Classic Sermon 6049: How to Overcome Trials

The Word of the Lord says, Genesis 22: “And it came to pass 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 burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell you of. And Abraham rose up very early in the morning, and saddled his donkey, and took two of his servants with him, and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went to the place of which God had told him.

“On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. Then Abraham said to his servants, Wait here with the donkey, and I and the boy will go over there, and worship, and come back to you. And Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire and the knife in his hand; and the two of them 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 burnt offering? And Abraham answered, God will provide Himself a lamb for the burnt offering, my son. And they went on together.

“And when they came to the place which God had told him of, Abraham built an altar there, arranged the wood, bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. Then the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he answered, Here I am. And He said, Do not lay your hand upon the boy, nor do anything to him; for I know, now I know, that you fear God, seeing that you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me. Then Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram caught by its horns in a thicket; and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son.

“And Abraham called the name of that place, The LORD Will Provide. Therefore it is said to this day, On the mountain of the LORD it shall 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; surely I will bless you, and I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gates of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you obeyed My voice.”

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

The Apostle Paul also says, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” And he lists a series of possible difficulties that the Christian might encounter, and to that series of difficulties we could add countless other difficult situations in which we might find ourselves. Our lives are continually challenged by all kinds of negative situations, and we will always encounter difficulties because Christ Himself said, In the world you will find affliction. But the Apostle Paul said, after listing that series of crises in which a child of God may find himself, “Rather, in all these things, we are more than conquerors.”

And that, brothers and sisters, is what I want to be impressed upon and fixed in our awareness. 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 overcame it in the flesh, Christ overcame it in the form of a man, and He has transferred His powerful Spirit to us so that we too may overcome the world in any situation 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 deliverance, says the Apostle Paul.

Just as we too long to clothe ourselves with the glory that God has for us, but while we are in this world we will have to battle the negative conditions that confront every human being, in addition to the fact that we have an accuser and an attacker, an enemy, who is Satan, along with his dark powers, which are also sworn against our well-being. And they are going to do everything possible to tear our lives apart. But we also said 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—the Apostle Paul says—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, whether here in the world of time and space and history, or in the age of eternity to come. But in every possible circumstance, the Christian is completely covered and secure. That is the security that the son or daughter of God has. And therefore we can come through… that is the third truth: first, a world in affliction; second, a God who has provided a detailed plan; third, redeemed men and women who can come triumphantly through every negative situation because of that fierce love of God.

Romans 8 presents all those ideas in a theoretical form; there are certain statements 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 will teach us how that wonderful and all-encompassing statement by the Apostle Paul becomes real under specific conditions, in specific situations, which men and women faced throughout history—just like you and me.

Now, we do not want to stop there, with simply a historical study of what happened to men and women 2,000 or 3,000 years ago. Rather, the key is that what God did for them, He will also do for us. And that as we study the situations they faced, we can draw 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 is why we study the Bible. It is not simply to fill ourselves with theory, but to draw from it those eternal principles that apply throughout all of history. The Word of the Lord says, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

God’s method of dealing with humanity is the same, whether in Genesis or in Revelation. And we simply want to anchor ourselves in and delve into those universal principles that govern the life of humanity throughout all of history, and that is why I want to go into that detail and see how those ideas take concrete form.

There are two things that we have to keep in mind, brothers and sisters: we have to keep God on the one hand and the individual on the other, because this is a combination. They are like the two sides of a coin which, when joined, form a whole. God has purposes for our lives; God has plans. God has a method, a way in which He works, and He has guaranteed victory in every situation we may face. But it does not end there, because we are not passive elements. I am not a parasite whom God simply does whatever He wants with, who has no value and has nothing to contribute to God’s dealings with humanity.

No, God sees me—and you as well—as a being, as an individual, as an entity… free, and God’s purpose has to be joined with your faith and your response and your attitude so that God’s divine purpose can then be fulfilled in your life. It does God no good to have great purposes for you, and goodwill and good desires and good plans, if you do not activate that good intention of God through your faith and your knowledge of the Word of God.

I believe that there are millions upon millions of people in the world whom God wants to bless, whom God wants to prosper, and whom God wants to make great achievers, but their faith is not enough. And so God sends His rays of blessing, but when the rays arrive there is no one there to receive them. And so we have to reflect on how we play an important role in bringing God’s blessings to fulfillment in our lives. And Abraham is an example of that dynamic of God having firm intentions and purposes, and of man standing firm by faith and believing in what God has, and thus being able to pass the test successfully.

Trials will come into our lives, as in Abraham’s case. In this case, affliction comes to Abraham from a completely unexpected source: God Himself. At the age of 75, Abraham receives the promise from God that he is going to have a son; until then, his wife Sarah had been barren. At the age of 75, already an old man, God tells him, I am going to give you a son. And your descendants who will come through that son will be more numerous than the stars of heaven and more numerous than the sands of the sea.

He tells him on another occasion. And at the age of 75, Abraham receives that promise, and at the age of 100 the promise is fulfilled—25 years after he received the promise. Some 20 or 25 years later, God says to Abraham, “Abraham… now…,” essentially what He is saying is, that promise I made to you, cancel it… forget about it, and that precious son whom you have cradled for so many years, and in whom all your hope for descendants has been placed. And all the promises that I made to you… forget about them, throw all that in the trash, and take your son and sacrifice him to Me, kill him. You yourself take a knife and slit his throat, and God does not even have the thoughtfulness or courtesy to tell Abraham where he has to sacrifice his son, but tells him, at the place that I will tell you, and when I tell you to do it.

So He leaves him there to simmer in his own juices and sends him off to find the place where he has to sacrifice his son. In this case, Abraham at least has 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 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 their lives come only from Satan. And they blame everything on Satan—Satan, Satan.

But, brothers and sisters, do you know that many times God can sovereignly send affliction into your life? That God can, through an inscrutable will, cause difficult situations to come into your life? The Word of God says so, but many times we live in agony, asking ourselves, What purpose could this have, where could it come from? What can I do to face this crisis that I am going through?

But I want to underscore one of the possible sources, and on other occasions we will consider 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 will see there that sometimes God could seem almost cruel, one might say, in the way He brings affliction into our lives.

Look at how Jeremiah, the prophet Jeremiah, views a crisis he is going through. He says in chapter 3, “I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of His wrath. He has guided me and led me into darkness and not into light. Surely He has turned His hand against me again and again all day long.” He says later, in verse 10, He was to me “like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in hiding. He twisted my paths and tore me to pieces; He left me desolate. He bent His bow and set me up as a target for the arrow. He caused the arrows of His quiver to enter my inward parts. I became the derision of all my people, their mockery all day long. He filled me with bitterness; He made me drunk with wormwood. He broke my teeth with gravel; He covered me with ashes. And my soul was far removed from peace; I forgot what was good.”

That is how this man visualizes God’s work of testing and affliction in his life. Brothers and sisters, I believe that we have to understand, that we have to be a discerning people and know that not every negative situation we are going to go through in our lives necessarily comes 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 does not need to be defended. The Word of God is very clear that many times God does indeed give Himself the freedom to bring us into periods of affliction, and we are going to see why and for what purpose.

In that same chapter of Lamentations, chapter 3, verses 37 and 38, the prophet says, “Who is he who speaks, and something happens that the Lord has not commanded? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both bad and good come?” Now, brothers and sisters, I want to clarify something here. If God allows affliction, suffering, and testing to come into your life, it is because God has a positive purpose in it. Always remember that. 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, build us up, purify us, and fill us with blessing, as we pass the test with Christian integrity. That is the difference.

When God tests us, He has a beautiful purpose for our lives, and generally God will direct His afflicting action toward some area of weakness and need in our spiritual or physical lives, toward some area that we sometimes do not understand; but God is going to put us into the furnace of testing to draw those impurities out of our character, our minds, and our being, so that we can be happy and live productive lives—to shore up the fallen walls within us.

Therefore, in that case, the affliction God takes us through is actually a blessing in disguise. It is a hidden blessing that comes in a somewhat bitter wrapper, but inside it is as sweet as honey. Let us turn to First Peter, after the books of Hebrews and James, one of those short epistles that are nevertheless rich in teaching—the first epistle of Peter, verses 3 through 7.

In verses 3, 4, and 5, Peter speaks of all the blessings. He says that God caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Then he says in verse 6, “In all this you rejoice, though now for a little while”—he says—“if necessary, you may have to be grieved by various trials.” Do you see? It is necessary for you to be grieved by various trials while you await the fulfillment of those eternal promises God has given. “All right,” he says, “so that the testing of your faith, much more precious than gold, which, though perishable, is tested by fire, may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

Do you see? The Apostle Peter is saying here that one of the reasons God sometimes tests us and places us in difficult situations is so that one day, in eternity, when the Kingdom of God is revealed and the people of God are gathered together, and the principalities and powers, the wicked and the righteous, are all gathered there before the throne of God, the work of the saints here on earth who suffered in faith and emerged victorious from the trials to which God subjected them may be found to the praise of Christ Jesus.

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

Look at Abraham’s affliction. It was a terrible affliction—very, very difficult. First, his biological offspring: suddenly he is being asked to destroy it himself. Second, his spiritual descendants. God had told him that he was going to be the father of an immense nation and that through him He would bless many people. Abraham already saw himself as the spiritual patriarch of a great and powerful nation, and now God asks him to throw that away as well. Third, his very image of God as a just God, a God of love, a God consistent in His purposes, is shattered because God, who gave him his son, now arbitrarily, like a dictator, like a despot, tells him to destroy his son.

The image of God... And many times, brothers and sisters, when we are going through difficulties, what brings the greatest agony into our lives is that doubt that enters our hearts. Is God really as good, as faithful, as just, and as consistent in His purposes as the Bible says? Those promises I believed were so unshakable—can I truly believe them, and should I truly praise God as I do if God is now showing Himself to be an inconsistent God? Look at what I am going through; look at what I am suffering. Where is God?

And that sometimes causes us terrible agony, sometimes greater than the agonies of the trial we are enduring. How many of us have prayed, “Lord, heal me.” And the days go by, and healing does not come, and then we begin to doubt. Is God truly a healing God, as the Word says? You read that, and have they not taught me in church that this is who He is? And that agony...

And here we see Abraham, for whom God is calling into question His own justice, His own love, and His own consistency. And above all, there is the terrible pain of having to sacrifice his own son, and all these aspects of Abraham’s suffering—something terrible. And we too can often find ourselves in times of great trial, when we are attacked in a central area of our lives. It may be our home, our marriages, a rebellious child, or that job where we had expected to remain all our lives until retirement, and suddenly we are told that the job is over.

And there are key areas like these in our lives in which we sometimes go through crises. And sometimes, at those moments, God’s promises to us seem to be failing. Perhaps we received an assurance from the Lord that our children would be servants of the Lord, and suddenly we see all of that begin to crumble, and God’s faithfulness seems to suffer before our eyes. And even so, God asks us to be obedient and to continue serving and praising Him.

I believe we can all identify with Abraham’s suffering. Now, what transforms this? What makes it possible for the terrible crisis Abraham is confronting to end on a note of victory, a positive note? In Abraham’s case, what allows that future declaration from Romans 8:28 to be fulfilled: “For those who love God, all things work together for good”?

Let us look at two perspectives: God’s perspective and the perspective of the man Abraham. In Deuteronomy chapter 8, you will find some ideas. Look at how God is working among the people of Israel to test them, and how God had purposes for the trial Abraham was going through. And here in Deuteronomy chapter 8, verses 2 through 5, I see at least five things that God was seeking to deal with among the people of Israel, things He also often deals with in us through testing.

Deuteronomy 2 says, “You shall remember all the way by which the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, to afflict you, to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commandments.”

And here in Deuteronomy it says, “He afflicted you, made you hungry, and sustained you with manna...” Look further on; let us go to verse 2 itself. There we see two reasons God tested the people of Israel in the wilderness.

It says He did it to afflict them, to test them, and to know what was in their hearts. And later, in verse 3, it says, “He afflicted you, made you hungry, and sustained you with manna, food that neither you nor your fathers had known...” And here is the fourth thing: “...to make you know that man shall not live by bread alone, but by everything that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD shall man live.” And then, in verse 5, it says, “Know also in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you.” A fifth thing.

You see, brothers and sisters, He was testing Israel so that certain truths and certain processes would take place in the awareness of the people of Israel. Again, we emphasize that God is testing Abraham, but with a positive purpose—to bring certain things to light. I believe God wanted to bring to light what was in Abraham’s heart. Perhaps

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

And God wanted Abraham to become aware that God had to be foremost in his life. And He wanted to bring Abraham to that point of crisis at which Abraham would be willing even to sacrifice his own son, so that God would be the only one worthy of the praise and worship Abraham could offer.

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 Moses’ words of blessing to the people of Israel: “May the LORD bless you and keep you; may the LORD make His face shine before you and have mercy on you. May the LORD lift up His face upon you and give you peace.” It is a privilege for me to be part of your life. I hope you will stay tuned to our program, “An Appointment with Christ.” I bless you in the name of Jesus.

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

If He tests us, it is precisely so that these things will come to the surface, to discipline us, to strengthen us, and to compel us to enter new dimensions of power. And God is using all of this in Abraham’s life. I believe God wanted to dethrone the idol of Isaac in Abraham’s life.

Look at what First Peter says, once again—chapter 5. Peter speaks a great deal about testing. Chapter 5, verse 10. It says, “But the God of all grace...” Even if you cannot look it up... and better still if you can, 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, may He Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.”

Look at all the good purposes God has for us. After we have suffered and gone through the trial, God has purposes—even through the trial—to perfect us, confirm us, strengthen us, and establish us. God wanted to make Abraham an even stronger man, a more aware man, more clear-sighted concerning why he served the Lord.

The plan God had for Abraham was a great plan, and therefore God had to dig deeply into Abraham’s life in order to lay the foundation for the great and lofty building God wanted to establish in his life. In other words, these are the purposes God has. Always remember that God will never make you go through more than you can bear. God will remain in control. God will be there, calibrating and measuring the negative forces that will enter your life; and He may bring certain poisons in small amounts to inoculate you and make you strong against them. The devil will want to kill you with those poisons, but God will give them to you in small doses, controlled by His love, His power, and His wisdom, so that you may become strong and thus be a more useful servant of the Lord.

But all of that will require you to be clear that God is in control of that process, that His purpose is good, and that you must accept it by faith. The Apostle James says, “My brothers and sisters, count it all joy when you encounter various trials, because the testing of your faith produces patience.” Thus, at every moment God will be calibrating it and working, even though you cannot see it. But in your mind you must understand that God is working for one of the many different positive reasons He wants to bring into your life. Remember that, and it will then enable you to go through the trial with greater strength and emerge victorious.

Now let us look at the other side, at Abraham—how Abraham functions and acts in this trial. For it would have been of no use for God to have that good purpose of purifying Abraham, confronting him about certain things, and giving us an example of faith that would endure throughout all the centuries. Abraham adopts an attitude and a pattern of behavior that you and I can emulate.

I have some principles here that I want to leave with you. The first thing Abraham does is show submission and obedience at all times. And when we, brothers and sisters, are going through affliction and testing, we must show that submission to the divine will. Abraham was a man who, throughout his life, whenever God asked him to do strange and shocking things, said, “Lord, I am available.” When he was in Ur of the Chaldeans, God took him out of there, away from all his prosperity, and said to him, “Abraham, leave your land and your kindred and go to a land that I will show you.” Abraham said, “Amen, Lord, I will go if that is what You want.”

And Abraham took his family and his possessions and left without even knowing where he was going. And now here God says to him, ‘Abraham.’ And what does Abraham answer? Here I am. And when God assigns him his terrible task, Abraham simply obeys; and that expression is a symbol of Abraham’s posture of obedience, for he does not ask God, ‘How dare You, after I have served You? Why is this happening to me?’ Instead, he simply says, ‘Lord, Your will be done; I am at Your disposal.’

When the Angel tells Mary—single, a virgin about to be married—‘Mary, you are going to become pregnant,’ and you cannot tell anyone what is there because perhaps they will not believe you. And Mary must immediately have thought of Joseph: ‘What will my husband think, and what will my family think, and what will my community think? Me, turning up pregnant without having known a man.’ But what does Mary say to the Angel who announces that she is going to bear the Son of God? Mary simply says in chapter 1, verse 38, ‘Let it be done to me according to your word; behold the servant of the Lord.’

Brothers and sisters, that is what God wants from us—if we are going through trials. I do not like going through trials, and neither do you. But if you have to go through difficulties in your life, bow your head and say, ‘Lord, I am open to whatever You have for me. I do not know why You are bringing this into my life, but I submit beneath Your mighty hand. 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 harden ourselves, rebel, or silently—so silently that sometimes even our own inner being does not know it—we make a promise that after we get through it and come out the other side, we will no longer serve the Lord. And I often say that I worry more about the brothers and sisters when I see them going through trials, not so much while they are going through them, but after they have come out of the trial, because often a sense of failure and abandonment remains in them; then the weeks go by, and their spirits decline, and their zeal for the Lord declines, because it is as though they are secretly telling themselves, ‘God failed me in the moment of my trial.’

And then we rebel, whereas what God wants us to do is say, ‘Lord, let Your purpose and Your will be fulfilled. I will adjust my shoulders so that Your will may rest upon my life. Make of me whatever You wish, Lord.’ That does not mean that you should not ask Him to take you out of the trial, my brother; understand this well. It does not mean that you should not bring before Him, day after day—we want to emphasize that—day after day, what you desire in your heart.

But just as Jesus Christ has to say, ‘Father, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done.’ You can fight like a centurion for God to bless your life and remove that trial from you; you can pray and you can fast and you can ask, but you have to leave room for God’s purpose to be fulfilled in your life. The Apostle Paul asked God three times to remove his thorn, and what did the Lord Jesus Christ tell him three times? ‘My grace is sufficient for you, because 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 and sisters, when we will simply have to say, as Abraham did, ‘Here I am, Lord; place me upon the altar and make of me whatever You wish.’ And often, brothers and sisters, when we reach that moment of crisis and surrender to the Lord, that will be the moment when deliverance comes immediately. There is no more powerful prayer we can offer the Lord than to tell Him, ‘Father, I am here; no matter what happens, come rain, thunder, or wind, I am going to serve You; I am going to press on.’

And when you promise yourself that and make that firm resolve, God never tires of blessing you, strengthening you, and giving you more and more of His grace. Second, I see Abraham displaying a willing spirit during the trial. He does not merely obey; he does not merely pose as a martyr, saying, ‘Okay, well, if there is nothing else I can do, then fine, what else is left for me? I am going to have to slit the poor boy’s throat.’ Instead, Abraham says, in verse 3, ‘Abraham rose early in the morning.’ I would try to get up at eleven or twelve, and perhaps by then God would have forgotten what He asked me to do.

But Abraham gets up early; Abraham rises in the morning, it says, and saddles his donkey. You can imagine Abraham getting up before dawn, drinking his coffee, and immediately beginning to make preparations to leave, like a little ant. Because the Lord has asked something of him, and he has to do it: ‘He saddled his donkey, took two of his servants with him, and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him.’

It reminds me of Jesus Christ, when the Bible says that He went toward Jerusalem ahead of His disciples, and He knew what He was going to Jerusalem for: He was going to be crucified. Brothers and sisters, when the true children of God go through a trial, they do not play the martyr; instead, they gird up their loins and say, ‘Lord, I am going to serve You more than ever, until You take this trial off my shoulders.’

What does First Peter 4:19 say? It says, ‘Therefore let those who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to the faithful Creator…’ And do what? Lie down and die? No! It says, ‘Do good.’ Brothers and sisters, the hardest time for you to do good, to glorify the Lord, to put on a cheerful face, to do works that glorify God, and to intercede for others is when you are worried about your own burdens and your own needs.

But in those times, God expects you to be more than obedient; He expects you to be willing and ready for whatever God needs you to do. For many of us, when we are going through a trial, that is when we stop praying, stop reading the Bible, stop going to church, stop seeking the Lord, stop witnessing, and stop interceding for others; and that is exactly what the devil wants, so that we become more depressed, sink more deeply into the pit of depression, and cease to behold the face of God and remember the promises of God.

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

And that is a prophetic way for you to combat adversity and tell Him, ‘Lord, even in the trial I serve You, and even in the trial I confess that You are great and powerful.’ That is why both Peter and James speak about counting it all joy, about rejoicing in trials, about rejoicing in afflictions. First Peter 4:12–14: ‘Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial that has come upon you, as though something strange were happening to you; but rejoice insofar as you share in Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also rejoice with great gladness when His glory is revealed.’

It says here, ‘If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the glorious Spirit of God rests upon you.’ Brothers and sisters, that is reason for you, by faith, to stand tall and work and serve the Lord, seek more of God’s glory in your life, and put on a cheerful 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 tell yourself, ‘Yes, but I know that the Word says that if I suffer according to the will of God, the glorious Spirit of Christ is resting upon me more than ever.’ And in that you find reason to press on. Third, we have already mentioned, first, submission and obedience. Second, we have spoken about a willing spirit, and third, I want to point out patience.

It says of Abraham that on the third day… it says in verse 4 that ‘on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar.’ Brothers and sisters, how would you like to spend three days and three nights knowing that the sacrifice of your son awaits you, and that you yourself will have to stab him or slit his throat? Three days. And sometimes we lose sleep over a driving test. Three days, Abraham there with that anguish, with that agony, knowing what awaited him, with no answer from God and nothing to indicate that God was going to forget what He had asked him to do.

I want to say, brothers and sisters, that the trial in our lives may last a short time or a long time. But however long it lasts, we have to trust that God will neither leave us nor forsake us. Job—how many years must he have spent that way? We are not sure. We can read the book of Job in a couple of hours, but Job spent years having lost his children, his wealth, his prestige, and his physical health; his marriage was in ruins, his friends accused him, and above all, that God in whom he trusted and believed had disappeared from the scene.

And there Job could only say, ‘I know that my Redeemer lives. I will trust in Him, and though I am dead, my eyes will see Him,’ Job says. And we have to have that patience. I want to say something further, brothers and sisters. Many times, I do not dare tell everyone, ‘Look, that trial you are going through will one day disappear.’ On some occasions, I do not dare make that statement. Because what I mean is that there will be times when God brings changes into your life so radical that they will be painful, very painful, but they will be permanent changes. But do you know what? I believe that I can indeed assure you of one thing: if by faith you are patient and remain close to the Lord, as time passes you will see and be able to understand that God has had a sublime purpose in that radical and tragic change you have experienced.

How many times have we gone through situations and said, ‘My world is over’? ‘There is no way I can endure this for more than a day or two.’ And then time passes, and we discover that what we thought was a curse was a tremendous blessing for our lives. That man or woman whom we idolized and loved and believed the sun shone through their eyes is one day taken from us, and we think we will not be able to go on living; but then, as the years pass, we understand that this was not the person for us, that this person would have caused us tremendous tragedy.

That job we idolized—one day we discover that it was through the loss of that job that God led us into the ways of the Lord. Just yesterday, I was talking with a brother over breakfast, and I asked him how he had come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. This man had suffered for many years from pain, from a back ailment, pain so severe, he says, that he writhed whenever he experienced it. And he went to a Guille Ávila crusade; there he was totally and completely healed, and now that pain of so many years has become the means by which he came into the ways of God.

If he had not suffered that pain, perhaps he would not be walking in the ways of the Lord. And how many of you here can agree with me that the way you came into the ways of the Lord was through a difficulty, through some very great suffering? And do you not thank the Lord for that suffering? Of course you do. So often God will not remove the trial, and the price exacted by it will be a permanent one, but even there you will see the glory of God manifested.

But we simply have to persevere patiently and say, ‘Lord, day after day, I will come before You. Remove this burden from me. Let this cup pass from me, and I will ask it every day; but in the meantime, Your will be done. I am not going to curse You; I am not going to turn against You; I am not going to poison the lives of my loved ones or my friends. I am going to demonstrate that I have a faithful God, a God who is steadfast in His purpose.’

Fourth, there is something very important, brothers and sisters, that I want to leave with you concerning how to go through a trial victoriously. And this is something that may be controversial; it has to be qualified. But look at what Abraham says in verse 5: ‘Then Abraham said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there, and we will worship, and…”’ And what? And ‘we will come back to you.’

‘The boy and I will go over there, and we will worship, and we will come back…’—in the plural—‘…to you.’ What is Abraham saying? That by faith he 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 faithful even to raise him from the dead, if He had to do so, and that is why he said, ‘We will go and we will come back to you.’

And now, I believe that when Abraham said that, it was not as though he were over the moon, content and happy. He is saying it with agony in his heart, with doubt; there is a struggle raging within his breast. “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 already prepared—we see him there—to plunge the knife into his son’s body when the Angel stops him.

That is to say, Abraham is there making a confession that he himself is not sure will be fulfilled, and he does not even know how it will be fulfilled. But with his mouth he is confessing a reality that he wants to see realized by faith. And let me tell you, brothers and sisters, the mouth is a very powerful thing. We confess that God raised Christ from the dead, and if we believe in our heart, we will be saved. It says that with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

The Apostle James says that the tongue is the most powerful thing that exists in the world. Powerful horses can be tamed, and a very large ship can be steered with a small rudder, but no one can tame that small organ called the tongue. Wars have been started with the mouth; people have been killed; nations, families, and marriages have been destroyed. But that mouth can also be used so that the truth and power of God may be manifested in our lives.

If by faith we declare, confess, and express that God is faithful even when we do not feel it—I want to clarify something here, brothers and sisters. There is a positive confession that can be neurotic and mechanical; that is not what I mean… There is a positive confession that is simply like a parrot: it talks and says things without being connected to an experience of faith, to a process of conviction about what one is doing. There are many people who speak positively, and you sense that behind it there is something compulsive and psychological, and that is not what I mean.

I mean that man or that woman who has meditated on the depths and mysteries of how God works, who knows what the movement of faith is, and who, although recognizing the situation he or she is going through, nevertheless, by an act of faith, proclaims what he or she spiritually understands to be the truth even though the emotions do not feel it. That, to me, is a healthy confession.

Because I see many charismatic brothers and sisters who try to banish from their consciousness everything that might be negative and want nothing to do with it, when what they are doing is psychologically repressing a truth. And there are also people who believe that merely confessing positively is all that is needed, yet they live lives that do not reflect the integrity God wants from them.

And God demands obedience in addition to faith. Faith is no substitute for obedience. Many times you will be going through trials, and do not think that simply by confessing positively the bogeyman will go away. No, it has to be joined to a life of obedience, of knowing God, and of knowing who God is. Then, yes, even if you feel bad, you should say with your mouth, “Glory to the Lord. God is mighty; God is glorifying Himself in my life.” And when we express by faith what God is going to do in our lives, brothers and sisters, that has great power.

John Wesley, I believe it was, once asked an English missionary how he displayed such great power and strength in his ministry. John Wesley was still a young man; he had returned from a tremendous missionary failure—his first missionary attempt had ended in failure. John Wesley would later be used by God again to begin an entire movement that swept across all of England. But at that time John Wesley was still young and weak in faith, and he asked this great man of God, “What have you done to acquire all that strength, and how can I acquire it too?”

Then this man said to John Wesley, “Wesley, what you have to do is preach by faith even if you do not believe it and even if you do not feel it. Simply speak confidently even if you do not feel it. Then, when faith has become real in your life and God has done great things through that confession, you will no longer preach in order to obtain faith, but you will preach because you have faith.” Do you see?

And many times, before confessing the greatness of God, the power of God, and the reality of God in our lives, we wait until we feel it in our emotions, but it cannot be that way. We have to speak by faith and use language filled with power and authority, language we take from the Word of God. 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 confidence because every part of our being will be united with this confession of faith.

And that is often what gets us out of the trial we are in. There are many defeatist people. You ask them, “How are you?” and they give you a litany of afflictions longer than any catalog people could invent. You become afraid to listen to them because you come away more depressed than they are; they cover you with a sort of cold, heavy sheet. And, brothers and sisters, I do not believe that is fitting for the people of God. The people of God must be a people who, while indeed recognizing the ground they are walking on, which can sometimes be negative, also have occasion to say, “But I believe in a mighty God. God is completing His purpose in me, and I know that I am an overcomer and that I will press ahead. I am going to make it through this trial. I do not know when, but God is mighty on my behalf.”

And if we become accustomed in every area of our lives to displaying that positive language—not, again, like parrots, but as people of faith, as a people of faith—God will raise up within us a powerful sense of faith that will help us overcome.

The last thing Abraham does is to have complete confidence that God will provide specifically. It says in verse 8, when Isaac asks him, “And how are we going to get the lamb, Father?” He tells him, “Well, my son, I do not know, but God Himself will provide the lamb.”

“God Himself will provide the lamb.” Once again, there is that aspect of positive confession. When that gracious intention of God is combined with the firm confidence of the Christian who is suffering affliction, brothers and sisters, victory, joy, growth, and blessing will not be long in coming.

First Peter 5:10–11. Let us all read it. “But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory in Jesus Christ, after you have suffered a little while, Himself perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. To Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.”