Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Stewart Briscoe helps you deal with feelings of doubt and hopelessness. He's coming up with that in today's message in just a moment, but first. At telling the truth, our mission has always been clear. Faithfully share the truth of God's word, so people everywhere can know and experience life in Christ. And you can be part of that mission. When you give today, you help share hope with people who need to hear biblical truth taught clearly, faithfully, and without compromise. As our thanks, we'd love to send you verses for Advent, a set of 25 beautifully designed scripture cards created to help you keep God's word at the center of the Christmas season.

Reflect on a new verse each day through Advent as you embark on a journey from Old Testament prophecies about Jesus to the Christmas story in the New Testament. So please consider a gift today and help us carry out the great commission, ensuring that more people can hear God's word and discover the life found in Jesus. Call now at 262-788-4648. That's 262-788-4648 or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Thanks again for listening and for your support today. Now here's Stewart with his message, how to deal with adversity.

Stuart Briscoe: How to deal with adversity? Well, what exactly do do we mean by adversity? That's not a word that we're using all the time. It means basically when when things are not going the way we want them to go, or perhaps more importantly, things are not going the way we think they should go, where things get out of kilter, where things are happening that if we had the ability, we would change them, but we find that very very often we don't have the ability to change them. And the result is that we deal with all kinds of circumstances that are not of our choosing.

And very often the question that we ask is why why me? Why should this be happening to me? And so we'll try to deal with that question first of all. And the second question that probably it will be beneficial if we could try to answer it would be not the why, but the what. What is this adversity thing? What is actually going on? What is causing us? And then thirdly, the third question will be how do we deal with adversity? Let me explain how this works. My job is to talk, and your job is to listen.

Now it's quite possible that you will finish your job before I finish my job. That being the occasion, just be polite and pretend to listen. All right, so let's talk about adversity. There are all kinds of adversity, and there seem to be all kinds of reasons that it happens. Now I'm going to start possibly at the lowest end of the scale, looking at reasons why it happened. And it's quite possible some of you may have heard what I'm going to read for you now, but it it is a bricklayer's accident report sent in to the workers' compensation.

This happened in England. And apparently they were not satisfied with the report that they sent in, asked for more details. And these are the details that he sent. This actually happened. Dear sir, I'm writing in response to your request for additional information in block three of the accident reporting form. I put poor planning as the cause of my accident. You asked for a fuller explanation and I trust the following details will be sufficient. I am a bricklayer by trade. On the day of the accident, I was working alone on the roof of a new six-story building.

When I completed my work, I found I had some bricks left over, which when weighed later were found to weigh 240 pounds. Rather than carry the bricks down by hand, I decided to lower them in a barrel by using a pulley which was attached to the side of the building at the sixth floor. Securing the rope at ground level, I went up to the roof, swung the barrel out, loaded the bricks into it. Then I went down and untied the rope, holding it tightly to ensure a slow descent of the 240 pounds of bricks. You will note on the accident reporting form that my weight is 135 pounds.

Due to my surprise at being jerked off the ground so suddenly, I lost my presence of mind and forgot to let go of the rope. Needless to say, I proceeded at a rapid rate up the side of the building. In the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel which was now proceeding downward at an equally impressive speed. This explains the fractured skull, minor abrasions, and the broken collarbone as listed in section three on the reporting form. Slowed only slightly, I continued my rapid ascent, not stopping until my fingers of my right hand were two knuckles deep into the pulley, which I mentioned in paragraph two.

Fortunately, by this time I had regained my presence of mind and was able to hold tightly to the rope. In spite of the excruciating pain, I was now beginning to experience. At approximately the same time, however, the barrel of bricks hit the ground and the bottom fell out of the barrel. Now devoid of the weight of the bricks, the barrel weighed approximately 50 pounds. I refer you again to my weight. As you might imagine, I began a rapid descent down the side of the building. In the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel coming up.

This this accounts for the two fractured ankles, broken tooth, and severe lacerations of my legs and lower body. Here my luck began to change slightly. The encounter with the barrel seemed to slow me enough to lessen my injuries when I fell into the pile of bricks. Unfortunately, only three vertebrae were cracked. I'm sorry to report, however, as I lay there on the pile of bricks in pain, unable to move, and watching the empty barrel six stories above me, I again lost my composure and presence of mind and let go of the rope. And I lay there watching as the empty barrel begins its journey back to me.

Adversity. Things happening that he didn't particularly want to happen. Situations that unfortunately had been put into motion and there was nothing he could do about them. We asked the question, why do bad things happen to people like me? The answer, of course, is there could be many reasons. One could be your own stupidity. Now I'm I'm sorry to put it down like that and we're not going to leave it there, but let's be realistic about it. When we look at the things that happen in our lives, there are very definite cause and effect very often.

And the causes are the results of the behavioral patterns that we ourselves have developed. However, that being the case, we're not going to dwell on that because there are more profound things that we need to talk about. The issue really is this. When we look at the world in which we live, there's a lot of bad stuff going on. Two of the questions that we ask repeatedly are, first of all, why do bad things happen to good people? Why do bad things happen to good people? And then another question is this. Why is it that good people so often do bad things?

And we're of course dealing with the issue of evil in our world. I think everybody is willing to admit that there is evil, there is good in the world. But we have a problem trying to put it all together. For instance, some people say if God is good, he is not God. I'll explain that in case you you're not familiar with this reasoning. If God is good, he is not God. If God is God, he is not good. Uh that's sound rather complicated, but stick with me for a minute. If God is good, he is not God.

We look at all the the things we know about God and we say to ourselves, well, God is good all the time. And sometimes the church will start off the service like this. God is good all the time. Then the congregation responds, all the time. God is good. Well, you you can recite that, but it may possibly be that you're thinking about it at the same time and you're saying if God is good, why does he allow so much evil? And if he's allowing all this evil, is it because he can't handle the situation? He can't change the situation.

And if that is the case, he isn't God. So if God is good, he can't be God. But if God is God, he can't possibly be good because we look at the situation and we say God is in control of everything. We say God's in control of everything. Yes. Of course he is. He's God. Well, if this everything includes all this bad stuff that surround here, if God is control of everything and he's in control of all this bad stuff, how can you say he's a good God? And a a lot of guys just leave it at that and say, oh, I don't know.

I don't want to think about that. Well, we need to. We need to. Just they one of the common arguments I hear from a lot of guys is this. That God can't be a good God because there's so much evil in the world. But you can only say that if you will say the other side of the coin. The other side of the coin is this. If it is true in our reasoning that there's so much evil in the world, therefore God cannot be a good God. It is equally true there's so much good in the world.

How can that possibly not be a good God? And so you find yourself at a philosophical impasse. But we've got to be very very careful before you stop thinking about it. You need to be very very careful, particularly that you don't write off what is going on because evil is present. Scripture says that God is good, but that God in his goodness is all powerful and evil still exists. The question is, why? Why are all these things happening? Well, let me turn you to Peter's first epistle. Peter, you know, wrote two epistles. His name wasn't Peter originally.

It was Simeon or Simon. And Jesus gave him a nickname and the nickname was basically rock or rocky. If you look at the Aramaic word for rock or the Greek word for rock, you'll find that it's sort of rooted in the meaning of Peter. So God says to Simon or to Simeon, I'm going to give you a new name. God decided to give Simon a nickname called rocky. He not only gave him a nickname called rocky, rocky wrote two epistles that we have in the scriptures. We call them rocky one and rocky two. All right, let's keep on keeping on.

But this is first Peter. If you can't find it in your Bible, find second Peter and it's very close. No, I 'm serious. It is. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God's elect exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. You may think I've never been to any of those places. It's possible that you have and didn't know it because all these places were Roman provinces 2,000 years ago in what we call today modern Turkey. You see? And this is the scene in which much of the apostolic ministry took place.

But here is talking about the people who were exiled for their faith. They have been chosen, it says. They have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through the sanctifying work of the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood. Grace and peace be yours in abundance. Notice how these people to whom this letter is addressed are described. They are described as God's elect. And then the next word is exiles. You can take that comma out of that for our purposes right now and say the people to whom Peter is writing here are elect exiles.

Now elect means chosen by God for a pacific purpose, for a specific reason. God chose Israel. They were the elect people, the chosen people. Through Israel, he was going to work out his eternal purposes. Israel failed. God sent his son Jesus. Jesus came into the world. He was the chosen one. God was now going to fulfill all that he's tried to start through Israel in his son Jesus, the chosen one. The chosen one, Jesus, then having died and risen again, invites men and women to come into a relationship with him. And this the scriptures describes that as being in Christ.

And it goes on to explain that those who are in Christ now find that they are chosen in Christ. And they now become the elect of God, chosen for the purposes of God in Christ. Now these people are very special people. They have responded to the call of Christ and in so doing have discovered that God in his foreknowledge has predestined that they will come into ultimate glory. But I'm running ahead of the story here. Now this is what it says. These people, chosen according to the foreknowledge of God, have experienced the sanctifying work of the Spirit.

And the sanctifying means the changing, the transforming work of the Spirit called by God, chosen by God, elect in Christ to the purposes of God. Now God is doing a work in their lives and he's equipping them for that for which he has elected them, the sanctifying work of the Spirit. And you can tell that that is the work that's going on in them because it goes on to say they are now obedient to Jesus Christ. And they're living a life of obedience. They are chosen by God according to his foreknowledge, according to his eternal purposes.

They are caught up in Christ into what God is doing. The sanctifying work of the Spirit is going on in their lives. They're being equipped to behave the way that you'd expect those who are chosen by God to behave. And the net result of it is this. Their works, their lives are are being cleansed, they're being purified, they are being changed more and more into the likeness of Jesus, our Savior and our Lord. To these people, Peter writes. Now the strange thing is this. They are elect, but they're also exiles. In other words, they have suffered all kinds of adversity.

So here we've got a perfect example that engenders the question that is so often asked. Why do bad things happen to good people? These these are good people. These are the elect of God. These are those being sanctified by the Spirit. These are people living in obedience to Christ. These are people who are experiencing the cleansing of the precious blood of Jesus. They're set apart by God for his eternal purposes. Do you know what's happened to them? They become refugees. They have lost everything. And we ask the question, why do such bad things happen to such good people as these?

Jill and I were invited to go to Jordan in the Middle East. It's one of our favorite places to go to. There's some great churches there. And we were particularly happy to go on this occasion because the churches we were going to had a ministry to Syrian refugees. And we knew that we were going to have the opportunity of visiting many of these refugees, spending time with them and trying to help and thinking of ways in which we could encourage churches back here in the United States to help with the refugee problem there. I could say take a lot of time telling you about these people, but I listened to the story of some of these people.

They had lived all their lives in Syria, but a radical Islamic group called ISIS had come in. And ISIS had come into their little towns and little villages where they lived and given them three options. The first option was this. You claim to be Christians. We do not accept Christ. And you must recant. You must reject Christ. You must turn away from your Christian faith. You must embrace Islam. That's one option that you have. If you don't want to do that, then you can leave. But if you want to leave, you will leave and you leave everything.

You'll leave your homes. You'll leave your cars. You'll leave your family. You'll leave all your possessions. You'll leave your passports. You will lose your identity. You'll be stateless people. You will leave with the clothes on your back. That's the second option. You can recant or you can leave under those terms. The third option, if you don't want either of the other two, is we'll kill you. And the people that we were meeting with in Syria, sitting there huddled in little groups in terrible terrible circumstances where Jordan, trying to help all these people, has been totally overwhelmed by the influx of refugees.

We listened to their stories, their exiles. They're exiles. You ask the question, why do these people, historically Christian believers, followers of Jesus, why do they find themselves at the mercy of a murderous group like ISIS? Why does this happen to them?

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening to tellingthetruth.org. We're thrilled you've joined us and pray today's message has helped you experience more of the abundant life Jesus promises. Right now people are searching for hope, answers, and truth they can build their lives on. And Stewart Briscoe's timeless biblical teaching is reaching out to those very moments through social media and other digital platforms, a vast collection of vintage videos and wonderful ministry partners. At telling the truth, our mission has always been clear. Faithfully share the truth of God 's word, so people everywhere can know and experience life in Christ. And you can be part of that mission.

When you give today, you help share hope with people who need to hear biblical truth taught clearly, faithfully, and without compromise. As our thanks, we'd love to send you verses for Advent, a set of 25 beautifully designed scripture cards created to help you keep God's word at the center of the Christmas season. Reflect on a new verse each day through Advent as you embark on a journey from Old Testament prophecies about Jesus to the Christmas story in the New Testament. So please consider a gift today and help us carry out the great commission, ensuring that more people can hear God's word and discover the life found in Jesus.

Call now at 262-788-4648. That's 262-788-4648 or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Thank you for joining us today. Come back again as the Briscoes share more powerful truth from God's word. Tune in and experience life next time on telling the truth.