows us to go through crises, difficult situations, so that these things become light in our conscience, because God does not need to know them, He already knows them.

If he tests us, it is precisely so that those things arise, to discipline us, to strengthen us, to force us to enter new dimensions of power and all this God is using in the life of Abraham, God wanted to dethrone I believe the idol of Isaac in the Avraham's life.

Look what it says, First Peter, again – chapter 5. Because Peter talks a lot about testing. Chapter 5, verse 10. It says, "but the God of all grace..." Although you can't look it up... and you can look it up even better, listen to me, "But the God of all grace, who called us to his eternal glory in Jesus Christ, after you have suffered a little while, he himself perfects, affirms, strengthens and establishes you.”

Look at all the things, the good purposes that God has for us. After we have suffered and have gone through the test, God has purposes, and even through the test, to perfect us, to affirm us, to strengthen us and to establish us. God wanted to make Abraham an even stronger man, a more conscious man, more lucid in terms of why he served the Lord.

The plan that God had for Abraham was a big plan and therefore God had to dig deep into Abraham's life so that he could establish that big and tall building that God wanted to establish in his life. That is, those are the purposes that God has, always remember that God will never make you go through more than you can bear. God is going to be in control, God is going to be there calibrating and measuring the negative forces that are going to enter your life; and He is going to bring perhaps some poisons in small quantities to inoculate you and make you strong against them. The devil will want to kill you with these poisons, but God will give them to you in small quantities and controlled by his love and by his power and his wisdom so that you become strong and so that you can then be a more useful servant to the Lord.

But all of that is going to require that you be clear that God is in control of that process and that his purpose is good and that you must by faith accept that. Says the Apostle Santiago, "my brothers, have pure joy when you find yourself in various trials, because the trials of your faith produce patience." So, at all times God is going to be calibrating that and working even if you cannot see it but in your mind you have to understand that God is working for one of many different positive reasons that He wants to bring into your life. Remember that and that will allow you, then, to pass the test with greater strength and be victorious.

Now, let's look at Abraham from the other side, how Abraham functions and works in this test because it would have been useless for God to have that good purpose of purifying Abraham and confronting him about certain things and giving us an example of faith that would last. for all the centuries. Abraham assumes a posture and demeanor that you and I can emulate.

I have some principles here that I want to leave with you. The first thing that Abraham does is that at all times, Abraham shows submission and obedience. And we, brothers, when we are going through affliction and trial, we must show that subjection to the divine will. Abraham was a man who always, throughout his life, when God asked him to do weird and outrageous things, said, 'Lord, I'm available.' his prosperity, he said, 'Abraham, get out of your land and your kindred, a land that I will tell you about.' Abraham said, 'Amen, Lord, I am leaving if that is what you want.'

And Abraham took his family and his belongings and left without even knowing where he was going. And now here God says to him, 'Abraham.' And what does Abraham say? Here I am. And when God assigns him his terrible task, Abraham simply obeys; and that expression is a symbol of that posture of obedience of Abraham, who does not ask God, how dare you if I have served you? Why does this happen to me? Rather, it simply says, 'Lord, your will be done, I am at your disposal.'

When the Angel tells María -single, virgin to marry-, María you are going to be pregnant, and you cannot tell anyone what is there because perhaps they will not believe you. And María will immediately have thought of José, 'what will my husband think and what will my family think and what will my community think? Me going out with a child without having known a man.’ But what does Mary say to the Angel who announces that she is going to be the bearer of the son of God? Mary simply says in chapter 1, verse 38, "let it be done with me according to your word, behold the servant of the Lord."

Brothers, and that is what God wants from us, -if we are going through tests- I do not like to go through tests and neither do you. But if you have to go through difficulties in your life, lower your head and say, 'Lord, I am open to whatever You have, I don't know why You are bringing this into my life, but I submit under Your hand. powerful. And I am going to let You fulfill Your purpose in our lives.’

What do many people do when they go through trials and difficult situations? What we do is that we harden, rebel, or quietly -so quietly that sometimes even our own being doesn't know it-, we make a promise that after we get past that and get out, we're not going to serve the Lord anymore. And I often say that I worry more about brothers and sisters when I see them undergoing tests, not so much when they are going through them but after they leave the test because many times a sense remains in them. of failure and abandonment, that later the weeks go by and then their spirits drop and their zeal for the Lord wanes, because as they secretly say to themselves, God failed me at the time of my trial.

And so we rebel and what God wants us to do then is to say, 'Lord, let Your purpose and Your will be done. I am going to move my shoulders better so that Your will is established over my life. Do with me as You want, Lord.’ That does not mean that you do not ask him to take you out of the test, my brother, understand well. This does not mean that you do not bring day and day, we want to point out that, day and day, what you desire in your heart.

But as Jesus Christ has to say, 'Father, pass this cup from me but not my will but Yours be done'. You can fight like a centurion for God to bless your life and remove that test from you, you can pray and you can fast and you can ask, but you have to reserve a space so that God's purpose is fulfilled in your life. The Apostle Paul asked God three times to remove his sting, and what did the Lord Jesus Christ say to him three times? ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ And what did Paul say? ‘Well, Lord, if that is what You want then I will rejoice in my weaknesses, because when I am weak then I am strong.’

Because there will be moments, brothers, that we will have simply as Abraham said, "Here I am, Lord, put me on the altar and do with me as You want. " And many times, brothers, when we reach that moment of crisis and surrender to the Lord, it will be the moment when liberation will come immediately. There is no more powerful prayer that we can say to the Lord than to tell him, 'Father, I am here, whatever it is, rain, shine or shine, I am going to serve you, I am going to carry on.'

And when you promise yourself that and make that firm resolution, God never tires of blessing you and strengthening you and giving you more and more of his grace. Second, I see Abraham showing a good disposition during the test. He doesn't just obey, he doesn't just act like a martyr, that, 'okay, well, if I don't have anything else to do, well, what else do I have left? I'm going to have to slit the poor boy's throat.' Rather, Abraham says, in verse 3, 'Abraham got up early in the morning.' I would try to get up at 11 or 12 and maybe by then God has forgotten what he asked me

But Abraham gets up early, Abraham gets up early in the morning, he says, and saddled his donkey. You can imagine Abraham getting up at dawn, drinking his coffee and all at once like a little ant starting to make preparations to leave. Because the Lord has asked him for something and he has to do it, “he saddled his donkey, took two of his servants with him, and Isaac his son; and he cut wood for the burnt offering, and got up, and went to the place of which God had told him.”

It reminds me of Jesus Christ when the Bible says that he was going to Jerusalem in front of his disciples, and he knew that he was going to Jerusalem, he was going to be crucified. Brothers, when the true children of God go through the test, they do not become martyrs, but instead they gird their loins and say, 'Lord, I am going to serve you more than ever, until you take this test off my shoulders. '

What does First Peter say, 4:19? He says, "so that those who suffer according to the will of God, entrust their souls to the faithful creator...' And, what? Lay down to die? No! It says, "do good." Brethren, the most difficult time for you to do good and for you to glorify the Lord and for you to show a cheerful face, and for you to do works that glorify God and intercede for others, is when you are preoccupied with your own burdens and your own needs.

But in those times, God expects you to be more than obedient, that you be of good will and willing for everything God needs you. Many of us when we are going through the test, it is the time that we stop praying, we stop reading the Bible, we stop going to church, we stop seeking the Lord, we stop testifying, we stop interceding for others; and that is exactly what the devil wants to make us more depressed, to fall deeper into the pit of depression and to stop seeing the face of God and remembering the promises of God.

Brothers, when we are going through the test, it is when we must be most willing to give proof of being soldiers of Jesus Christ. And it is when we must, then, fill our spiritual life with strength and vitamins and seek more the face of God and by faith confess the blessings and greatness and faithfulness of God. And if you want, as an action against Satan and against the test itself, pray for other brothers, because you will not want... what you will want to do is focus on your own need and your own lack and forget about others. After all, you have no right to worry about yourself. At that time, as a discipline, you should seek to pray for others, for the needs of others.

And it is a prophetic way for you to combat adversity and say, 'Lord, even in trials I serve you, and even in trials I confess that you are great and you are powerful.' That's why both Peter and James speak to have great joy, to rejoice in trials, to rejoice in afflictions, First Peter, 4: 12-14. “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial that has come upon you, as if something strange happened to you, but rejoice because you are partakers of the sufferings of Christ, so that you may also rejoice with great joy at the revelation of his glory. ”

It says here, "If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the glorious Spirit of God rests upon you." Brethren, that is reason for you by faith to stand up and work and serve the Lord and seek more of the glory of God in your life and put on a good face by faith, because your emotions are going to betray you.

Christ says that the spirit is always willing but the flesh is weak. And you have to listen to what your spirit is feeling and saying. You have to say to yourself, 'yes, but I know the word says that if I suffer for the will of God, the glorious spirit of Christ is resting on me more than ever.' And you find in that reason to keep going. Thirdly, we have already mentioned first submission and obedience. Secondly, we have talked about a good disposition and thirdly, I want to point out patience.

Abraham says that on the third day… he says in verse 4, that “on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar.” Brothers, what do you think of spending three days and three nights, knowing that the sacrifice of your son awaits you and that you yourself are going to have to stab him or slit his neck? Three days. And sometimes for a driving test we lose sleep. Three days, Abraham there with that anguish, with that agony that he knew what was waiting for him and there is no response from God or anything that knew that God is going to forget what he has asked him to do.

I want to say, brothers, that the test in our life can last a short time or it can last a long time. But, in everything that lasts, we have to trust that God will not leave us or forsake us. Job, how many years will it have been? We are not sure. We can read the book of Job in a couple of hours, but Job spent years, having lost children, having lost wealth, having lost prestige, having lost his physical health, his marriage was broken, his friends accused him and above all that God in which he trusted and believed, had disappeared from the scene.

And Job there could only say, 'I know that my redeemer lives. I will trust him and though he is dead my eyes will see him,' says Job. And we have to have that patience, I want to say something, even brothers. I don't dare say many times to everyone, look at that test you are going through, one day it will disappear. I do not dare sometimes make that statement. Because I mean that there will be times when God will bring changes to your life, so radical that they will be painful, very painful, but they will be permanent changes. But you know what? I believe, I can assure you of one thing, and that is that if you are patient by faith and remain attached to the Lord, with the passage of time you will see and you will be able to understand that God has had a sublime purpose in this radical and tragic change that you have experienced.

How many times have we gone through situations and said my world is over? Impossible for me to resist this for more than a day or two. And then time passes and we have discovered that what we thought was a curse was a tremendous blessing in our lives. That man or that woman that we idolized and loved and believed that the sun rose through his eyes, one day is taken from us and we think we will not be able to live anymore, but later with the passing of the years we understand that this was not the case. the person for us, who would have caused us tremendous tragedy.

That job that we idolized, one day we discovered that through the loss of that job it was that God used so that we would come to the ways of the Lord. Just yesterday I was talking to a brother at breakfast and asking him how he came to know the Lord Jesus Christ. This man had suffered from pain, a back disease for many years, he says, so great that he writhed when he had it. And he went to Guille Ávila's campaign, there he was totally and completely healed, and then, now that pain of so many years has become the way in which he went to the paths of God.

If I had not suffered that pain, perhaps I would not be in the ways of the Lord. And, how many of you here can agree with me that your way to reach the ways of the Lord was through a difficulty, a very great suffering? And don't you thank the Lord for that suffering? Of course. So, many times God will not remove the test and the cost that this will pay will be a permanent cost, but even there you will see the glory of God manifested.

But, we just have to patiently stand by and say, 'Lord, day and day, I will come before You. Take this burden off me. Pass this cup from me and I will do it every day, but meanwhile your will be done. I am not going to curse you, I am not going to deny you, I am not going to poison the lives of my loved ones or my friends, I am going to prove that I have a faithful God, a God firm in his purpose. '

Fourthly, there is something very important, brothers, that I want to leave with you, about how to pass the test victoriously. And this is something that can be controversial, it must be qualified. But look at what Abraham says in verse 5. “Then Abraham said to his servants, Wait here with the donkey, and I and the boy will go there and worship, and…” what? And, “we will return to you.”

“Me and the boy will go there, and we will worship, and we will return…” –in the plural– “…to you.” What is Abraham saying? That he by faith knows that God is somehow going to allow his son to be returned to him alive. And the Apostle Paul, hundreds of years later, says that Abraham knew that God was still faithful to raise him from the dead, if he had to, and that's why he said, 'we will go and come back to you.'

And, now I believe that when Abraham said that, it's not like he was over the moon, already content and happy. He is saying that with agony in his heart, no doubt, there is a struggle in his chest that is being debated. ‘What will happen, Lord, how are you going to get me out of this predicament?’ And on the other hand, everything indicates that yes, he is going to have to continue and he is ready, we see him there, to bury the dagger in the body of his son when the Angel stops him.

That is to say, Abraham is there making a confession that he himself is not sure is going to come true and he doesn't even know how it is going to come true. But he is confessing with his mouth a reality that he wants to see realized by faith. And let me tell you, brothers, the mouth is a very powerful thing. We confess that God raised Christ from the dead, and we believe in our hearts he will be saved. It is said that with the heart one believes for justice and with the mouth one confesses for salvation.

The Apostle Santiago says that the tongue is the most powerful thing that exists in the world. Mighty horses can be tamed, a huge ship can be steered with a small rudder, but no one can master that little organ called the tongue. Wars have been started with their mouths, people have been killed, nations and families and marriages have been destroyed. But, that mouth can also be used so that the truth and power of God is manifested in our life.

If we by faith declare and confess and express that God is faithful even when we do not feel it – I want to clarify something here, brothers. There is a positive confession, which can be neurotic and mechanical, I am not referring to... there is a positive confession that is simply like a parrot, it speaks and says things without being linked to an experience of faith, to a process of conviction of what is right. what one is doing There are many people who speak positively and you feel that behind it there is something compulsive and psychological, and that's not what I mean.

I am referring to that man, that woman, who has meditated on the depth and mysteries of how God works and who knows what the move of faith is and who, although she recognizes the situation she is going through, still, for an act of faith proclaims what you spiritually understand to be the truth even though your emotions don't feel it. That is a confession, to me, healthy.

Because I see many charismatic brothers who try to banish from their conscience everything that could be negative and they don't want to know anything and what they are doing is psychologically repressing a truth and there are also people who believe that simply confessing positively is all and they live lives that do not respond to the integrity that God wants from them.

And God demands obedience as well as faith. Faith is not a substitute for obedience. Many times you will be going through tests, and do not think that simply by positively confessing the cuckoo is going to leave. No, it has to be linked to a life of obedience and knowledge of God and of knowing who God is, and then yes, you must with your mouth even if you feel bad, 'glory to the Lord. God is powerful, God is glorifying in my life.’ And when we express by faith what God is going to do in our life, brothers, that has great power.

John Wesley, I think it was, who once asked an English missionary, how he showed that great power and strength that he had in his ministry. And John Wesley was still a young man, he had come from a tremendous missionary failure, his first missionary attempt had ended in failure. John Wesley was later to be used again by God to start the whole movement that swept across England. But at that time John Wesley was a young woman still weak in faith and she asked this great man of God, what have you done to acquire all that strength and how can I acquire it too?

And then, this man told Juan Wesley, Wesley, what you have to do is preach by faith even if you don't believe it and even if you don't feel it. Just speak confidently even if you don't feel it and then when faith has become real in your life and God has done great things through that confession, you will no longer preach to get faith but you will preach because you have faith. You see?

And many times we wait to confess the greatness of God and the power of God and the reality of God in our lives, to feel it in our emotions, but it cannot be like that. We have to speak by faith and have a language full of power and authority, which we take from the word of God. And then, little by little, that language will become part of our emotions and our spirit and we will then be able to speak it with authority and security because all parts of our being will be united to this confession of faith.

And that is what often takes us out of the test we are in. There are many defeatist people. You ask, how are you? And gives him a litany of woes. Longest of any catalog that people can invent. And one is already afraid to listen to it because one comes out more depressed than themselves, they cover one with a kind of cold and heavy sheet and, brothers, I think that is not convenient for the people of God. The people of God have to be a people who, although they do recognize the ground they are treading on, which can sometimes be negative, but who also have the opportunity to say, 'but I believe in a powerful God, God is completing his purpose in me. , and I know that I am a winner and I will get ahead. I'm going to get out of the way of this trial. I don't know when, but God is powerful with me.'

And if we get used to evidencing this positive language in all areas of our lives, not again like the parrot but as people of faith, as a people of faith, God is going to raise in us a powerful feeling of faith that will help us to beat.

The last thing Abraham does is, he has complete confidence that God is going to specifically provide. He says in verse 8, when Isaac asks him, 'and how are we going to get the lamb dad?' He says, 'well my son, I don't know but God will provide himself with a lamb.'

‘God will provide himself a lamb.’ Again there is that part of the positive confession. When it is that kind intention of God, it is combined with the firm confidence of the Christian who suffers affliction, brothers, the victory, the joy, the growth, the blessing will not be left to wait.

First Peter, 5:10-11. Let's read it all. “But the God of all grace, who called us to his eternal glory in Jesus Christ, after you have suffered a little while, he himself will perfect, firm, strengthen and establish you. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen."